Defining film noir, a genre of
film stretching from the 1940s to the late 1950s, has been a difficult
challenge for many critics, so much so that cinema historian Mark Bould regards
it as an “elusive phenomenon…always just out of reach[1]”. It was brought to
Hollywood by Europeans after WWII,
with ideas, feelings and of course filming techniques different to those of Hollywood
so far. Intertwined with the hard-boiled crime fiction stories and attitudes
born in the US
during the Depression already evident in 20s and 30s gangster films and within
the setting of war time disillusionment in America ,
often film noir is about or refers to the war. If not literally war related,
there is almost always a dominant sense of nostalgia, looking back to earlier,
more innocent and simple pre-war times. Several techniques and devices have
been used by film-makers to convey such senses of the past.
One of the major influences on
film noir is German Expressionist cinematography. Its detailed,
anti-naturalistic mise-en-scene and symbolism which create a dark, sinister
mood was brought to America
by emigrating German film-makers during the war when the Nazis gained power. The
plots of Expressionist films also matched this dark and disillusioned visual
style, often dealing with madness, insanity and paranoia. Noir is all about darkness and hopelessness; the protagonist looks
back to a time in the past when times (or he himself) used to be more innocent,
mirroring the American crisis. An example of sheer doom can be seen in They
Live by Night (1948); Bowie longs for a simple life and wants to be good,
goodness being what Bowie’s love interest represents, but their destiny is clear
to the audience from the beginning and as expected, he is killed. A good
example of visual Expressionist influence is in The Third Man (1949)
which is arguably British noir[2],
with its dramatic angles and shadows particularly evident in the chase sequence
in the sewer at the end. The eerie house in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is
also a fine example of expressionism, though this film is regarded as neo noir
rather than classic film noir, if noir at all (Hitchcock is not prominently
associated with noir). Not only is the feeling eerie, but the fact that we
never get a clear view of within the house, and certain shots such as the
bird’s eye shot of the ‘old lady’ rushing out of the room to kill the
detective, and the same when Norman carries his mother down the staircase, are
techniques used to achieve this uncanny feeling.
Robert
Ebert states that “the very essence of noir is that there are no more heroes.[3]”
The gangsters of noir look back to an earlier life when they used to be ‘good’,
but ultimately their innocence is lost, just like the American post-war
soldiers. Out of the Past (1947) begins with Jeff the protagonist in a
small simple town, having already tried to escape his dark past. The truth
catches up with him and he returns to the city to clear up the mess he made,
but he comes back, still with hope of escaping; what follows is doom. Another
example of nostalgic longing in noir is On Dangerous Ground (1952).
Troubled cop Jim is sent to the snowy countryside to solve a murder case, and
there he meets love. After the case is solved he returns to the city, but in
order to be with Mary and achieve happiness he comes back to the countryside
(the snow and the countryside represent simplicity and purity). Though there is
no doom here, Mary, who is completely innocent, is blind. We feel sorry for
her, and it might be that handicap stresses virtue and goodness (there is also
a deaf boy in Out of the Past).
Another
example of handicap playing a key role is in The Spiral Staircase (1945)
by Robert Siodmak who is a German noir director of Polish origin. The old
silent film at the beginning is a great reference to the past and establishes
right away that Helen loves the past and is somehow stuck in it. It turns out
that she is a mute and thus is unable to escape and live in the present. The
Doctor then drives her home from the cinema in a horse and cart even though
there were cars at this time of course. This use of prop locks her further in
the past. The staircase itself is also of course a key to the past, since many
things happened on it which caused the present impasse. The past is not
necessarily purely lovely, but is also filled with dark secrets. This
traumatises Helen and turns her into a mute.
