Film Noir

As I am of the opinion that film noir serves as a style rather than a genre, I felt it easy to relate to Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir" in which he distinguishes noir from the western and gangster genres that rely on "conventions of setting and conflict" by pointing out the focus on tone and mood that is so characteristic of noir films.  However, I was initially taken aback by his characterization of film noir as a period of film history in addition to being a very distinct style.  Having seen and enjoyed such movies as L.A. Confidential (1997), Brick (2005), and Assassination of a High School President (2008), all of which I consider to be noir films, I have a hard time accepting Schrader's limiting noir time period (1941-1953).  I absolutely agree that this style arose as a result of the four timely influences Schrader points out - war and postwar disillusionment (highlighting the darkness in the world), postwar realism (emphasis on real shooting locations), the German expatriates (including filmmakers/masters of chiaroscuro), and the hard-boiled tradition (literary emphasis on tough, cynical acting and thinking) - but I refuse to believe that this style ever really faded.  Upon further reflection on these modern examples of film noir, I began to see the temporal limits of this style in that each one of these films has throwback elements to the peak time period of film noir.

The easiest throwbacks to point out are the period pieces (L.A. Confidential, Chinatown (1974), etc.) which actually take place in the 40s and 50s.  The viewer is transported to the time when noir was the norm through the visuals of costuming and setting, making the style more digestable to the viewer who is presumably accustomed to a lighter, less stylized visual.

Brick and Assassination of a High School President both take place in high school with a scrappy, adolescent outsider guiding the story.  Both films display many of the stereotypical elements of noir - femme fatale, narration, flashback, a unique colloquial lingo - but both cloak their protagonists in a trench coat or at least a jacket reminiscent of a trench coat (I swear I made this connection before Bart pointed it out!).  This seemingly small gesture could easily be interpreted as an homage to earlier films, but is actually necessary in that it gives our hero the credibility and maturity of a detective in search of the truth for the sake of navigating the blurred lines of good and evil.  

For your viewing pleasure, another example:

Last week, Maria actually used Sin City as an example of a highly stylized non-noir film, to which I responded:

"To me Sin City is very much a noir film. In fact, I remember watching it in theaters thinking that it is the perfect update of the noir genre. It successfully uses black and white photography, and gives it another dimension with punches of color that both add narrative significance and blur the lines between good and evil (think Alexis Bledel's character whose shockingly blue eyes make her seem so angelic, yet she proves to be a traitor). The heroes of this comic book adaptation (Dwight, Marv and Hartigan) embody the ideals of the noir protagonist (confident and seedy, yet moral) while their counterparts (Gail, Goldie, and Nancy) are blatantly sexual, independent and dangerous. I can't think of a modern film that better fits the outline of the noir genre."

The above clip (combining the first and last shots of the film) actually demonstrates how the film fits all 7 stylistic elements of noir listed by Schrader: night, oblique and vertical lines, lighting, compositional tension, water (rain), romantic narration, and complex chronological order.  (If you haven't seen the movie, the latter element is demonstrated by Josh Hartnett's "the salesman" who only appears in the very beginning and the very end, providing a cyclical element to the story and suggesting that any resolution established in the movie will not withstand the perpetual corruption of this dark world.)  Also evident in this clip is the throwback element that seems to resonate in all modern noir films.  The music, Hartnett's slicked back hair, their dress, the dialogue and the demeanor of both characters all contribute to the classic look and feel established in noir's post-war peak.  It seems that a modern attempt at noir requires some form of historical significance to make the style relevant to the viewer.

Note: I didn't feel it was appropriate to include Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in this analysis as I consider it more of a parody of noir films than an actual film noir.  That said, it was definitely my favorite movie we've watched so far this semester.

As a complete aside, I made a random connection between Elijah Wood's character in Sin City and the deaf gas station attendant in Out of the Past.  Neither character ever speaks or shows any emotion and (like Anne pointed out last week) both have a dark, supernatural aura about them.  Not to mention they both kill without any remorse or consequence (Elijah with ridiculous speed and strength and the gas station attendant with a freaking fishing rod).  Just me?

Female Spectacle

After reading through Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" I was relieved that the only modern movies I could think of that employ the "woman as spectacle" mentality were comedic (The Mask, 1994), pornographic (um... porn), or just plain ridiculous (Basic Instinct, 1992).

For whatever reason, the first movie that came to mind was The Mask, in which Cameron Diaz makes her film debut as a sexy nightclub singer.  She emerges from a flower of palms

 in a slinky, glittering dress with her back facing us so we can admire her curvaceous body.  She then makes her way down the stairs from her pedestal cooing "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You", conveying the subservient demeanor of the spectacle that is woman, as described by Mulvey.

Then, confirming Diaz's status as an object of desire, the camera reveals the greasy mafioso watching her who exclaims, "Beautiful!"  But the purpose of this modern commodification of women is explained when the other spectator is revealed: Jim

 Carrey as "the mask".  Carrey ogles Diaz with cartoon-like actions, turning into a howling wolf as well as the exaggerated jaw drop/eye pop (pictured).  This scene mocks the outdated and previously accepted tradition of the man's gaze that is only relevant in this film when put in context with Carrey's zoot suit and later on his impressive swing dance with Diaz - other elements comically brought back from yesteryear.

Another interesting example of a modern twist on this old film convention was last year's grossly overlooked Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.  In it, Amy Adams plays Delysia Lafosse, a hopelessly bubbly singer/actress with a slew of suitors who wants nothing more 

than to be a star.  This spritely yet frivolous bombshell, unable to manage her own affairs, seeks the help of a social secretary.  

