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

Neff: Will you be here too?
Phyllis: I usually am.
Neff: Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?
Phyllis: I wonder if I know what you mean.
Neff: I wonder if you wonder.
Other fetishistic objects abound in noir. The indelible image of Rita Hayworth,
sexily tossing her hair, wearing her tight gown, and suggestively unrolling her white long
glove in Gilda (1946) leaves a pronounced air of sexuality loaded with as much sexual
symbolism as the double-entendres of the film dialogues. 46 The white turban over Cora
(Lana Turner)’s head similarly emphasises her sensuality and makes a strong impact on
drifter mechanic Frank Chambers (John Garfield) and audiences alike. In fact, there is a
combination of feminine elements instantly deployed at the first scenes of the film. A
lipstick rolls across the floor of the café towards Frank. We know that he picks it up as, in a
precise movement, the camera tracks back to her nude slender legs as if following Frank’s
eyes from the floor. When he looks at all of her he sees a stunningly sexy woman, all
dressed in white (see p. 52). All bent down, he picks it up and asks her “You dropped this?”
She stands there, simply with her hand outstretched expecting him to bring it over to her.
But he does not; he just holds onto her cosmetic in the palm of his hand as if showing that
he is not about to release her immediately. Their relationship will then depict amour fou,
the kind of love that goes beyond the boundaries of normal relationships.
The techniques of the mise-en-scène, namely the chiaroscuro lighting and the
shadowy visual design that is so characteristic of film noir, are, I believe, a necessary
response to the Code and the war. The type of visual style that marks noir films is attached
to specific conventions of expression, by means of association, to accentuate a bleakly
authentic vision. To support the realism in their stories, directors would use these
systematic procedures which at that time were considered very sophisticated, but which
were also a means to deal with the wartime limitations in the use of light or ways to
camouflage the inferior quality of recycled studio sets. For Double Indemnity, Wilder
recalls:
46 The film is in fact filled with these double-entendres, like the one when casino owner Ballin Mundson
(George Macready) enters the bedroom with Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) to introduce him to his wife:
Mundson: Gilda, are you decent?
Gilda: Me? Sure, I’m decent.
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