Flashback
is a key technique used in many noir films in order to go back to the past. Out
of the Past, already mentioned, consists of flashbacks. Dead Reckoning
(1947) is another film, told half in flashback by Captain Rip Murdock as he
looks for his friend who has just returned from the war. Rip doesn’t understand
anything as his friend was a good guy, but as he furthers his investigation he
uncovers his friend’s secret-filled past. The Anti-Semite noir film, Crossfire
(1947) is also composed of flashbacks to the war. There is plentiful use of
shadows and harsh lighting demonstrating the effect of Expressionist influence,
though Dmytryk himself stated that it was simply cheaper and “a lot
faster to light the people and then throw a couple of big shadows on the wall.[4]” Recognised as one
of the first Hollywood films to deal with racial
bigotry, Crossfire doesn’t just mirror the social problem in America
but highlights it and by turning it into a message, calls for, or attempts to
call for change. Shot entirely at night, it is as though the soldiers are only
able to survive in darkness; in the shabby apartment, the theatre, in
nightclubs etc. These gloomy settings which emphasise loneliness are typical
characteristics of film noir; they “construct a frightening alternative, a life
of permanent impermanence, to the settled, middle-class existence that was
ordinarily purveyed by a Hollywood formerly preoccupied, for sound business
reasons, with picturing ‘sunlit pastures[5]’”, in other words
portraying the true American mood dominated by “dread and terror.[6]”
The
dialogue in Crossfire consists of soldiers’ slang, and this is an
obvious link to their immediate past. Another example of language linking to
the past is in The Enforcer (1951). Gangster terminology such as “a
hit”, “a hitman” and “a contract” were not familiar terms back in the 50s to
either the characters or the audience, so the protagonist, D.A Martin’s
confusion as to what these terms mean highlights a sense of nostalgia, looking
back to simpler, more innocent times before the war. There is also empathy
created, not just in The Enforcer but in any film where simple and
honest people are killed by gangsters, which also mirrors the pointlessness of
the war which had killed so many million people and raised a sense of “the
possibility of sudden, undeserved death[7]”
among the people.
Some
unique devices not mentioned yet used either to escape into or escape from the
past are, for example, in The Dark Passage (1947) where a literal
escape from the past has been attempted through plastic surgery. Vincent, the
protagonist who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence undergoes
illicit surgery as his face is too well known in order for him to get anywhere.
Until after his surgery the entire film has been shot from Vincent’s eye view.
The same method of filming has been used in Lady in the Lake (1947)
throughout the entire film. Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) uses the dummy
technique as a bizarre way into the past. Perhaps due to the increasing
popularity of psychotherapy at the time, Freudian ideas and concepts recur in
several of Hitchcock’s films, for example in Spellbound (1945).
Psychoanalysis is used to open the locked doors within the patient, Peck’s mind
and reveal truths and forgotten events from his past. Similarly to the case of
Helen in The Spiral Staircase (1945), the past has both tangled up and
(later) freed the mind. Usually in noir it is a detective who investigates and
digs up the past.
Though
it is more ‘new wave’ than film noir, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
certainly has strong aspects of noir. It is a clash between the past and the
present, the power of the past and memory. The documentary style conjures up
the past of the war and is haunting; the music and slow pace add to this.
Resnais was influenced by Casablanca Casablanca France . It can be suggested that obsession with the past was a
European thing which travelled with European directors (such as Siodmak) to
America and in a way travelled back with some of them and also influenced other
up and coming French and German directors (e.g. Wim Wenders – Wings of
Desire (1987)). Vertigo, like Hiroshima Mon Amour, also has
the feature of repetition (though its being film noir is debatable) and is
preoccupied with the past; an action recalls a place and a painting recalls a
time long ago, the protagonist, Scottie, has to go back to the place and repeat
the action – this is ultimate noir.
Eyes
Wide Shut (1999) has been described as a
neo-noir film, with traits such as slow speed, a haunting quality and a sense
of mysteriousness perhaps connected with the
past. As it is based on Schnitzler’s Dream Story it looks backs to 1900 Vienna , though it is set in modern-day New York . The past has been evoked firstly through music by
composers such as Mozart and Liszt (also the Romanian Orthodox Liturgy), and
secondly through costume; the masks worn in the ritual scene reminds us of 18th
century Venice , whose carnivals are famous and shown in paintings. The
Good German (2006) is also a clear neo-noir film. It is in black and white,
and the music is reminiscent of the 40s and 50s. The past is recreated by bits
of old newsreels (like in Hiroshima Mon Amour), by the ruins of the
city, the costumes and the cars, and by old newspapers. The unusual camera
angles and profiles are similar to those of film noir and German Expressionism.
Lost innocence is a major theme (the final scene is strongly reminiscent of Casablanca Hiroshima
also blasted openings into a netherworld of consciousness where victory and
defeat, enemy and self, threatened to merge[8]”, the ‘netherworld
of consciousness’ in which the “distinction between traditional values
disappeared is also an apt description of the moral atmosphere of film noir.”
