Film Noir: A Popular Film - Movie Review Example

FILM NOIR Order No.223998 May 08 Film Noir Film Noir was a genre of black and white American films that came into being in the 1940s and was very prominent during the post-war period. French film critic Frank Nino first coined the term film Noir, which literally means black film or cinema, in 1946. French film critics observed that many American crime and detective films released in France after the war, such as The Maltese Falcon, made by Warner Brothers and released in 1941, Murder, My Sweet in 1944, Double Indemnity and Laura, also in 1944 were dark, muted and black. Many believe that Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) directed by Boris Ingster was the first full-featured film noir while others have claimed the masterpiece Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles as a pre-film noir. However the first detective film to use the distinctive noir style in a definite way was The Maltese Falcon (1941) based on a 1929 book by Dashiell Hammett, directed by John Huston, a novice director. In the movie the characters are typical of Film Noir. "Mr. Bogart is a shrewd, tough detective with a mind that cuts like a blade, a temperament that sometimes betrays him, and a code of morals which is coolly cynical. Mary Astor is well nigh perfect as the beautiful woman whose cupidity is forever to be suspect." (Bosley Crowther, 1941) The "Touch of Evil" (1958) is considered to be the last in this genre. A typical film noir was "constructed around a wounded hero who held a cynical perspective of the world around them, and was subject to the vices that come with such a fatalistic viewpoint". (Anthony Leong, 2001) More often than not the protagonist in these kinds of movies was a detective, though not like the classical detective, Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes upright and honorable. The character of the hard-boiled detective, played to perfection by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep is often considered to be one of the essential features of film noir. In fact, Humphrey Bogart was the iconic private eye during the time of film noir. The other key iconic figure in film noir was the fatal woman or the femme fatale who was very seductive and morally bankrupt. She tempted and weakened the male protagonist. At times she was aggressive often appropriating male power. She always had a cocktail glass, or a cigarette, or sometimes even a gun in her hand. "The femme fatale would play a crucial role in the film noir, whether in the guise of Jane Greer in Out of the Past, Rita Hayworth in Lady From Shanghai... or Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. The hero would inevitably meet and fall under the spell of the femme fatale. She would use her sexuality to manipulate and destroy the protagonist to gain power, money and independence. The protagonist in the end, because of his lust for the woman got trapped in a web of deceit either committed murder or killed himself. Laura (1944) directed by Otto Preminger for Twentieth-Century Fox had all these features. Laura "is an intriguing melodrama" and tells the story of a captivating female who ingratiates herself into the lives of three worldly men (New York Times Review). The locations were not European hamlets but bleak American cityscapes. Heroes always had to struggle for survival. Film noir portrayed the darker side of life quite unlike the Hollywood comedies and musicals that portrayed optimism. While Hollywood movies tried to boost public morale, film noir portrayed a world full of corruption Belonging to the action genre, and often made with low budgets, film noir adopted a strong, filmmaking technique to make a strong impact. The themes of these movies included alienation, fatalism, and wrongdoing. The shadows, frames covered with blackness, tilted camera angles and claustrophobic atmospheres created an overall feeling of futility, often unreal. (Roger Westcombe, 2003) Film noir a black and white phenomenon, to say the least was at its peak between 1945 and 1950 and achieved its greatest height in the Touch of Evil, directed by the genius Orson Welles. Film noir was like an antidote to the conventional Hollywood movies where the characters were all pristine and romance was always fulfilled in the end. Characters in this genre were generally rebellious and sex and violence were used generously. Women in Film Noir are either misogynists, beautiful, manipulative, deceitful and amoral dames or sweet, good girls who are in need of a strong man to help them in their hours of distress. Double Indemnity produced by Paramount Pictures (1944) has been adapted from a short story by James M. Cain, with the screenplay by Wilder and Raymond Chandler. Stanwyck, the heroine, convinces an Insurance Salesman Mac Murray to assist her to kill her husband for his insurance money. They want the killing to appear like an accident so that they can claim double indemnity. "Indemnity" is rapidly moving and consistently well developed. It is a story replete with suspense, for which credit must go in a large measure to Billy Wilders direction" (Variety Review, 1944) Similarly The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) adapted from the novel by James M. Cain and produced by MGM had two illicit lovers plotting to kill the heroines husband. It was "a sincere comprehension of an American tragedy. For the yearning of weak and clumsy people for something better than the stagnant lives they live is revealed as the core of the dilemma, and sin is shown to be no way to happiness. ( New York Times Review) One reason for film noirs popularity was that these films echoed the social changes that were taking place in postwar America. The huge screens of cinema provided a platform for the resentments that was seething inside the Americans. Their hatred of the upper class and their morality, their troubles with sexual attraction, their belief in the righteousness of force got ample opportunity for expression. American audiences could not resist the aggressive stance of the hero and the lure of the actresses cast in the mould of the Venus flytrap. According to sociologists, film noir cinema, with its cynical view of the world that it portrayed was reflective of the general mood that prevailed at that