Some more film noir stuff

“We steadily accumulate a kind of narrative-cinematic gestalt or “mind set” that is a structured mental image of the genre’s typical activities and attitudes. Thus all of our experiences with Western films give us an immediate notion, a complete impression, of a certain type of behavioral and attitudinal system.” (Film Genres and the Genre Film, pg. 3). Those two sentences define the generalized definition of what exactly a film genre is. These sentences do not necessarily define setting, but rather are more generalized and truer definitions of what audience’s define film genre as. Their notion of what film genre is, as well as the writer’s, is an important notion because the audience ultimately constitute the audience groupings that go to these movies. In other words, there is the film noir genre audience, and then there’s the musical audience, ect. Crowds ultimately determine what kind of movies these films are, especially when it comes to this genre because the filmmakers at that time didn’t necessarily know that they were making film noir movies. The genre was only termed film noir once a general patterned emerged, and the reason why there was a pattern was because producers liked the notion of an audience knowing their boundaries and knowing the accessibility of what they were watching, in order to entice that particular kind of audience to go to another film that had the same style and sensibility that they preferred. Especially in regards to the post World War II audience, who were probably very much affected by the war and probably had darker sensibilities to begin with, these film noir films spoke to the male audiences of the time, and the male audience helped determine the genre as a whole. Film Noir is a genre, rather than being a cycle of films, mainly because the genre contains tropes that define these particular films, and also because while the genre is ever-evolving there still remains the same basic thematic ideological rationale behind the filmmakers intentions.

As stated before, these filmmakers didn’t necessarily know that they were making film noir movies. Rather, they were following a guideline (possibly because the producers asked them to based on box office response) on how to make sophisticated, dark subversive films by following 4 processes. The first is the notion of the femme fatale. The second is the character trope of the disenfranchised and cynical male characters who want to transgress the system and rebel against their middle class lives. This is the trope that would entice the post World War II audience. The third is the aesthetic qualities that separated these films from “family entertainment” pictures. Film Noir’s aesthetic style consistently derived from German Expressionism. Last but not least was the sexually tinged double entendre-like dialogue that distinguished these films from others. Isn’t that all that one needs to define a genre film? Does setting really play a permanent role in the process? I don’t believe that it does, because after all the musical film and the gangster film has had many different settings, and the same can be said for the film noir genre. An audience member can determine what exactly a genre film is whenever that film contains characteristics contiguous to that genre alone and to no other genre. Genre films are films whose aspects are completely original to that type of film, and to that type of film only; no matter how much that type of film borrows from other types of film. My own personal belief is that a genre film is also the type of film where there are at least 3 or more tropes present. The argument that film noir films do not constitute a genre, but rather comprise a cycle of films is wrong in my opinion because a cycle of films never contained so many genre tropes as film noir does.

The first trope of the genre, the femme fatale, emerged mainly due to the fact that once men were shipped off to war during World War II, women had to take their place and fulfill the sexes job requirements. This afforded women new freedom of say that they as a sex had never experienced before. The femme fatale is an expression of that independently-minded woman. Even though they are typically represented as evil and malign characters in their movies, the fact that these women characters are depicted as strong individuals is much better than the typical representation of woman at that time of being the “happy housewife” who didn’t have any say. (War and Peace, Fanning the Home Fires, pg. 5). These women were typically depicted as being gloriously evil. Janey Place writes about how film noir was, “…one of the few periods in film in which women are active, not static symbols, are intelligent and powerful, if destructively so, and derive power, not weakness, from their sexuality” (Place, pg. 47). However, Place also writes about the double side of the coin in terms of the femme fatale image. She reminds her readers that, “Film Noir is a male fantasy, as is most of our art...” and that femme fatales, “…suggest a doppelganger, a dark ghost, alter ego or distorted side of man’s personality which will emerge in the dark street at night to destroy him. The sexual, dangerous woman lives in this darkness, and she is the psychological expression of his own internal fears of sexuality, and his need to control and repress it” (Place, pgs. 47, 51, 53). There is no other type of film where this kind of woman is apparent; where the kind of complexity with which the sexes deal with each other is present, which means that these types of movies are so original that they have to be designated as constituting a genre.

