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

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Figure 13. Regeneration This squalid view of slum life was filmed mostly on location in New York City which offers a very tangible reality. Both the characters of the big city and the protagonist would constitute some key topics which foreshadowed the (un)heroic noir protagonist, with a sense of tragedy dominating the main character’s life, as I exemplify below. Films such as Underworld (1927) and The Racket (1928) would mark the end of the silent cinema’s treatment of organised crime. The former, directed by Josef von Sternberg, is about bank robber Bull Weed (George Bancroft), who picks up a drunken, down-and-out lawyer, named Rolls Royce (Clive Brook), to help him in the Chicago underworld of crime. Together with moll Feathers McCoy (Evelyn Brent) the trio enjoys the high life in their favourite bar, Dreamland, until it all begins to fall apart. 15 The film was based on a 15 The film presents a character, Bull Weed, who symbolises the archetypal gangster, portrayed by his brutality and animalist behaviour, the interpretative gestures, his mania of flipping a coin through his fingers (just like Rinaldo in Scarface). In the same way, when coming out from the Dreamland Café, Bull reads a lit- 74
Ben Hecht story and despite being predicted to be a failure (to the extent that Hecht wanted to have his name removed from the credits list), it turned out to be a great success, giving Hecht the first of his two Academy Awards. The movie is still written about as the first real gangster movie; and whether one agrees with this or not, the evidence of Sternberg’s rich imagination, expressed in his mixture of realism and German Expressionism, is undeniable. The themes of alienation, betrayal and corruption depicted in this shadowy and moody von Sternberg film all anticipate film noir. Indeed, some other films by Josef von Sternberg are also considered to have influenced the development of film noir. In movies like The Docks of New York (1928) and proto-noir Thunderbolt (1929), the Austrian-born US director evokes an underworld of prostitution, jail and criminality that would constitute the subject matter of many noir productions, like, for example, The Shanghai Gesture (1941), also directed by von Sternberg. In fact, this early noir film explores the decadent lives and secret pasts of all its main protagonists, with its evil, nightmarish, almost Baroque atmosphere holding much of what was to correspond to a standard expression of the noir vision. The latter, The Racket, is a Lewis Milestone film and it tells the story of an honest Irish cop, Captain McQuigg (Thomas Meighan), who will do anything to destroy bootlegger and mobster, Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim), but in vain, however, as political corruption seems to be stronger, letting the Chicago underworld prosper unhindered. Aghast at the law and the city administration, McQuigg takes justice into his own hands. Scarsi (a thinly-veiled Al Capone) is the first modern gangster protagonist, clearly based on real-life gangsters of his day, with political as well as criminal power. It comes as no surprise then that real crime bosses intimidated the star of the film and asked for it to be banned. It was censored in many different theatres across the country, as they were not so eager to see themselves represented on the big screen. Since this movie is lost today, it is not possible to evaluate its visual impact, but what is germane to this discussion is that both of the above features constituted a new defining moment for the gangster film, and by freeing up the use of topical material, often against the orders from moral guardians such as the Hays-Breen Office, they ultimately also had an impact on film noir. Three classic gangster films, following each other one year apart, are still seen today as marking a new film genre and the beginning of a new wave of gangster films, up outdoor “The City is Yours”, establishing a connection with Underworld or Scarface’s similar logo: “The World is Yours”. 75
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Joaquim da Silva Universidade de Av
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To Antonio, who made this possible.
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Acknowledgements This long journey
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Finally, I owe a huge debt of grati
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keywords abstract Film Noir, genre,
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2 Social and Political Influences o
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2.4 Joseph H. Lewis................
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Figure 42. Force of Evil ..........
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I. Introduction: Paving the Way for
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term that the film industry itself
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about which films themselves consti
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also, in the films’ fundamental n
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American films after the Nazi occup
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we also find a disruption of the wo
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oth in these French productions of
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Hollywood feature films but it did
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throughout this work); and c) to di
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odies, or as killers and crooks, bu
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these films was to confer on them a
Page 39 and 40: writer, director, producer, and art
Page 41 and 42: cinema does not have the power of
Page 43 and 44: Before working on The Dark Mirror,
Page 45 and 46: y taking it “from the outside.”
