The Opening Scene

Using the genre of Film Noir Satan is a lady is a typical example of this genre and uses many factors of the Film Noir mise-en-scene.
It plays on the mind of the audience with a sense of the detective genre, whilst still creating the menacing aura of a 50’s crime. It makes you think, re-analyse your view on it and follow the characters through the story.

Satan is a lady begins with a simple opening. Femme fatale is introduced straight away; clearly showing the audience that the film is going to be female dominated. The lips of a woman are shown, emphasising the seductive nature of women in Film Noir. By hiding her face, this adds mystery and you are left unaware of her part in the film.
The shadowed lighting and black and white picture is typical of Film Noir mise-en-scene and can hide a lot from the audience, only to have it revealed at the end with a sudden twist.
During this characters monologue, we cut to small scenes of a crime taking place. As this film is of the crime genre, it brings the film together. The crime involves an estranged wife poisoning her husband in order to gain insurance money, but by filming it in a certain way, the identities are hidden from the audience and keep them guessing.
We are going to mainly film hands and legs of the characters in these small scenes, as you can never identify a person from these body parts, and with the use of props we are going to be able to make it look like a classical Film Noir.
As the woman talking is shown in colour, showing a sense of modernised filming, the scenes of the crime taking place are going to be in black and white to show the past occurrence, as the female talking is describing it in the present tense.

Through the opening you are unawares of who is speaking due to the mise-en-scene of the film, and the dialogue isn’t going to give anything away, in order to maintain the mystery and suspense.
The end of this opening finishes with the woman going silent and blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. This would suggest foul play, but you don’t see what happens next or who did it.
By filming this section in colour, you get the full effect of the red of the blood and lipstick, as you would in the modernised Film Noir, Sin City.

Throughout we maintain suspense, and the ending draws you in and makes you want to find out what happens to the woman or ‘who-dun-it’.