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11 Character Archetypes in Film Noir Movies

I'm a massive fan of the film noir genre. This past month, I was gobbling them up on the Criterion Channel, and I began to notice a pattern. If you watch enough noirs, you start to see many of the same characters over and over again. Today, I want to go over the film noir character archetypes with you all and look at how they can inspire your writing. So, let's dive in. 11 Character Archetypes in Film NoirSome of my favorite noirs are Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, and many, many more. I actually really like Sniper and The Killer Who Stalked New York, both of which I caught for the first time this week. With all the movies I watched, I wanted to go through the characters I kept seeing over and over again. The Hard-Boiled Detective: In classics, it's always a guy. But it would be a fun gender swap person. They're a world-weary, cynical, and often solitary private investigator. Think Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. The Femme Fatale: We've covered her a lot on this site. She's an alluring and seductive woman who uses her beauty and charm to manipulate men for her own gain. I did my own riff on this on my Black List script, Himbo. The classic examples include Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon and Sheila Benne in The Killer Who Stalked New York. The Corrupt Cop: There's so many bad...

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Published By: NoFilmSchool - Yesterday

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