ARTH Disc ***ZEEK THE GEEK ONLY***

Aaron:

John Wick is an assassin who has left the life for a woman. In order for him to do this he has to take a job so impossible that no one else thinks he can. When he completes the job, he is released from his obligations and fades into normal life. John's woman succumbs to an illness and he is alone. Before her death, his woman comes to terms with her terminal illness and purchases a puppy to arrive after her death. It is her way of telling John that he is not alone. One a drive a few days later John runs into some Russian gangsters who don't know who he is. They take a liking to his Mustang and try to buy it from him. When he tells them it's not for sale they are offended. That night they invade his house, assault him, kill his dog, and take his car. Their mistake is that they didn't kill him. He mounts an all out assault on the Russians thugs. Death and destruction ensue. 

John Wick has all the markings of a Neo Noir movie. The predominant color in the movie is black. From the backgrounds to the wardrobe. There is a femme fatale, Ms Perkins, a female assassin who decides to try and take on John for the reward. There is the element of the criminal underworld as all the assassins eventually end up at a hotel that caters to their needs when they are working. The Continental Hotel has rules that while guests are staying they cannot conduct "business" on the property lest they incur heavy penalties. The Continental Hotel even has an underground lounge only accessible from the kitchen.

In a scene where John Wick is close to killing the man who stole his car and killed his dog, the color is black with the exception of the shirts and ties of the security men which is red. Also there is one woman who is seeking cover from the shooting that is wearing a red dress. The only other color in the scene is black. In another scene, the father of the son who killed John Wick's dog confronts his son about what he did. Everyone is wearing black suits in a dark room. The father removes his coat and is wearing a red shirt. Red seems to be the only other color in this movie. John Wick visits a church in which the Russian mob holds money. After he wounds the priest and dispatches the guards, he finds a vault and sets it on fire. The predominant color in this scene is green due to the stained glass of the church.

This movie is obviously a love story. It's the story of a man who feels the devastation of losing the love of his life and when he loses the last gift from her he avenges by killing everybody that because of his love for her. 

John Wick (2014) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2911666/

Robert:

I watched Billy Bob Thornton’s 1995 film “Sling Blade” and found it be a great example of Neo Noir in so many respects. Most importantly, the lighting in this film is classical of the genre in that it emphasizes the device of chiaroscuro in order to create depth through darkness and shadows. It has many elements of early film noir in that it features an unlikely antihero as its main character and prominently features shadows and murky colors in its cinematography.

In “Sling Blade”, black and grey are everywhere-especially in the case of the lead character Karl Childers. Karl’s only clothes are grey as is the environment that he has spent his entire life in. From his childhood when his parents made him sleep in a dimly lit barn, to the psychiatric hospital that housed him for many years, to his new accommodations in a shed, his world is as perpetually dark and grey as the film genre itself. The one time that he has an opportunity to sleep in a bright room he sits up all night, apparently uncomfortable in such surroundings.

With this picture Thornton relies heavily on key light and back light and seems to make little use of a fill light in order to add an aura to Karl’s unusual appearance and mannerisms. In the film’s beginning scene the audience is treated to a striking close-up of Karl’s half-illuminated face while he discusses the events that led to his murder of his mother and her lover. This lighting setup is memorably repeated toward the end of the movie as Karl sits by a pond contemplating a murder that he will commit later that night, in his mind a justifiable homicide to defend a boy he has befriended.

There is also an interesting lighting configuration when the garage band led by Dwight Yoakum’s evil Doyle Hargraves character decides to perform a late-night rehearsal on the back porch. While lights are strung up everywhere, the scene itself looks murky, probably so that it is in lockstep with the very amateurish music that the band is playing.

So, grey seems to be the predominant color in “Sling Blade” for a reason. The story itself, with Karl’s decision to kill Doyle that sometimes things are not so “black and white” but rather somewhere in between.