Page 47 and 48: and many, if not most, films would
Page 49 and 50: 1.1.1 Dashiell Hammett In 1929, Das
Page 51 and 52: tough appearance, by their occupati
Page 53 and 54: Apart from “The Continental Op”
Page 55 and 56: unsettling when for example shootin
Page 57 and 58: 1.1.2 Raymond Chandler Raymond Chan
Page 59 and 60: Figure 4. The Big Sleep the chaotic
Page 61 and 62: eleased to the big screen by MGM wi
Page 63 and 64: most fastidious visions of London i
Page 65 and 66: hometowns and move into bigger citi
Page 67 and 68: Double Indemnity started the trend
Page 69 and 70: has happened, but, as if hypnotized
Page 71 and 72: destructive, or used by stronger wo
Page 73 and 74: Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) into a noir
Page 75 and 76: Home (1937) - were two living proof
Page 77 and 78: which collapses the distinction bet
Page 79 and 80: Figure 10. Deadline at Dawn Alex’
Page 81 and 82: 1.1.6 William Riley Burnett Another
Page 83 and 84: Figure 11. High Sierra The Asphalt
Page 85 and 86: 1.1.7 Conclusions What made the det
Page 87 and 88: fiction managed to provide for a de
Page 89: escalation in illegal drinking plac
Page 93 and 94: Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?”
Page 95 and 96: The third originating gangster movi
Page 97 and 98: part of the recurrent patterns of v
Page 99 and 100: protagonist of Edgar Ulmer’s Deto
Page 101 and 102: exemplify in Part III (“Space and
Page 103 and 104: 1.3 The Gothic Romance 87 And trave
Page 105 and 106: titlecard when the film opens alert
Page 107 and 108: In Rebecca the beautiful, desirable
Page 109 and 110: forties. Thematically, the represen
Page 111 and 112: To complicate this matter further,
Page 113 and 114: trampled under by war and revolutio
Page 115 and 116: he says, when Expressionism ended,
Page 117 and 118: These early Expressionist films, wi
Page 119 and 120: student, Balduin (Paul Wegener hims
Page 121 and 122: (Tragedy of the Street, 1927, aka W
Page 123 and 124: plots with calculating precision. G
Page 125 and 126: perverted and neurotic sex murderer
Page 127 and 128: 1.5 French Poetic Realism Poetic Re
Page 129 and 130: (Michèle Morgan), whose godfather
Page 131 and 132: strikingly atmospheric view of the
Page 133 and 134: Jean Paulhan, editor of La Nouvelle
Page 135 and 136: Julien Duvivier’s Pépé Le Moko
Page 137 and 138: the combination of lighting effects
Page 139 and 140: peculiar expressionistic lighting a
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Figure 28. Son of Frankenstein This
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Figure 29. Murders in the Rue Morgu
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alienation mixed with nuanced perfo
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2 Social and Political Influences o
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Liberal reforms soon became a spuri
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Polonsky, Jules Dassin, and Edward
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which are themselves historical eve
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Production Code Administration. Thi
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In this particular case, one can se
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Neff: Will you be here too? Phyllis
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against any possible theft of groce
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2.3 Postwar Readjustment If the moo
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In this group of films, the bleak a
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explain, these noir heroes of the f
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(Gilda, White Heat, Scarlet Street,
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seething excitations” and adds th
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Romanticism present at the very hea
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to persist and overcome difficultie
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III. Noir Thematics 1 Essential Ele
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its modernist sensibility, enabled
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Wyatt), cooks breakfast, domestic r
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structures of constituted authority
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1.2 Space and the Noir City Film no
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other people and developing a calcu
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I am the city. Hub and heart of Ame
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1.3 Trouble With Girls: The Femme F
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intelligent and powerful, if destru
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significant discussion of film noir
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Nevertheless, the message is quite
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Another example of the evolution of
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deceiving women. Like many of their
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Either as a femme fatale or an homm
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1.5 Dazed and Confused: The Voiceov
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an impersonal “you” giving the
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of war veterans who, unfolding thei
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1.6 Noir Atmospherics: Cinematograp
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John Alton’s highly stylised phot
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Figure 41. Stranger on the Third Fl
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indoctrination in the movie in the
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in the popular imagination. While t
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1.7 Sounds of the City: Jazz Soundt
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music, combines with images of patr
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Figure 45. Out of the Past Non-dieg
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ealm of near-explicit sexual metaph
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the two, affirming that “Jazz is
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City, Paramount’s Union Station a
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In my analysis of The Big Combo in
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Consequently, in the fifties, we st
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2 Noir and the Film Auteur 2.1 Aute
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noticeably the case, for example, w
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point out the fact that it is only
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elationship to the way a director t
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2.1.1 Billy Wilder Billy Wilder pla
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performance is full of understated
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Figure 54. Sunset Boulevard Wilder
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Figure 55. Ace in the Hole All of B
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2.1.2 Orson Welles He may have only
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For example, in the scene above (fi
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As Leo Braudy in The World in a Fra
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slanting compositions, and brillian
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2.1.3 Otto Preminger Austrian film
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plans, June still shows her love fo
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Figure 61. Where the Sidewalk Ends
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project my viewpoint on the audienc
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postulated as the “doctrine of si
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pouvait espérer sortir de la déno
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I am at the barber's, and a copy of
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certain community, our subjective r
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interpretant” (Stam 1992:6). Here
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The notion of “text” as a disco
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only agree that these disciplines s
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2 The Universe of Motifs and Symbol
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Andrew Sarris once wrote that “If
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exception to this rule, his movies
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independent production companies in
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Figure 66. Double Indemnity In the
