Elements of Film Thinking - Touch of Evil - Movie Review Example

Philosophy of Film Elements of Film Thinking: Touch of Evil (1958) Despite the film not being Welles’ best work, one could see his trademark style throughout. At the same time Welles’ forte is his experimentation and spontaneous innovation. As a result, the film retains Welles’ fingerprints without adopting previously tried techniques. This is true of both the narrative and cinematographic styles. This essay will argue that Touch of Evil is a triumph of style and technique. Touch of Evil was promoted as a crime-thriller. However, viewing it in its entirety, it is fair to claim that the film overlaps several genres. For example, there are obvious film noir characteristics, most notably in the visualization of shots. Long shadows, angled lighting on characters, dingy settings, the suggestions of secrecy through mise-en-scene all testify to the film noir spirit. Moreover, the pivotal plot element of a murder (through bomb detonation) is consistent with the genre. While the cinematography is novel in this fashion, the core themes of the story are ancient and universal. Some critics have even identified Shakespearean themes in the film. “European cinephiles, who were quick to enshrine Welles in a pantheon of auteurs, easily incorporated the Shakespeare films into the Wellesian cinema, recognizing in them themes and dramatic emphases present as well the destructive consequence of power, even when employed in a just cause; the inevitability of betrayal; the loss of paradise—all of these films are, in their own way, Shakespearean texts, if in no other sense than in the way they impose a large, poetic intensity on questions of family and domesticity and thus wed the social with the personal.” (Anderegg, 1999, p. 70) In relation to Shakespearean texts, one can see shades of Othello and Hamlet in the personages of Quinlan and Vargas. While envy was the undoing of Othello, misplaced pride and egoism were the root of Quinlan’s suffering. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the main focus of the film is personal anguish, which, of course, is illustrated through the framework of a crime thriller. Despite the heavy boozing and smoking, a murky past and question marks over professional integrity, Captain Quinlan can still be interpreted as a hero, for he inevitably got the culprits convicted. His methods and means of achieving them are dubious, but the results were fair and just, even by his own evaluation. The famous ‘intuitions’ of Quinlan may not arise from systematic or scientific analysis, but they nearly always happen to be right. Even the framing of Sanchez eventually proves justified, although the planting of evidence (two units of dynamite in the shoe-box) was done by his long-term associated Paul Menzies. There are many character traits that are exposed visually. For example, the dark-skinned Mexican Miguel Vargas proves himself to be an honest police officer. On the other-hand, the highly stationed American police captain Hank Quinlan turns out in the end to be deceitful. Although Quinlan carries with him a reputation for cracking difficult cases, his unethical practice of framing the culprits is later revealed. It is of little legal consequence whether his targets actually happen to be guilty of the charge, as the case of Sanchez so surprisingly illustrates. These moral ambiguities are cleverly juxtaposed by Welles through characterization. In doing so, Welles is able to mingle the inner turmoil of the troubled Quinlan with the crime investigation. When compared to Quinlan, Vargas’ is more straightforwardly heroic. He is shown to be a man of high professional integrity and impartiality. Even Quinlan’s suggestion that he is trying to defend Sanchez for he is a compatriot is a view lacking in merit. The lighting employed on these two characters is skilful. Their ardor of their inner-world is illustrated through the application of lighting and shadows at odd angles. But where the technique succeeds, the script lets down. For example, “Charlton Heston is wooden and unbelievable as a Mexican narcotics investigator on honeymoon with his wife (Janet Leigh, struggling with a script that requires her to act brainlessly throughout).There is little thats credible, either, in the crude way Hestons adversary, a corrupt police chief (Welles), frames a suspect for murder, or pursues Heston with unbridled bigotry and incompetence.” ("Orson Classic Has Wooden," 1999) Coming back to the positives, one of the best scenes in Touch of Evil is the long tracking shot at the beginning of the film. The 3-minute shot tracks the series of little events leading up to the bomb explosion in the car. The hustle and bustle of national border security creates an element of tension throughout. The planting of the bomb inside the car adds further intrigue to the atmosphere. That the car should brush so closely to Mr. and Mrs. Vargas on several occasions plays on the nerves of the audience. It was a dramatic sequence and sets the agenda for suspense in the rest of the film. The use of sound and shade in this sequence is of particular import, as the night setting is suggestive of the illegal underbellies thriving in the US-Mexico border. For instance, the entire gamut of traffic sounds enhances the appearance of chaos. Likewise the street-lights, car head-lights, flashy neon hoardings and inviting cabaret entrances perfectly capture the glitzy yet shady world of international transit. It illustrates how technically adept Welles was as a filmmaker. In terms of application of focus and perspective as cinematographic devices, Welles uses them sparingly. The shots where they appear prominent are the ones in the outdoor – the coverage of the Motel where Mrs. Vargas stays is a good example. The arid and sparse landscapes that lead up to the motel is typical of the southern border. More importantly, Welles is able to create a sense of desolation in his depiction of the Motel’s locality. This much is demanded by the plot itself, but Welles also makes a sociological comment on the nature of drug racketing. It is in the motels of Uncle Joe Grandi that much of the ‘evils’ alluded by the title happens. By use of perspective in showcasing the environs of the eerie and remote motel, Welles is symbolically portraying the nature of drugs, crime and other evils. Speed is another element that Welles puts to optimum use. Touch of Evil, despite carrying all the markers of a thriller, surprisingly allows for deliberation and thought. This is certainly how Welles had meant it to be, as the restored version of the film readily shows. While the plot moves along on conventional lines, fitting with the genre, there is enough room for the audience to reflect. The late revival interest in the film is partly attributable to this facet. The film is foremost an exposition on human emotion. But Welles eschews the formula of a drama to achieve this end. He instead manufactures dramatic elements in the particular situations that the characters find themselves in. It is a masterly conception on the part of the filmmaker. The discerning viewer, with the aid of reviewing the film, would be able to appreciate these layered dimensions of the film. Touch of Evil is also notable for its long takes, with smooth camera movement within each take. What would conventionally have taken 2 or 3 shots, Welles manages to achieve with a single shot, and with much better effect. One example is the scene where American policemen are taken to Vargas’ chambers where he shows them some documentary evidence relating to the dynamite used for the bomb. There we see, in a single take, Vargas’ futile attempt to get through to his wife over the phone, as well as the discussion of the revelation about the dynamite. At moments the two conversations even overlap, which is the Wellesian equivalent of a musical polyphony. Barring the demands such crossed conversation has on the listener’s ear, it is the cinematic equivalent of counterpoint – a musical style made famous during the Baroque era. We see such contrapuntal dialogue, as it were, at many places in the film. This is the natural way of conversation during human interaction, which lends the scene a high degree of realism. Besides, the polyphony is symbolic of the prevailing tension in the context of the crime. Welles’ acoustic style also entails “his displacement of voices that are racially, sexually, and culturally inflected, even as he condenses those voices into a memorable third sound that seems to escape the limits of the sound track. The contrapuntal polyphony makes it impossible to grasp the sum or total of the composition, and sets up the necessary condition for some loss of sound. But they are also moments that make it possible to hear with distinctness each sound as it is added, and that dynamically reconfigure our sense of what is being expressed as well as erased." (Oliver & Trigo, 2003, p. 67). In sum, barring the obvious deficiencies in script, Touch of Evil is, indeed, a triumph of style and technique. Works Cited Anderegg, Michael. Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. Film and Culture.  Print. Oliver, Kelly, and Benigno Trigo. Noir Anxiety. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2003.  Print. "Orson Classic Has Wooden Flaws ." Daily Mail (London) 18 June 1999. Print. Read More