To
conclude, film noir and neo noir convey a strong sense of the past; usually
doom which mirrors how things really were in America after the war along with a nostalgic longing for a simpler
past and/or more innocent self. Expressionist techniques such as combinations
of extremely high and long angle shots, vivid lighting, shadows, distorted
perspectives and detailed set designs and complicated plots help achieve the
“sense of limitless darkness[9].”
Flashbacks are often used in noir films to connect to the past, and several
other devices have been discussed such as dialogue, costume, music, soldiers as
characters, empathy created by innocence being killed or handicapped,
psychoanalysis, and so on. The protagonists, often “guilt-ridden loners[10]” can never escape
from the “lawlessness and moral uncertainty of the dark city” or go back to who
they used to be. Thus, they “can inhabit only a present that is always already
in the past.” As in Raymond Chandler’s novels, what seemed to be idyllic times
were not actually so because dark secrets were hidden
which have now to be exposed. Almost all 50s noir films referring to the war,
the genre became a space for the soldiers and all others disillusioned and
haunted who couldn’t explain their feelings to their families (indeed,
domesticity had broken down after the war due to women being increasingly
employed in the war effort) to express themselves. While the gangster films of
the 20s and 30s reflected the events going on in America ,
film noir “attacked and interpreted its sociological conditions.[11]”
Bibliography
Bould, Mark (2005). Film Noir: From Berlin Sin City London and New
York : Wallflower
Film Noir Reader 2, essay called British Film Noir, by Tony
Williams
Ebert, Roger “Batman” http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920619/REVIEWS/206190301/1023
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-edward-dmytryk-1103882.html
The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, Moral
Man in the Dark City, Film Noir, the
Postwar Religios Revival, and The Accused R.Barton Palmer
William S. Graebner, The
Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (New York: Twayne,
1991)
Jason W. Ellis, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America
and the Disillusionment of Generation [Amherst :
University of Massachusetts
Film Noir, Andrew Spicer Noir
Style
Film Noir Reader, Paul Shrader, Notes on Film Noir
Filmography
Casablanca (1942) Michael Curtiz
Spellbound (1945) Alfred Hitchcock
The Spiral Staircase (1945) Robert Siodmak
Crossfire (1947) Edward Dmytryk
The Dark Passage (1947) Delmer Daves
Dead Reckoning (1947) John Cromwell
Lady in the Lake (1947) Robert Montgomery
Out of the Past (1947) Jacques Tourneur
The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed
The Enforcer (1951) James Fargo
On Dangerous Ground (1952) Nicholas Ray
Vertigo (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) Alain Resnais
Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Stanley Kubrick
The Good German (2006) Steven Soderbergh
Spellbound (1945) Alfred Hitchcock
The Spiral Staircase (1945) Robert Siodmak
Crossfire (1947) Edward Dmytryk
The Dark Passage (1947) Delmer Daves
Dead Reckoning (1947) John Cromwell
Lady in the Lake (1947) Robert Montgomery
Out of the Past (1947) Jacques Tourneur
The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed
The Enforcer (1951) James Fargo
On Dangerous Ground (1952) Nicholas Ray
Vertigo (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) Alain Resnais
Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Stanley Kubrick
The Good German (2006) Steven Soderbergh
[1] Bould, Mark (2005).
Film Noir: From Berlin Sin City London and New
York : Wallflower, p. 13
[2] Film Noir Reader 2,
essay called British Film Noir, by Tony Williams, pages 242-3
[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-edward-dmytryk-1103882.html
[5] The Philosophy of
Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, Moral Man in the Dark City, Film Noir,
the Postwar Religios Revival, and The Accused R.Barton Palmer, p. 189
[6] as above, p. 188
[7] William S.
Graebner, The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (New
York: Twayne, 1991), 19-20, 19.
[8] Jason W. Ellis, The
End of Victory Culture: Cold War America
and the Disillusionment of Generation [Amherst :
University of Massachusetts
[9] Film Noir, Andrew
Spicer Noir Style p. 62
[10] The Philosophy of
Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, Moral Man in the Dark City, Film Noir,
the Postwar Religios Revival, and The Accused R.Barton Palmer, p. 193
[11] Film Noir Reader,
Paul Shrader, Notes on Film Noir, p. 63
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