Film Noir. Mise-en-Scene.

Mise-en-Scene is very important to the viewer whilst watching a movie that bases everything on the conventions of film noir genre. Mise-en-Scene mean everything in the shot. This would include the location to what the character would be wearing. Normally, the hero would be wearing casual clothes which would not be that smart because at the time period which film noir genre was used mainly, was a time where the lower class just about had enough money to feed themselves and keep themselves healthy. This is why the hero would wear scruffy costumes instead of the smart costumes like the villians. The villians would wear smart costumes because they would want to be seen as wealthy, and in this era that would normally have been the case. Fedora's would have been fashionable in this era because it would show the villian as a person of wealth and class. For example, in the film noir movie, The Killers, the villians right at the beginning don't take off their fedora's because the feel that they shouldn't have to take of their hat in a diner. Which would have been a place where they would not have hung out otherwise. Location would have been important. For example, the diner in the movie, The Killers, is small and simple until the villians come along. All of a sudden, the viewer feels that something bad is going to happen because the diner is a normal, simple place where people dressed in everyday clothes would meet up and at a reasonable time in the day. This also has the effect that the villians have gone to this diner for information rather than to have something to eat.