A small look into the Cinematography used in Brick

In film noir, the cinematography used is very distinct. They use “unbalanced and disturbing frame compositions, strong contrasts of light and dark, the prevalence of shadows and areas of darkness within the frame, the visual tension created by curious camera angles and so forth” (filmindustryowrks). However, Brick took on a more modern take on film noir cinematography. Rian Johnson wanted to give a fresh perspective on noir by avoiding the obvious noir elements like the “shadows of blinds on the walls, and soft focus on the female close ups.” He felt like films that try to imitate these noir characteristics are something we’ve seen “a million times but more importantly we’ve seen it imitated and parodied a million times.”

Although the director did his best to avoid imitating certain characteristics of noir, he did however manage to include obscure camera angles (which is a very distinct noir cinematic element) in the film. Gaining inspiration from the neo-noir film Chinatown, many of the scenes were shot at an odd angle. For example, the camera would focus on bizarre objects like Brendans boots as he’s walking on the pavement. Some other scenes like when Brendan is talking to the Vice Principle, the camera is shot at an angle that is looking upwards at them. Here’s some photos from behind the scenes of how they capture similar shots.

Notice how the camera is placed below the actors, almost on the ground and is constantly being shot at an upwards angle!

Another cinematic noir element is the use of shadows. Although it was very subtle, there were a couple of scenes where the lighting that they used created shadows on the actors faces. Lighting and shadows were a huge key element in film noir. These shadows were created using very little light and not many devices, considering the low funding the crew had for the movie. Here's an example: