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

2.4.1.2 The Big Combo and Generic Transformation
The Big Combo preserves its elusiveness as to sexual identity until the very last
scene of the film, in which we see Diamond and Susan walking together (but not touching)
in an airplane hangar. This atmospheric shot by John Alton becomes as important as the
plot resolution of the film, as it shows the couple disappearing into a gloomy, allenveloping
fog (fig. 115). The scene is emphatically symbolic: the thick layers of bleak fog
keep them confined and separated, even though liberated from Mr Brown. The scene
projects their future which, although not clear, still shows some light. Intended to endorse
Susan’s choice of the ambivalent personal and professional attraction of Diamond over the
dominant, unchanged masculinity of Brown, it fails to contradict what has gone before.
Figure 115. The Big Combo
The symbology of the fog is also extremely powerful in this film from a semiotic
perspective. If in most noir productions we are often in the rain, for example, as one of the
most distinctive visual elements of film noir, the symbol of fog here constitutes the
uncertainty the characters are confronted with. The indistinguishable blurred images (one
can just see a wheel barrow on the left corner) and the faded lights are further accentuated
by the imperceptible noises and sounds that surround the premises. The black and white
colours signify their emotion state of vagueness and ambiguity, and their posture (both
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