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

(Loretta Young), a judge’s daughter. He is indeed a fugitive war criminal and his escape to
the United States was engineered by government agents in the hopes of trailing the zealous
Nazi to his superiors. Assaulted by the constant probings of Wilson (Edward G. Robinson),
one of the agents from his Nazi past, Kindler has no other alternative but to dispose of the
unwanted government agent. The film contains many expressive symbols from a semiotic
perspective, though it is an unusual noir movie. From the opening sequence, the moody
tension is evoked in a small-town environment. The South American ports through which
we see a Nazi official being stalked by agents create a dramatic crescendo; the beautiful
woods are converted into a powerful whirlpool of swirling leaves that reveal the body
Kindler furiously tries to cover up; a death-trap involving a high ladder; and, finally, the
huge dark clock tower 71 with medieval statues that looms over the little village and which,
in a frenetic climax at the end of the film, plays a deadly part for Kindler (he falls to his
death impaled by the clock mechanism).
Forced to follow the control of his producers (Welles found himself under the direct
authority of independent producer Sam Spiegel), Welles took on a screenplay written by
others (namely Anthony Veiller) and filmed The Stranger with the desired efficiency. Even
so, he managed to take his visual style a step further and created some visually fresh and
striking images. In fact, the movie reveals many more stylistic characteristics of film noir
with other instances of low-key lighting, asymmetric or dramatic compositions, and radical
camera angles, when compared to The Big Clock, for example. Despite using visually
uninspiring sets - much of the action is unfolded in the streets of the village, Rankin’s
house and the church (the central and dominant feature) - cinematographer Russell Metty,
stimulated by the bold chiaroscuro of early film noir, was able to introduce a more fluid
element in the film. Instead of using deep focus and potent lights, Metty opted to create
unstable visual compositions with lighting that brought the human figure into austere
emphasis – even in the great scenes of Rankin alone in the woods at night – to the
detriment of facial detail. Metty’s contribution and Welles’s touch on some arresting visual
scenes infused The Stranger with intense dramatic tension that is present throughout the
narrative of the film.
A complex mystery story, involving a puzzle-within-a-puzzle, The Lady from
Shanghai is yet another imaginative and creative film noir, with fascinating visuals and
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The symbol of the clock reminds us of John Farrow’s The Big Clock (see subchapter “Against the Clock”
p. 279).
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