time. For instance, some think the portrayal of the femme fatale in this genre reflects the evolving role of women in society. Women after the Second World War were becoming increasingly independent by joining the workforce and claiming a share of the economy that began to boom after the war. Film Noir had characters acting out of desperation in a world that was increasingly becoming bleak and morally bankrupt. Film noir reflected the darker sides of reality and this attracted people. The time was also ripe for a new kind of hero, and new characters that were not like the stereotyped characters of Hollywood. The movies reflected the disillusionment of that period. According to Michael Mills (2007) " the great Noir directors; Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak, Jacques Tourneur, et al, brought not only expressionist cinematography, odd angles, and dark shadows, but also a pessimism drawn from witnessing the rise of fascism in modern mass societies" Sunset Boulevard (1950), produced by Paramount Pictures and directed by Wilder is about an aging silent screen star and a cynical, penniless script writer. It is "a powerful story of the ambitions and frustrations that combine to make life in the cardboard city so fascinating to the outside world". (Thomas M. Pryor) The public responded enthusiastically to this kind of portrayal. The war had made them realize that the world was a violent and dangerous place and welcomed such movies. Again Notorious directed by Alfred Hitchcock for Studio RKO dealt with espionage. According to a review "Production and directorial skill of Alfred Hitchcock combine with a suspenseful story and excellent performances to make "Notorious" force entertainment. Its a romantic drama of topnotch caliber that will pay off big. (Variety Film Review) Film Noir grew out of the American crime thrillers and pulp fiction that were prominent between 1920 and 1940. Hollywood used works of earlier writers like Hammett and Chandler and the late forties-early fifties novelists like W.R. Burnett, Dorothy B. Hughes, David Goodis, William Lindsay Gresham, and William P. McGovern and Horace McCoy whose novels had criminals, violent men, psychotics, crooked cops, killers and the like as protagonists. Writers like Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely), known as the Black Mask writers, were the main writers who had a literary influence on this genre. The characters in their books, all had a dark side to them. Film noir was the first genre where the main characters were dark. Audiences responded well to this new phenomenon. The stories of these writers were mainly of betrayal and alienation with cynical heroes and doomed heroines. The characters, both the protagonists and antagonists, like in Greek dramas were sharply sketched. The main characters were usually private detectives or cops, or loners and were generally flawed. According to Lee Horsley (2002) "one of the most important influences on noir characterization was the work of Cornell Woolrich, whose novels embodied in an extreme form the noir sense of helplessness and paranoia. Between 1942 and 1949, there were eleven Woolrich novels or stories made into films, the protagonists of which included alcoholics, hunted men and amnesiacs Majority of the directors of film noir like Orson Welles, Huston, Cromwell and others were from America. However, some other Hollywood directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Fritz Langamous and Jacques Tourneur famous for their film noir style came from Europe. Orson Welles was a bold innovator. His contribution to film noir equals that of the German directors. His Citizen Kane released in 1941, same year as The Maltese Falcon is at the top of the list of the noir films. The film has many crucial elements that are typical of the noir genre. A journalist plays the role of an investigating detective in this mystery thriller. The popularity of film noir lasted into the 1950s. That it lasted much after the war had ended can be attributed to the fact that unlike westerns, crime films can never really go out of style. Since there are several manifestations of crime, the makers of film noir had a variety of subjects to choose from. The popularity of film noir declined only with the advent of TV and according to Bruce Eder "the final nail was hammered into the genres coffin when color photography became standard for Hollywood films." Color could not convey the bleak atmosphere that could be conveyed so well with black and white colors. The ‘pulp’ crime on TV with all its brightness and open spaces made noir as a film genre look gentle and was one of the reasons for the decline of film noir. References 1. Eder Bruce, Film Noir, Retrieved from http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=23:22 2. Horsley Lee, 2002, The Development of Post-war Literary and Cinematic Noir http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/Film%20Noir.html 3. Leong Anthony, 2001, Original Sin Movie Review, Retrieved from http://www.mediacircus.net/originalsin.html 4. Mills Michael, 1946: Hollywood and the Great Directors, www.moderntimes.com/1946 5. Westcombe Roger (2003), What is this thing called film noir, anyway? http://www.bighousefilm.com/noir_intro.htm 6. Classic Film Noir Greats http://www.epinions.com/content_1038721156 Primary References 7. Bosley Crowther, 1941, The Maltese Falcon, A Fast Mystery thriller, New York Times, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990DE4D7113FE13BBC4C53DFB667838A659EDE 8. Bosley Crowther, The Postman always rings twice, New York Times Review http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C05EEDD133AEF33A25750C0A9639C946793D6CF 9. "Char" Variety Film Review, July 24, 1946 Retrieved from http://www.carygrant.net/reviews/notorious.html 10. New York Times Review, Laura, Retrieved from http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F05EEDE1E31E03BBC4A52DFB667838F659EDE 11. Pryor Thomas, "The Screen: Inner Workings of Filmdom" by The New York Times, August 11, 1950: Retrieved from http://www.movingimage.us/film_programs/program_notes/s/sunset_blvd.html 12. Variety Review, 1944, Retrieved from http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=Variety100&reviewid=VE1117790525&content=jump&jump=review&category=1935&cs=1 Read More