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

2.3.1.2 The Split Screen Effect: Mise­en­Abyme
Apart from the use of numerous flashbacks, Out of the Past is also interpretable in
terms of “frames” and the “framing” of Kathie. The issue is raised when Jeff sees Kathie
for the first time, which bears out Whit’s earlier remark: “I just want her back; when you
see her, you’ll understand better”. In fig. 101 below, we see her through the protagonist’s
eyes, as he memorably describes, through a flashback, his first encounter with the
seductive femme fatale.
Figure 101. Out of the Past
Dressed in white and showing a sensual silhouette as she crosses a sunlit plaza in
Acapulco (contrasting with the dark cantina she enters), she seems surrounded by an aura
of illusion reinforced by the sunlight that shapes her. Jeff, who has just awakened from a
doze at his table, is hypnotised and smitten: “And then I saw her, coming out of the sun,
and I knew why Whit didn’t care about that forty grand.” All these attributes are then
reflected back at her from the masculine world of brutal financial power, exemplified by
the appropriately named Whit Sterling. Still in an enthralled voiceover, Jeff tells Ann that
he immediately fell in love with Kathie and tells her that he simply was so happy that the
Acapulco telegraph office was closed that day he wanted to wire Whit about him having
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