Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

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Humphrey Bogart. This film, like the ones mentioned above, establishes Gabin as the quintessential French tough guy. Michael Atkinson writes: Thus, Pépé le Moko isn’t merely a movie to be savored for its own pleasures, but for the way it resonates with the pop-culture past and future. Before it, gangsters were inviolate and interesting only in their viciousness, and their timely deaths were moral objects lessons. Hardened men jeopardized both in the outside world and in their own guarded psyches were merely law-abiding frontier loners or courageous working stiffs, like western heroes or Clark Gable in Red Dust and China Seas (both of which contribute to Pépé’s basic structure). The edges of the rational commonwealth were clear-cut – not muddy, as they are in the Casbah – and the role of the self-defined man easy to accept. Certainly, before Pépé the true anti-hero – the rational man whose moral code conflicts with society, and whose destiny is marked by an ongoing argument with the world – is difficult to find in movies. (Atkinson 1999:76) Pépé’s moral codes certainly go against those of the society, as Atkinson notes, and it is this central character who provides an equivocal portrayal of the human condition (the “ongoing argument with the world”), just like Jean in Quai des Brumes. The existential angst expressed in these films was their most important thematic trope, along with their radical inclination to explore issues of political, racial and class conflict. The misty lights, the wet cobblestones, the long-treed pavements lining the road out of town, the truth-seeking characters, the idea that nothing in life is more important than passion, all these elements present in the narrative of these films helped to define a national cinema of the 1930s which would later be embraced by Hollywood in noir productions. After all, “This stylised realism of the mise-en-scène is matched by the poetic symbolism within the narrative” (Hayward 2006:151). From the character’s point of view, the almost inevitable failure of all projects for escape or evasion and the acceptance of ineluctable fate are all heavily imbricated in the narrative. In the poetic realist films described above, the film’s diegesis is so constructed as to put the degeneration in the male protagonist on display. There is no place for heroism, no place for significant action. In fact, what travels into film noir from French Poetic Realism is a personal philosophy of despair, a sense of helplessness. This is even further emphasised by the setting and lighting, gestures and movement in such a way as to mark this degeneration. In the case of Pépé le Moko, for example, this is most perceptible in the photography which is categorically film noir, with its use of shadows and silhouette to create a sense of clandestine underworld menace. This is most probably the reason why 120
the combination of lighting effects was crucial to considerations of mise-en-scène with these films because they draw attention to themselves. These different approaches to expressive lighting, depicting both character and situation, are European cinema of the twenties and thirties vital inheritance to American film noir. 121
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Joaquim da Silva Universidade de Av
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To Antonio, who made this possible.
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Acknowledgements This long journey
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Finally, I owe a huge debt of grati
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keywords abstract Film Noir, genre,
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2 Social and Political Influences o
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2.4 Joseph H. Lewis................
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Figure 42. Force of Evil ..........
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I. Introduction: Paving the Way for
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term that the film industry itself
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about which films themselves consti
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also, in the films’ fundamental n
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American films after the Nazi occup
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we also find a disruption of the wo
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oth in these French productions of
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Hollywood feature films but it did
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throughout this work); and c) to di
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odies, or as killers and crooks, bu
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these films was to confer on them a
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writer, director, producer, and art
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cinema does not have the power of
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Before working on The Dark Mirror,
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y taking it “from the outside.”
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and many, if not most, films would
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1.1.1 Dashiell Hammett In 1929, Das
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tough appearance, by their occupati
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Apart from “The Continental Op”
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unsettling when for example shootin
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1.1.2 Raymond Chandler Raymond Chan
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Figure 4. The Big Sleep the chaotic
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eleased to the big screen by MGM wi
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most fastidious visions of London i
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hometowns and move into bigger citi
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Double Indemnity started the trend
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has happened, but, as if hypnotized
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destructive, or used by stronger wo
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Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) into a noir
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Home (1937) - were two living proof
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which collapses the distinction bet
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Figure 10. Deadline at Dawn Alex’
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1.1.6 William Riley Burnett Another
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Figure 11. High Sierra The Asphalt
Page 85 and 86: 1.1.7 Conclusions What made the det
Page 87 and 88: fiction managed to provide for a de
Page 89 and 90: escalation in illegal drinking plac
Page 91 and 92: Ben Hecht story and despite being p
Page 93 and 94: Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?”
