Example of Film Noir

After recently studying The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler, I already have an idea of what Film Noirs are actually about and include. It has one of the most complicated storylines in Film Noir history. Even Raymond Chandler, the author of the book that the film was based on, once famously admitted he didn’t know the answer to all the plot twists and ends. In The Big Sleep Humphrey Bogart plays the famous detective character – Philip Marlowe. He finds himself employed by the sick General Sternwood, who also asks him to keep an eye on his daughter Carmen who has fallen in with a bad group of people. He is frequently distracted by her beautiful older Vivian Rutledge (played by Lauren Bacall). Events take a turn for the worse as people begin dying around Marlowe and he gets involved with powerful criminals, a pornography ring and several case of blackmail. The Big Sleep is an intoxicating affair that will keep the audience hooked, even after the story has stopped making sense.

General Sternwood: Do you like orchids? 

Philip Marlowe: Not particularly. 

General Sternwood: Ugh. Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption. 

This quote retorts of General Sternwood (The oblivious protagonist who sets Marlowe about his business) and how he has subtley hinted at the classic convention of corruption amongst the Film Noir "style". He relates corruption to that of an Orchid - or specifically the scent - being "rotten sweetness" which in itself being an Oxymoron, is a harsh truth from the mouth of the wise, and dying Sternwood. He also classifies the whole male gender as being corrupt, which in the situation he sees himself and his daughters involved with, understandably could have poisoned his view.

Raymond Chandler was a dark horse of his time, and used a quote which can be applied to Film Noir's;

"There are shadows in the shadows". This represents not only the stark contrast of shadow, but also the characters, and how the corruption runs deep through the veins of the city in which the Film Noir is involved.