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

Figure 51. Scenes from He Walked by Night
In conclusion, although critics affirm that semi-documentary films are not an
integral part of the noir cycle (Jon Tuska goes so far as to claim that “most of these
pseudo-documentaries, in terms of their narrative structure, are the very antithesis of film
noir” [Tuska 1984:192]), it is fair to recognise that the documentary style influenced the
late forties and early fifties productions, a style which was gradually included into noir
narratives. In the space of a mere three years, from 1948 to 1951, an inspiring
incorporation of on-location and documentary footage were introduced in noir films such
as the ones described above. Many others followed suit: Polonsky’s Force of Evil, Mann’s
Side Street, Kazan’s Panic in the Streets, Barry’s He Ran All the Way, to cite just some. In
all of them, Krutnik argues, “the machinery of official detection – where the individual and
the libido tend to be wrapped-in, and penned-in by, the rules – can be directly
counterposed, for example, to the individualism and intuitive action of the private eye”
(Krutnik 1991:207). Again, one should not ignore either, as Nicholas Christopher put it,
that “the theme of the wanderer, the loner, the nightbird, the urban American isolated with
and by his machines as a member (or piece) of an ever-fragmenting society, is very much a
noir theme” (Christopher 1997:91). The disquietude of film noir, however, has usually
been of another, more inflexible and less comforting, reality.
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