Page 95 and 96: The third originating gangster movi
Page 97 and 98: part of the recurrent patterns of v
Page 99 and 100: protagonist of Edgar Ulmer’s Deto
Page 101 and 102: exemplify in Part III (“Space and
Page 103 and 104: 1.3 The Gothic Romance 87 And trave
Page 105 and 106: titlecard when the film opens alert
Page 107 and 108: In Rebecca the beautiful, desirable
Page 109 and 110: forties. Thematically, the represen
Page 111 and 112: To complicate this matter further,
Page 113 and 114: trampled under by war and revolutio
Page 115 and 116: he says, when Expressionism ended,
Page 117 and 118: These early Expressionist films, wi
Page 119 and 120: student, Balduin (Paul Wegener hims
Page 121 and 122: (Tragedy of the Street, 1927, aka W
Page 123 and 124: plots with calculating precision. G
Page 125 and 126: perverted and neurotic sex murderer
Page 127 and 128: 1.5 French Poetic Realism Poetic Re
Page 129 and 130: (Michèle Morgan), whose godfather
Page 131 and 132: strikingly atmospheric view of the
Page 133 and 134: Jean Paulhan, editor of La Nouvelle
Page 135: Julien Duvivier’s Pépé Le Moko
Page 139 and 140: peculiar expressionistic lighting a
Page 141 and 142: Figure 28. Son of Frankenstein This
Page 143 and 144: Figure 29. Murders in the Rue Morgu
Page 145 and 146: alienation mixed with nuanced perfo
Page 147 and 148: 2 Social and Political Influences o
Page 149 and 150: Liberal reforms soon became a spuri
Page 151 and 152: Polonsky, Jules Dassin, and Edward
Page 153 and 154: which are themselves historical eve
Page 155 and 156: Production Code Administration. Thi
Page 157 and 158: In this particular case, one can se
Page 159 and 160: Neff: Will you be here too? Phyllis
Page 161 and 162: against any possible theft of groce
Page 163 and 164: 2.3 Postwar Readjustment If the moo
Page 165 and 166: In this group of films, the bleak a
Page 167 and 168: explain, these noir heroes of the f
Page 169 and 170: (Gilda, White Heat, Scarlet Street,
Page 171 and 172: seething excitations” and adds th
Page 173 and 174: Romanticism present at the very hea
Page 175 and 176: to persist and overcome difficultie
Page 177 and 178: III. Noir Thematics 1 Essential Ele
Page 179 and 180: its modernist sensibility, enabled
Page 181 and 182: Wyatt), cooks breakfast, domestic r
Page 183 and 184: structures of constituted authority
Page 185 and 186: 1.2 Space and the Noir City Film no
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other people and developing a calcu
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I am the city. Hub and heart of Ame
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1.3 Trouble With Girls: The Femme F
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intelligent and powerful, if destru
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significant discussion of film noir
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Nevertheless, the message is quite
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Another example of the evolution of
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deceiving women. Like many of their
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Either as a femme fatale or an homm
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1.5 Dazed and Confused: The Voiceov
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an impersonal “you” giving the
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of war veterans who, unfolding thei
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1.6 Noir Atmospherics: Cinematograp
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John Alton’s highly stylised phot
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Figure 41. Stranger on the Third Fl
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indoctrination in the movie in the
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in the popular imagination. While t
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1.7 Sounds of the City: Jazz Soundt
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music, combines with images of patr
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Figure 45. Out of the Past Non-dieg
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ealm of near-explicit sexual metaph
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the two, affirming that “Jazz is
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City, Paramount’s Union Station a
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In my analysis of The Big Combo in
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Consequently, in the fifties, we st
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2 Noir and the Film Auteur 2.1 Aute
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noticeably the case, for example, w
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point out the fact that it is only
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elationship to the way a director t
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2.1.1 Billy Wilder Billy Wilder pla
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performance is full of understated
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Figure 54. Sunset Boulevard Wilder
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Figure 55. Ace in the Hole All of B
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2.1.2 Orson Welles He may have only
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For example, in the scene above (fi
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As Leo Braudy in The World in a Fra
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slanting compositions, and brillian
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2.1.3 Otto Preminger Austrian film
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plans, June still shows her love fo
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Figure 61. Where the Sidewalk Ends
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project my viewpoint on the audienc
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postulated as the “doctrine of si
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pouvait espérer sortir de la déno
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I am at the barber's, and a copy of
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certain community, our subjective r
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interpretant” (Stam 1992:6). Here
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The notion of “text” as a disco
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only agree that these disciplines s
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2 The Universe of Motifs and Symbol
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Andrew Sarris once wrote that “If
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exception to this rule, his movies
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independent production companies in
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Figure 66. Double Indemnity In the
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Figure 67. Scarlet Street The symbo
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contorted Expressionistic grimace,
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Figure 70. Metropolis The clock mot
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Figure 71. Strangers on a Train The
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“When I was young I wanted to be
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themselves in the projection of inn
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woman in the portrait throughout I
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scenes as the attachment is purely
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(namely The Spiral Staircase and Ou
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Chris meets by accident, is a hellc
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2.1.1.4 Conclusion All in all, ther