The second trope or genre touchstone of film noir is the disenfranchised and cynical male characters. This negativity on the male sex’s part reflects the time period that they were coming out of which was World War II. The family paradigm of the past was disappearing due to the, “…displacement of the values of family life.” (Harvey, pg. 38). This was due to the outbreak of war, where men had to say goodbye to their family for many years. In some ways, going to war is almost like a jail sentence because time with ones family is lost. Therefore, a man can’t see how his children grow up. It doesn’t also help that a sense of displacement occurs due to the changes of women’s status post World War II. The idea of the threat of the independent woman to the male’s sense of status is what makes film noir movies so distinctive and sophisticated in style. No other film genre dealt with these complex issues concerning sex. Only in film noir is this type of characteristic of the male sex apparent. The reason why males in film noir typically want to transgress and beat the system is because they want to get away from their humdrum middle class lives. Most of the men coming out of war had to basically start anew in terms of finding a job; these men had to adjust to the new monopolistic economic system that made it harder and harder to raise a family. In a sense, the male film noir character is someone who wants to get away from the family paradigm because it is not working for him anymore. (Harvey, pg. 36).

The third trope is the film noir style derived purely from German Expressionism. Besides the Horror films throughout the years, film noir is the only other genre that has such dark lighting and Expressionistic set design. This style of film is depicted aesthetically through the processes of, “…high contrast, chiaroscuro lighting where shafts of intense light contrast starkly with deep, black shadows, and where space is fractured into an assortment of unstable lines and surfaces, often fragmented or twisted into odd angles” (Spicer, pgs. 11-12). This style is apparent due to the fact that once the family unit is missing, then the whole world becomes off-kilter, which is the feeling that many Americans were experiencing post World War II. (Harvey, pg. 36-37, pg. 42, pg. 45). This is why the genre is so irrational; the purpose of Expressionism is to depict the psychology behind people who critique the state of being bourgeois or middle class. (Spicrer, pg. 11).

The fourth trope is the double entendre dialogue so distinctive to film noir. Because of the production code of the time, sexually explicit dialogue could not be put into a film. Filmmakers however found a very clever way to still have sexual dialogue through the use of the double entendre, where one thing is being said but there is a hidden sexual meaning behind what is being said. Because these films primarily dealt with the conflict between the sexes, no other film genre of the time so overtly but appropriately used this style of talking before. No other genre of film so overtly and appropriately used this style of dialogue post the 1950’s period as well, due to the end of the production code, which is another indication of how original this genre of film really is. All of the cultural touchstones mentioned above are what make the genre so unique, and what ultimately make film noir designated as a fully developed genre.

An indication that a film is a genre film is if there are, “…interrelated character types whose attitudes, values, and actions flesh out dramatic conflicts inherent within that community.” (Film Genres and the Genre Film, pgs. 21-22). Sometimes this notion leads to cross-referential scenes from film to film, hence why for instance Linda Fiorantino’s character in the last seduction makes several references to the term double Indemnity, which is the name of a film noir very similar to that film referencing it, and being inspired by it. This is an indication of a genre pattern being present throughout two films separated by a wide space of time, and yet having very similar themes and associations.

No matter what locale the film takes place in, a film noir film can be identified as such because those four touchstones are always present. This pattern as it were could be deemed not a conducive way to make a film, considering that each movie will eventually lack originality and begin to look like every other film in that particular genre. However, the genre mode of art is a very rich organic process. The genre’s ideology (in film noir’s case the ideology is the battle of the sexes and the battle of the individual against society due to the prevailing change post World War II) can change throughout time. This is not an indication that a series of films is merely a cycle but rather is an indication of these films constituting a genre. Even though a genre may change in terms of its conventions due to the pressures of time, the ideology of that particular genre remains the same. Two good examples are the differences between film noir and Neo Noir as exemplified by Double Indemnity and The Last Seduction.

