Editing Film noir (section)

===Visual style===
The [[low-key lighting]] schemes of many classic films noir are associated with stark light/dark [[contrast (vision)|contrasts]] and dramatic shadow patterning—a style known as [[chiaroscuro]] (a term adopted from Renaissance painting).{{Ref label|C|c|none}} The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods, cast upon an actor, a wall, or an entire set, are an iconic visual in noir and had already become a [[cliché]] well before the neo-noir era. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness—a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood filmmaking. While black-and-white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir, the color films ''[[Leave Her to Heaven]]'' (1945) and ''[[Niagara (1953 film)|Niagara]]'' (1953) are routinely included in noir filmographies, while ''[[Slightly Scarlet (1956 film)|Slightly Scarlet]]'' (1956), ''[[Party Girl (1958 film)|Party Girl]]'' (1958), and ''[[Vertigo (film)|Vertigo]]'' (1958) are classified as noir by varying numbers of critics.<ref>See Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 31, on general issue. Christopher (1998) and Silver and Ward (1992), for instance, include ''Slightly Scarlet'' and ''Party Girl'', but not ''Vertigo'', in their filmographies. By contrast, Hirsch (2001) describes ''Vertigo'' as among those Hitchcock films that are "richly, demonstrably ''noir''" (p. 139) and ignores both ''Slightly Scarlet'' and ''Party Girl''; Bould (2005) similarly includes ''Vertigo'' in his filmography, but not the other two. Ottoson (1981) includes none of the three in his canon.</ref>

Film noir is also known for its use of [[low-angle shot|low-angle]], [[wide-angle lens|wide-angle]], and [[Dutch angle|skewed, or Dutch angle]] shots. Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects (such as during the strangulation scene in ''Strangers on a Train''), and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature. [[Night-for-night]] shooting, as opposed to the Hollywood norm of [[day-for-night]], was often employed.<ref>Place and Peterson (1974), p. 67.</ref> From the mid-1940s forward, [[location shooting]] became increasingly frequent in noir.<ref>Hirsch (2001), p. 67.</ref>

In an analysis of the visual approach of ''[[Kiss Me Deadly]]'', a late and self-consciously stylized example of classic noir, critic Alain Silver describes how cinematographic choices emphasize the story's themes and mood. In one scene, the characters, seen through a "confusion of angular shapes", thus appear "caught in a tangible vortex or enclosed in a trap." Silver makes a case for how "side light is used&nbsp;... to reflect character ambivalence", while shots of characters in which they are lit from below "conform to a convention of visual expression which associates shadows cast upward of the face with the unnatural and ominous".<ref>Silver (1995), pp. 219, 222.</ref>