The Matrix as a Neo Noir - An Analysis of The Matrix with Special Focus on Style and Motifs of Film Noir - (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Dresden Technical University (Institut Amerikanistik), course: American Noir, language: English, abstract: When the movie The Matrix commences, the audience has the impression to have stepped back into the late 1930s or 1940s. With its very conventional beginning of a noir narrative, The Matrix, which was directed by the brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski in 1999, provides the viewer with all the characteristics of a typical film noir: the setting of this first sequence is shot at night; it is dark and gloomy. We see a group of police officers in uniforms storming a building in order to arrest one woman. Not until that very 'fugitive on the run' fights back and escapes by implementing some rather incredulous astonishing fighting, we realize that this movie is not going to be in the past but in the future. The Matrix is often referred to as a futuristic, film noir, utopian science-fiction movie - a movie, which is innovative in its design and its special digital techniques.
Containing plenty of characteristics of the classical film noir, which I am going to describe in the course of this seminar paper, the recipients witness in The Matrix a revival of the themes of the classical film noir. For that reason, it will be of interest in which way elements and motifs of film noir have changed to neo film noir, and to what extend we will find old and new noirish features in The Matrix.
Additionally, I am going to analyze the plot as well as the character development of the main protagonists, their relationship to each other and their meaning for the film's progress. Not only do I want to examine the film's plot points in terms of their significance for the movie's development, but also will I focus on misé-en-scene and the technical devices, which definitely set milestones in the history of film making.