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

the two, affirming that “Jazz is the music of sex: subtle, ardent, the drumbeat marking the
boundaries of a space in which the instruments and voices slide, coil and intertwine:
question and answer, solo and chorus, advance and retreat” (in Butler 2002:34). As we
have seen, the other type of jazz played in movies like D.O.A. is normally integrated within
the overall narrative of the film. In such cases, the music is played by bands in seedy
nightclubs and bars and the tunes tend to be much gloomier and slower, in a more
pounding and disorienting style, totally fitting the mood and context of the film. Even
soundtracks which were more orchestral in nature make use of jazz instruments, as is the
case of the slow howling saxophone over a Robert Mitchum voiceover in Out of the Past.
In conclusion, noir movies would certainly lose a lot without the contribution of
jazz soundtracks. Most importantly for these films the improvisations of jazz may have
served to clarify issues of cultural and social, and even sexual identity. Moreover, jazz and
the representation of lurid nightclubs of D.O.A. or The Killers, for example, are deemed to
be entirely appropriate locations for their doomed protagonists. The understanding of
American jazz in the period 1920 to 1950 conforms to some extent to the racially separate
cultural norms of the time. Thus, jazz was marked as dangerous and animalistic, a voice of
the menacing but alluring city.
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