Deconstruction of Editing in Film Noir

A contemporary example of film noir editing is Sin City. It is one of few modern movies within the film noir genre that fits the most obvious convention of being almost entirely monochrome. However, certain colours are not edited out, instead they are isolated on certain characters.

Here the red of the character's blood is isolated, but the red of the woman's lips is still edited out. This is likely because the male character is a main character.

This character's blue eyes are in colour, drawing the viewer's attention to them in particular rather than her face in general. This, combined with her expression, gives her a clear sense of vulnerability.

Key features are highlighted by isolating their colours. The use of this technique is actually very appropriate as in film noir movies and detective novels, characters are often referred to by their most notable features, such as blue eyes.

There is also the standard film noir black and white filter, where all the colours are removed. This is an obvious convention of film noir and serves several purposes, such as making the genre easily identifiable, being reminiscent of older movies of the genre, reflecting the time periods in which they are often set, and as a parallel to the themes of moral ambiguity or "moral grey" often included in these films.

Film noir movies also make use of heavy juxtaposition in editing. Cuts are not necessarily in chronological order, with flashbacks and frequent jump-cuts, making the plot maze-like and often difficult to follow.