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

2.2 Robert Siodmak
Born at the turn of a new century, August 8, 1900 in Dresden, Germany, Robert
Siodmak was “a sensible and reliable director,” as he liked to call himself. During the ten
years he worked in Hollywood (1941-1951), Siodmak produced 23 movies, ranging from
extensively admired thrillers and period dramas to several of the most influential noirs of
the forties, including The Killers and Criss Cross. Yet, as Joseph Greco notes, his name
has never truly come to prominence, at least not in the same way as Alfred Hitchcock’s, a
man with whom he was compared as a possible rival. Having said that, interestingly
enough, Siodmak once said that,
Making a film is a matter of cooperation. If you look at the final credits, which
nobody reads except for insiders, then you are surprised to see how many
colleagues you had who took care of all the details. Everyone says, “I made the
film” and doesn’t realize that in the case of a success all branches of film making
contributed to it. The director, of course, has everything under control. (in Greco
1999:4)
From the auteur perspective, in fact, Siodmak has long been seen as a mere
“assignment director,” never an artist in complete control of his work. However, he
undeniably brought many positive aspects of his German cinema background to his
projects and directed some very accomplished noir films. Stylistically, his films make use
of innovative cinematic techniques, namely deep focussing, multiple flashbacks, and
Expressionistic lighting. They often address modern themes such as psychological trauma
and aberrant behaviour (The Dark Mirror, 1946), crime, gender conflicts, domestic strife,
and violence and professional gangsterism (Cry of the City, 1948), revealing a notable
influence from Central European currents of ideas, as do his fellow expatriates from
Germany and Austria (Preminger, Lang, and Wilder).
Siodmak’s European films were not particularly appreciated in America and he was
reconciled to becoming a journeyman director of “B” features for different studios. He then
achieved a long-term contract with Universal in 1943, where his brother Curt already was
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