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

ought forward by the characters of The Killers, for example, during the numerous
flashbacks help us complement the missing pieces that lead to new testimonies. The green
silk handkerchief that was found by Swede’s body and first mentioned by Jim Reardon
(Edmond O’Brien) and held by him is seen repeatedly in several flashbacks as a
metonymic prompt for Kitty’s influence. Swede is in fact identifiable by this “unusual
green handkerchief” with gold harps, which is blown beguilingly to the audience long
before we have a chance of making sense of it.
For all these reasons flashbacks are considered to be more than just the structure of
the narrative in these noir productions; oftentimes, they are referred to as constituting the
enigmatic texture of the film due to the various functions they perform: the fact that the
primary narrative is virtually completed and explained by the expanded incursions into the
past of the noir hero, allowing the viewer to reconstruct the plot and understand what has
occurred and especially the factors that have led the protagonist to be in the present
situation. They hence contribute to a quest for an initiating event or cause as well being
related to the investigative process itself.
Specifically in Out of the Past, they permit the confrontation of two time-frames
which in this case correspond to different and highly contrasted settings and moods (for
example, the negative energy of the city invested in the character of Kathie contrasting
with that of the country where Ann lives with her family). They thus introduce duality and
tension, but simultaneously the “intrusion” of the past may engender a new chain of events,
often on a recurring, almost cyclical basis. Moreover, the flashbacks of this film
concentrate on a certain subjectivity, thus making us share intimacy with Jeff Bailey and
benefitting emotionally from the identification processes. While narrating his past to his
country girlfriend, the audience tends to trust Jeff because of the confessional and intimist
tone of his words. Hence the subversive side of the flashback: the viewer is manipulated
into believing a certain chain of events presented by the character or at least he or she is led
to favour a biased version of them. This aspect relates to the specificity of cinematic pointof-view,
as what is filmed infrequently matches with the perspective of the narrative voice
enunciating the flashback. In Tourneur’s film, moreover, the motivations of the main
protagonist depend upon the circumstances in which the flashback is narrated.
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