In Double Indemnity, the duplicitous femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson truly constitutes being a femme fatale; she’s utterly heartless. The visual design in which she is depicted alerts the audience that this is no ordinary woman. Janey Place writes about the femme fatale and Phyllis Dietrichson when she states that, “The iconography is explicitly sexual, and often explicitly violent as well: long hair (blond or dark), make-up, and jewellery. Cigarettes with their wispy trails of smoke can become cues of dark and immoral sensuality…” (Place, pg. 54). Place goes on to write about how the cigarette also represents femme fatales, “…unnatural phallic power” (Place, pg. 54). She then goes on to write about how Phyllis’ legs entice Walter Neff in the film and about how, “The strength of these women is expressed in the visual style by their dominance in composition, angle, camera movement and lighting. They are overwhelmingly the compositional focus, generally centre frame and/or in the foreground, or pulling focus to them in the background.” An example of this is the shot of Phyllis in the background when her husband is, unbeknownst to him, signing the accident insurance. Walter Neff is also in the foreground, and yet both males are not the dominant characters in the frame because they are facing away from the camera. Phyllis is the one that is dominating these men without their realizing it. “They control camera movement, seeming to direct the camera…irresistibly with them as they move” (Place, pgs. 54-55). This occurs whenever Phyllis paces back and forth, contemplating her next move. She goes on to write about, “The insistence on combining the two (aggressiveness and sensuality) in a consequently dangerous woman is the central obsession of film noir, and the visual movement which indicates unacceptable activity in film noir women…” (Place, pg. 57). This is the reason for why Phyllis face is always objectively brightly lit; it’s a representation of her passion which can never be contained, not even by the spider like widow’s veil that surrounds her face after her husband has been murdered by her own doing. She will never feel regret over what she has done for fear that she will lose the battle between her and her husband; she wants to transgress that emotional vulnerability. Walter Neff should have been wary of Phyllis right from the start. There are so many visual clues importing information related to Phyllis’ duplicitous nature. Place writes about this when she states that, “The independence which film noir women seek is often visually presented as self-absorbed narcissism: the woman gazes at her own reflection in the mirror, ignoring the man she will use to achieve her goals. This attention to herself instead of the man is the obvious narrative transgression…” (Place, pg. 57). What all of this has to do with Double Indemnity and film genre is that the ideological conventions implicit in the film are the ideological conventions in all film noir movies. Hence, why these films constitute being a film genre rather than merely being a cycle of films. The aesthetic elements mentioned above all relate to the basic concept of the independent woman trying desperately to transgress her repressed status and consequently becoming the femme fatale; the woman that emasculates the middle class man that ironically enough wants to transgress his own boundaries.

This basic concept of film noir is very much apparent in the neo-noir The Last Seduction. The only difference now is that the female is afforded more power due to changes in society, yet still wants to go beyond her original intentions of transgression to something along the lines of total usurpation of the male sex’s power position. This is merely an adjustment to the femme fatale image and nothing more. She still is very similar imagistically to Phyllis Dietrichson. Visual elements that are an example of Bridget’s femme fatale façade are when she’s first introduced mysteriously in the beginning of the film through the processes of shooting below her face, giving the woman a strange ominous almost un-human like quality. The shot of Bridget looking in the mirror in the girl’s bathroom is very similar to the shot of Phyllis looking in the mirror. The long shot of Bridget waiting on her couch for Clay to bring home the bacon is a very femme fatale type of shot composition. The only difference is that this femme fatale wins in the end and doesn’t die a morally corrupt death, due to the fact that she is a lot smarter and less crazed than Dietrichson. She’s not doing what she is doing merely for greedy aspirations; she’s doing what she is doing all in order to gain all women’s power position. (An example of this visually is the close up of Bridget’s hands when she grabs Mike’s pool ball before it goes in the pocket). This is the difference between the film noir’s of the past and neo-noirs. (Straayer, pgs. 152-153). However, these are still films dealing primarily with the frustration between the sexes in terms of power position, and this is the link that connects these films, not to mention the stylistic similarities present.

Something must also be mentioned in relation to the alterations in the genre throughout the 1950’s, specifically exemplified in The Big Heat. The fact that Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a subversion of the typical male figures in film noir is fascinating. Bannion, unlike film noir males of the 40’s, cares more about social justice than his on personal needs. Bannion is still a rebel of the Establishment so to speak, only this time he survives and like Fiorentino is looked up upon by the audience rather than down upon. However, all is not well in this particular environment. Even though the male character survives in the end, he has lost much in the process. His wife is blown up in a car bombing in the film. This idea of violence entering the homefront has to do with the paranoia throughout the 50’s regarding the Red Scare. The Big Heat primarily deals with the idea that no one can get away from oppression, even in their own homefront environment. Even though Bannion’s home appears to be an idyllic family environment, the film’s style alerts the audience that it isn’t. The homefront itself is particularly small and cramped. Consequently, the close ups are a little too tightly pushed in on Bannion’s family, almost giving the audience a sense of claustrophobia. Even the editing is quick and violent. In a sense, the film noir world is still a very dangerous environment. It will never not be subversive, which is ultimately why these films are genre films. No matter how grey the characterizations are becoming in more modern Noir’s, there’s still the implicit message that no one can be a non-conformist in the environment that we live in, no matter how many freedoms afforded us.