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

phantasmagoria of their shadows, looming back, wavering ceiling-high on the
walls. It was the actuality of their faces, possessed, demonic, peering out here and
there on sudden notes, then seeming to recede again. It was the gin and marihuana
cigarettes, filling the air with haze and flux. It was the wildness that got into them,
that at times made her cower into a far corner (...). (Woolrich 2001:27)
The jazz sequences invariably represent a break in the temporal order, and Siodmak
makes use of this eliminating diegetic dialogue throughout the whole sequence (for about
three minutes) so that jazz benefits from a greater degree of concentration. Shocked upon
first entering the downstairs jazz cellar and seeing the quintet of musicians in the throes of
a full-blooded jazz session, “Kansas” knows she has to act the “loose woman”. When she
looks at herself in the mirror to apply some lipstick, the mirror scene initiates the most
dramatic and overtly sexual part of the whole film. Needless to say, the entire sequence
was perceived as potentially salacious and some specific warnings were given by Joseph
Breen (the then director of the PCA - see p. 138) regarding the sexual nature of the
dialogues, the amount of drinking mentioned in the script and the jazz scene itself.
The libidinous nature of the jazz is barely veiled in metaphor in Phantom Lady. The
type of jazz performed on the noir screen was normally linked with the diegesis and tends
to draw attention to the role of the femmes fatales in these glamorous nightclubs. They
certainly offered charged and up-tempo scenes which served the purpose of reinforcing the
sexiness and enchantment of these female characters, such as Rita Hayworth (in Gilda) or
smoky-voiced Lizabeth Scott, who plays the role of a larcenous lady in Two of a Kind
(1951). These examples show the rhythmic qualities of jazz and the stress given to the beat
or pulse of the bass and drums barely sublimates what many connotations found jazz to be
representative of - primitivism and sexuality. This is Maxim Gorky’s racist evocation of
the animalistic imagery of the “music of the degenerate”:
This insulting chaos of insanity pulses to a throbbing rhythm. Listening for a few
minutes to these wails, one involuntarily imagines an orchestra of sexually driven
madmen conducted by a man-stallion brandishing a huge genital member. The
monstrous bass belches out English words; a wild horn wails piercingly, calling to
mind the cries of a raving camel; a drum pounds monotonously; a nasty little pipe
tears at one’s ears; a saxophone emits its quacking nasal sound. Fleshy hips sway,
and thousands of heavy feet tread and shuffle. (Butler 2002:33)
Since the early styles of jazz, the perceived association of jazz with sex has
continued beyond film noir. Michael Bywater also confirms the parallels that exist between
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