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Question: Scarlet Street had the sa
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an accepted and well-known screenwr
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Siodmak’s next two films for Univ
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money from Dundee. A more harrowing
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2.2.1 The Spiral Staircase (1946) a
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here increased by the unsteady blac
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Figure 83. The Spiral Staircase Thi
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Warren, making either of them the p
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2.2.1.2 The “Optical Unconscious
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camera is expressive, as it informs
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ordering” - appears to match this
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eyewitness, but at the same time, a
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Figure 87. The Spiral Staircase Bas
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While Cross implicitly acknowledges
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Figure 89. Affair in Trinidad Other
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However, much of this iconography t
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long, wooden staircase while trying
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Figure 93. The Spiral Staircase Fig
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of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The B
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almost part of a game, emphasising
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2.3 Jacques Tourneur Born in Paris
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a laughing audience), and broken la
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violent mishaps could have led to h
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writers like Dashiell Hammett (who,
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Chuck Tatum, a cynical, frustrated
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on, Ann, who represents his hope fo
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This kind of temporal manipulation
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ought forward by the characters of
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found Kathie: “I was glad it was
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Figure 102. Out of the Past In this
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Figure 104. The Lady from Shanghai
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Jeff: Give him time. Kathie: You ar
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Figure 106. Out of the Past The sce
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Gun Crazy, a barrage of police gunf
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2.4 Joseph H. Lewis Considered as a
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untold storied of ordinary men and
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through windows, to provide the ind
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2.4.1 The Big Combo (1955) and the
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of most noir films including The Bi
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2.4.1.1 “First is First and Secon
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In The Big Combo the unconscious tr
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It is not only in terms of narrativ
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Although the idea is not to go into
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Figure 113. Scarlet Street Neff’s
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2.4.1.2 The Big Combo and Generic T
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and knowing they are both surrounde
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As the noir movement entered the la
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V. Conclusions: 1 Genre Revisited T
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on social aspects through a dramati
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Buscombe is right: if we take a gen
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constructions that make it difficul
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Such factors have been scrutinised
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Thematically, noir films as a group
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While enforcement of the Production
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are “as often nihilistic, cynical
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which is normally not associated wi
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morality brought about by these noi
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It is within this cinematic and cri
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____________ (1994). The Semiotic C
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____________ (1992b). Farewell, My
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E Easthope, Antony (1993). Contempo
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Greenberg, Joel & Higham, Charles (
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James, David E. (2005). The Most Ty
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Malkiewicz, Kris (1986). Film Light
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N Naremore, James (1978). The Magic
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Polan, Dana (1986). Power and Paran
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____________ (2006). Ava Gardner:
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Sullivan, Ellie (1986). Jacques Lac
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Wilson, Edmund (1962). Classics and
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Appendix I: Annotated Filmography T
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Beware, My Lovely RKO 1952. Prod: C
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Christmas Holiday Univ 1944. Prod:
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Dark Corner, The Fox 1946. Prod: Fr
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Framed Col 1947. Prod: Jules Schern
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House on 92 nd Street, The Fox 1945
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Killing, The UA 1956. Prod: James B
Page 467 and 468:
Mildred Pierce WB 1945. Prod: Jerry
Page 469 and 470:
One Way Street Univ 1950. Prod: Leo
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Repeat Performance EL 1947. Prod: A
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Stranger, The RKO 1946. Prod: S.P.
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Unsuspected, The WB 1947. Prod: Cha
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B) Other Relevant Filmography The f
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Last Laugh, The ScreenSound 1924. P
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Appendix II The Motion Picture P
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VIII. Religion 1. No film or episod
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B. By reason of the mobility of fil
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Reasons Underlying the Particular A
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VIII. Religion The reason why minis
Page 491 and 492:
146, 152, 186, 192, 229, 250, 298,
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high-contrast, 11, 46, 172 Highway
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350, 352, 353, 354, 356, 357, 359,
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Walsh, Raoul, 56, 57, 66, 73, 223,
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