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

sequences and the several cynical exchanges of dialogue, the rain and mist as if to
underline the evil and oppression that exist in this world, the games of light and shadow
inherited – as we will see later – from German Expressionism, the guns and trench coats,
and so forth.
The use of language and tone both in the novel and in the film are also very
significant. In the form, the tone, the rhythm, and the tension that the protagonists give to
the film, like for instance, the disdain and provocation that exist between Marlowe and
Vivian Sternwood (Lauren Bacall) or the irony and rudeness between Marlowe and his
antagonists. In terms of content, the constant verbal sparring lead the characters either to
seduction or to aggression. Towards the end of the film, when order seems to be
established, Vivian observes: “You’ve forgotten one thing… me!” The camera zooms in
on both Bogart and Bacall. He asks her in a very cool way: “What’s wrong with you?” And
between the lines, she says: “Nothing you can’t fix”.
If Hammett wrote about a world he knew (among his various jobs, the work of a
Pinkerton investigator enriched his stock of experiences) in a tight and vernacular style that
seemed to him the appropriate medium for his embittered characters, plots and settings,
Chandler was not so contemptuous in his style. For the former, his writing style evokes an
entire mood, using action to propel the story, or as Chandler once wrote:
Hammett wrote (…) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were
not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay
them; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of
people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse. (…) He put these
people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the
language they customarily used for these purposes. (Chandler 1995:66)
For the latter, the way the story is told is often more important than what the story
is about. After all, as Chandler once wrote in a letter to the editor of a magazine, “The most
durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can
make with his time (...)” (in Gardiner & Walker 1962:75), and his style, together with
Hemingway’s, is still very much imitated when it comes to detective or hard-boiled crime
stories. Chandler’s dramatic writing attracted the attention of Hollywood filmmakers and
in 1943 he went to work as a scriptwriter for Paramount. He then worked on films which
have attained classic status today, such as Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia, and
Strangers on a Train (1951). Also, in 1947, Chandler saw his Lady in the Lake being
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