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

makes the sexual relation impossible; if it existed this signifier would be the signifier for
woman. Throughout The Big Combo the film constructs a different sort of fictional world
which is also translated into the crude sexuality of the film. It is difficult for Lieutenant
Diamond, as a classical detective, to have any involvement with a woman. He is in love
with Susan from afar, and in this regard, he may remind us of Lt. McPherson (Dana
Andrews) in Laura, especially in that quiet evening when he is alone with Laura’s portrait,
dreaming – only to have her become visible upon awakening. On the other hand, the
torture scenes may reflect, as many viewers suspect, the s/m homosexual crush that
Diamond has on Mr Brown, giving the film a twisted, dark noir undertone. Similarly, it is
implausible for Diamond, as a noir hero, to escape such involvement with Susan Lowell.
The choice that Diamond faces is not between two people, his chief and a lover, but
between the world of classical detection and film noir. Out of the many films analysed
throughout this study, the detective comes to identify more and more closely with his
criminal opponent. Some good examples, to cite a few, are Double Indemnity, where Neff
(Fred MacMurray) is both investigator and murderer and his colleague, Barton Keyes
(Edward G. Robinson), is a tenacious chief investigator who possesses a heartless and
absolutist morality (clearly stressed when he becomes upset at the company’s inefficiency
and poorly-researched claims); the dilemma of Nightfall’s protagonist Vanning (Aldo Ray)
and his distorted point-of-view in his fight to figure out how such past occurrences have
put him in such a perilous situation; or even William Wyler’s Detective Story (1951),
where a resentful cop, Det. Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas), leads his bleak daily battle with
the city’s lowlifes in his confined police precinct, which contributes to the underlying
thematic plunge and ultimately to the film’s disturbing power.
The interpretation that is required for the detective to put together the evidence to
solve the crime may be said to be at the same level as the concept of desire expressed by
Jacques Lacan. In fact, Lacan’s désir, which follows Freud’s concept of Wunsch, aims
precisely at uncovering the truth, just as the detective manifests his desire in interpreting
the clues. However, as Lacan states, an interpretation has certain effects which are not
(necessarily) understood as a psychoanalytic interpretation. In this way the noir detective,
just like Lieutenant Diamond, may busy himself with the task of ignoring desire and taking
the evidence literally, conflating signifiers and signifieds.
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