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

Figure 42. Force of Evil
In the film, Joe Morse is a gambling syndicate lawyer unavoidably tied to a set of
ethics that he does not want to fully understand. His fear of failure and his search for easy
money allow him to justify his role in “legalising” a large-scale numbers racket. And the
final scene depicted below (fig. 43) is also metaphorical as it shows how far down Joe
Morse had descended. This brilliant shot shows a truly expressionistic stage, with Morse’s
back to the camera and walking under a bridge with its span of steel girders looming over
the riverbank. Joe plays out here his personal drama, disproportionately small and
oppressed by the dimensions of the bridge, as a manifestation of the power and immensity
of forces arranged against him. The scene acquires a theatrical aura, and as Joe walks
further away beneath the bridge and amongst the debris of stones, the smaller his image
will get, which is entirely appropriate for the way in which Joe has staged his death.
Using noir iconography and characterisation in “a near-perfect fugue of visual and
aural poetry” (Dickos 2002:73), as Dickos points out, Polonsky was able to cloak his leftist
social criticism within the melodramatic framework of gangsterism and corruption. Force
of Evil was accused of extolling socialism, or even of directly attacking capitalism. 58
Polonsky was driven out of the movie industry as soon as the film was completed (he was
required to appear in court by the HUAC and was blacklisted), accused of deploying leftist
58 Initially titled “Number Rackets”, Roberts Production acceded to the demands of the Motion Picture Code
Administration not to use any title incorporating the phrase “numbers racket”.
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