Instead what she gets is Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), a frumpy, out-of-work nanny who is desperate to keep herself fed and off the streets.  These two characters come to represent the spectacle of the past and the voice of reason (I'm sure you can guess which is which).  

For Delysia, the true affair that needs sorting is whether she will choose love or life in the spotlight.  She describes the reasons for her various suitors, "With Nick, I get this magnificent flat.  With Phil, I get a chance to be the star.  Michael wants to marry me."  With the first two, she gets the glitz and glamour that she longs for, whereas Michael can only offer his love.  From the beginning we see how willing Delysia is to throw away this man who offers himself to her for the sake of her acting ambitions.  So long as she can maintain her many romantic relationships she can stay in the spotlight, but this maintenance proves to be a bit taxing.  Miss Pettigrew's first task as social secretary is to hide the evidence of the affair with Phil when Nick arrives.  Nick spots a cigar butt, which Miss Pettigrew claims is her own:

Nick: Since when did girls smoke cigars?

Miss Pettigrew: If I want to smoke cigars, I'll damned well smoke cigars.

Nick: They're yours?

Miss Pettigrew: You betcha, baby.  [takes a puff and coughs]

This comical interaction suggests that Miss Pettigrew can't quite keep up with the boys, but through her strong will she persists and successfully throws Nick off the track.  Throughout the film, Miss Pettigrew acts as the backbone of her mistress and begins to show her there is more to life than being the object of a man's gaze, that she can be equal with a man in a relationship based on love.  When Delysia starts to understand Miss Pettigrew's words, she reflects back on the time when she was once a simple, small town girl who went by the name of Sarah Grubb.

This light comedy, whether intentional or not, displays the progression of the movie actress from screen siren to human being and helps us recognize that behind every Delysia Lafosse is a Sarah Grubb.

Narrative Space: Sleepless in Seattle and Hitchcock's Suspicion

"It is men who create the space in which they move and express themselves.  Spaces are born and die like societies; they live, they have a history" (Heath 29).

Acknowledging the reality that space is defined by and unique to the individual is an integral part of the process of bringing a story to the screen.  In comparing and contrasting the eye and the camera Stephen Heath points out the unique ability of film to construct space through the "impression of reality" that is "neither absolutely two-dimensional nor absolutely three-dimensional, but something in between".  This construction is a conscious decision made by a filmmaker in light of the nature of the story being told and the tone the filmmaker wishes to convey.  Through the movies Sleepless in Seattle and Suspicion we see the significance of how the filmmaker chooses to frame the film, in particular from which character's perspective the viewer watches the narrative unfold.

Sleepless in Seattle tells the story of a man and woman (Sam and Annie) on opposite coasts who defy the odds and logic by falling in love.  The serendipitous tone of this romantic comedy is achieved by constructing spaces around the two main characters.  The story could have easily been told from the point of view of either of these characters - from the perspective of Sam (Tom Hanks), the widower whose son tricks him into meeting the woman of his dreams, or from the perspective of Annie (Meg Ryan), the woman who questions her own engagement upon hearing the sad story of a man who was once passionately in love.  However, had the choice been made to construct the reality of only one of these characters, the viewer would miss out on the story of the other character and would consequently have been cheated out on all the obstacles that character had faced leading up to the romantic first encounter.  By showing both characters' stories, the viewer gets to see how close Sam and Annie come to actually meeting as well as the misunderstandings that nearly keep them apart.  For example, the scene where Annie travels all the way to Seattle on a whim.  While there, she follows Sam and his son Jonah on the beach and later on witnesses Sam happily embracing a woman.  From Annie's perspective, it seems as if Sam is happily in a relationship, but the viewer who has also seen Sam's story knows the mystery woman is only a friend.  Understanding both sides of the story, the audience is left yearning for Annie not to give up and for Sam to take notice of her, which he does, only to be separated by a truck passing between them.  The choice to show both perspectives lets the audience see how much these two characters belong together and all that they must overcome in their journeys to find one another.

Suspicion on the other hand relies on the single space created around the character of Lina (Joan Fontaine, in her Oscar-winning role).  As the title suggests, the story is based on the unknown and the feelings that guide our intuition.  Lina is a woman bound to become a spinster (as declared by her father) who falls for Johnnie (Cary Grant), a smooth talker with a shaky reputation.  Throughout the movie, Lina picks up on clues that her husband is getting into trouble with gambling and such, but is always swayed by Johnnie's explanations.  Our one-sided perspective has us guessing with Lina, always wondering but never knowing the truth behind Johnnie's actions.  This hidden truth helps build suspense throughout the story, making the viewer wonder whether Lina herself is in danger.  Had the viewer been given insight into both characters' lives, the story would be less of a mystery/thriller (i.e. less of a Hitchcock film) and more of a domestic drama about secrets and lies.  Turns out Lina's sole perspective is necessary to maintain the anticipation and uncertainty that is so characteristic of the story.  The one time we actually see from another character's perspective is when Lina is visited by two inquiring detectives.  The second detective, Benson, who remains relatively silent, draws our attention away from the narrative and instead focuses on an otherwise arbitrary painting in Lina's foyer.  As Heath suggests, this jarring switch is meant to draw the audience's attention toward the painting of Lina's father in the following scene.  This change in perspective inadvertently also serves as a reminder that Lina's is not the only perspective in the story.  Our tendency to side with Lina, perpetuated by sharing her narrative space, hinders our ability to see any truth but her own.