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Figure 67. Scarlet Street The symbo
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contorted Expressionistic grimace,
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Figure 70. Metropolis The clock mot
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Figure 71. Strangers on a Train The
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“When I was young I wanted to be
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themselves in the projection of inn
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woman in the portrait throughout I
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scenes as the attachment is purely
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(namely The Spiral Staircase and Ou
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Chris meets by accident, is a hellc
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2.1.1.4 Conclusion All in all, ther
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Question: Scarlet Street had the sa
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an accepted and well-known screenwr
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Siodmak’s next two films for Univ
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money from Dundee. A more harrowing
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2.2.1 The Spiral Staircase (1946) a
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here increased by the unsteady blac
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Figure 83. The Spiral Staircase Thi
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Warren, making either of them the p
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2.2.1.2 The “Optical Unconscious
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camera is expressive, as it informs
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ordering” - appears to match this
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eyewitness, but at the same time, a
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Figure 87. The Spiral Staircase Bas
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While Cross implicitly acknowledges
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Figure 89. Affair in Trinidad Other
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However, much of this iconography t
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long, wooden staircase while trying
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Figure 93. The Spiral Staircase Fig
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of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The B
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almost part of a game, emphasising
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2.3 Jacques Tourneur Born in Paris
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a laughing audience), and broken la
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violent mishaps could have led to h
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writers like Dashiell Hammett (who,
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Chuck Tatum, a cynical, frustrated
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on, Ann, who represents his hope fo
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This kind of temporal manipulation
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ought forward by the characters of
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found Kathie: “I was glad it was
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Figure 102. Out of the Past In this
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Figure 104. The Lady from Shanghai
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Jeff: Give him time. Kathie: You ar
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Figure 106. Out of the Past The sce
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Gun Crazy, a barrage of police gunf
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2.4 Joseph H. Lewis Considered as a
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untold storied of ordinary men and
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through windows, to provide the ind
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2.4.1 The Big Combo (1955) and the
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of most noir films including The Bi
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2.4.1.1 “First is First and Secon
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In The Big Combo the unconscious tr
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It is not only in terms of narrativ
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Although the idea is not to go into
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Figure 113. Scarlet Street Neff’s
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2.4.1.2 The Big Combo and Generic T
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and knowing they are both surrounde
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As the noir movement entered the la
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V. Conclusions: 1 Genre Revisited T
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on social aspects through a dramati
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Buscombe is right: if we take a gen
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constructions that make it difficul
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Such factors have been scrutinised
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Thematically, noir films as a group
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While enforcement of the Production
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are “as often nihilistic, cynical
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which is normally not associated wi
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morality brought about by these noi
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It is within this cinematic and cri
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____________ (1994). The Semiotic C
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____________ (1992b). Farewell, My
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E Easthope, Antony (1993). Contempo
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Greenberg, Joel & Higham, Charles (
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James, David E. (2005). The Most Ty
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Malkiewicz, Kris (1986). Film Light
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N Naremore, James (1978). The Magic
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Polan, Dana (1986). Power and Paran
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____________ (2006). Ava Gardner:
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Sullivan, Ellie (1986). Jacques Lac
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Wilson, Edmund (1962). Classics and
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Appendix I: Annotated Filmography T
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Beware, My Lovely RKO 1952. Prod: C
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Christmas Holiday Univ 1944. Prod:
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Dark Corner, The Fox 1946. Prod: Fr
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Framed Col 1947. Prod: Jules Schern
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House on 92 nd Street, The Fox 1945
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Killing, The UA 1956. Prod: James B
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Mildred Pierce WB 1945. Prod: Jerry
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One Way Street Univ 1950. Prod: Leo
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Repeat Performance EL 1947. Prod: A
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Stranger, The RKO 1946. Prod: S.P.
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Unsuspected, The WB 1947. Prod: Cha
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B) Other Relevant Filmography The f
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Last Laugh, The ScreenSound 1924. P
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Appendix II The Motion Picture P
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VIII. Religion 1. No film or episod
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B. By reason of the mobility of fil
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Reasons Underlying the Particular A
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VIII. Religion The reason why minis
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146, 152, 186, 192, 229, 250, 298,
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high-contrast, 11, 46, 172 Highway
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350, 352, 353, 354, 356, 357, 359,
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Walsh, Raoul, 56, 57, 66, 73, 223,
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