Characters & Casting

Characters in Noir often assume several identities, and we are rarely alerted to their masquerades; we have to "read" a character through a thicket of contradictory clues.




THE MAIN CHARACTERS

'Femme Fatale' - Vivienne Sherry.

In contrast women are fickle, unreliable, untrustworthy and weak. A key icon is the figure of the Femme Fatale, The seductress, the Temptress, the Predator who figures prominently in film noirs. This is women out of male control. Beautiful  but dangerous, frightening, exploiting the weakness of the male, conspiring to undermine his maleness. This is maleness under threat.

'Femme Fatale' - Bridget Colbert. 

Main character - Raymond Colbert.

The Victim Hero is dragged into them by his own weakness of character by some moral failing -lust, desire for possession of a beautiful woman. money, rich character. More and more his weaknesses drag him towards his doom as his life careers out of control, he is weak willed.

Main Character - Detective Darlington.

The Seeker Hero is drawn into the events usually because of his profession. A Detective. Or because of some special relationship with the female character. only the hero is above the corruption, perversity and violence of a world dominated by greed and lust. Most of all the client. the woman for whom he is fighting, is out of control and cannot be trusted and is constantly undermining his efforts.

 THE MAIN CHARACTERS ROLES

Vivienne, a wealthy young woman. she is 'un-officially' seeing
 the Detective. after finding out he has been seeing
 other women, she becomes envious and wants to seek her revenge.
 One woman the Detective has been seeing is already married
 to his best friend. this becomes
an opportunity to Vivienne, she is the one to break the
news to Raymond, and slowly begin to seduce him, using him
to get back at her lover.- This subverts the traditional
'Femme Fatale', who are usually the one crying out
for help, however here, shes the one causing
the trouble.

Bridget is a mature woman, married to a rich man, Raymond,
she secretly has an unhappy marriage, he smothers her with affection
and she feels trapped. The way she escapes is to betray Raymond and
carry out an affair with the Detective, supposedly Raymonds closest
friend.

EXTRA CHARACTERS AND THEIR ROLES

The Bar tender/ Butler- He keeps everyone happy. a faithful servant. who
catches Bridget having an affair, and also tells his master Raymond,
but not before Vivienne.

extra characters to fill the scenes, more male than female, to show
the dominance men had in this era.

 

 

 

One way of categorising film noir is by the character of the hero. There are three main types:

• The Victim Hero
• Related to the Victim Hero is the Amnesiac Hero.
• In contrast to the Victim Hero is the Seeker Hero.

These categories are described as 'iconography'. Icons are recognisable images appearing as components in a genre style.

These categories are based on the nature of the male lead, the hero. In our Teaser Trailer we subvert the male lead and have the femme fatales as the main characters. Some of them do not seem very heroic, but the hero is what we call them.