Film Noir (13/11/10)

The University of Warwick Open Studies Certificate: ‘Introduction to Film and Cinema Studies’; Term 1 “1895-1950: The Birth and Development of Narrative Film"; Week 7 (13/11/10)


Film Noir: continued exploration of mood and atmosphere in black and white film

Flawed male protagonist, or the anti-hero, 'Walter Neff' (Fred MacMurray) and the femme  fatale 'Phyllis Dietrichson' (Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, USA, 1944)

This week as part of the Open Studies Certificate, we explored the American genre of Film Noir. We questioned the definition of Noir (is it a genre, a movement, visual style or a prevailing atmosphere?) and applied it to the films: The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) and Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947).  This was done over a 2 ½ hour illustration by Julia Larden.

The term, Film Noir, was coined in post-war France, with the flood of American crime film imports, by critic Nino Frank but we traced both its literary (the novel, detective fiction and ‘pulp’ fiction) and cinematic influences (German Expressionism, French Poetic Realism, Horror and Gangster films from 1930’s). We used David Bordwell’s definition of the genre to begin our investigation, though we mainly focused on the stylistic and thematic conventions and applied this to our previous study of German Expressionism. 

Prior to the session I had done some wider reading into the genre. Apart from usual sources (familiar books repeated throughout the bibliographies of this Certificate) I also had the chance to look through the sources posted on the module website:  ‘Noir’s Cars: Automobility and Amoral Space in American Film Noir’ (Osteen: 2008); ‘Border Crossings in Out of the Past and L.A. Confidential’ (Luhr: 1998); ‘X-Ray Visions: Radiography, Chiaroscuro, and the Fantasy of Unsuspicion in Film Noir’ (Manon: 2007); ‘Out of the Past, into the Supermarket: Consuming Film Noir’ (Dussere: 2006; ‘"The Birth of Venus" and The Death of Romantic Love in Out of the Past’ (Deutelbaum: 1987); ‘The Three Sam Spade’s: The Shifting Model of American Masculinity in the Three Films of The Maltese Falcon’ (Gates: 2008).  I may further invest in Andrew Spicer’s book, Film Noir (2002).


Interestingly, we briefly touched on how the male gaze (e.g. The Maltese Falcon, where Spade, Archer and the camera subjects ‘Miss Wunderly’) and the female masquerade (although this exact term was not used within the session) is evident in Film Noir. It was great to be able to able to have an initial reading of Laura Mulvey’s  ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975) as I know I will be studied it in more depth with “Project 20: Gendering the Gaze”  (the Open College of the Arts – Visual Studies 1: Understanding Visual Culture).  I will definitely be exploring in more depth psychoanalysis’s role in the analysis of Film Noir.

I have previously engaged with this genre outside of this lecture through a BBC television season (which was both on BBC2 and BBC4: December 2009) and my study of German Expressionism and its influence on American Cinema in A2 Film Studies. Similar to the Open Studies Certificate, during A’ Level Film Studies we discussed Expressionism development into a stylistic trend and how its conventions were adopted for American genre filmmaking.

Rita Hayworth as the reluctant femme fatale, 'Gilda'. From Gilda (Charles Vidor, USA, 1946)

We discussed the conventions of Film Noir during AS Film Studies, applied to The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, USA, 1947), and then used this information, in light of our study of German Expressionism during our A2 year, and applied it to Gilda (Charles Vidor, USA, 1946).

The refraction of American in 1940’s evident through the social anxiety, especially the concept of threatened masculinity, (during and post the Second World War) that permeates onto the screen; I think an important area for further research is the influence of European émigrés on the genre. It would be a good to investigate key practitioners who would influence the visual and thematic design of the films (i.e. Directors, Cinematographers, Art Directors and even Composers). As a fan, I am obviously aware of Lang but it would be interesting to look into such individuals as Edgar Ulmer and Robert Siodmak. It would be also interesting to see the European influence on the American directors who contributed to the genre because of the hybrid nature of the medium.

An area that is also intriguing is the few films that what shot in the Noir style during the classic period (1940-1959) but instead of the conventionally using black and white, Technicolor was used instead.  For example: The Unholy Wife (John Farrow, RKO/Universal, USA, 1957) which stars Diana Dors (!).

Further Research to be conducted in relation to Film Noir:

• Sheri Chinen Biesen, “Hollywood in the Aftermath of Pearl Harbour,” in Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2005), 59-95.
•  Marc Vernet, “Film Noir on the Edge of Doom,” in Shades of Noir: A Reader, ed. Joan Copjec (London: Verso, 1993), 1-32.
• Claire Johnston, “Double Indemnity,” in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan, new ed. (London: British Film Institute, 1998), 89-98.
• Biesen, “Censorship, Hard-Boiled Fiction, and Hollywood’s ‘Red Meat’ Crime Cycle,” in Blackout, 96-12.
• Frank Krutnik, “Film Noir and America in the 1940s,” in In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity (London: Routledge, 1991), 56-72.

Bibliography

Bordwell, D., Staiger, J., Thompson, K. 1988.  The Classical Hollywood Cinema. London:  Routledge. pp. 74-77.

Bordwell, David., Thompson, Kristin. 2006. Film Art: An Introduction. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. pp. 453-456.

Bordwell, David., Thompson, Kristin. 2009. Film History: An Introduction. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, pp. ‘Chapter 10: The Hollywood Studio System 1930-45’.

Copjec, Joan (ed.). 1993.  Shades of Noir: A Reader. Verso: London.

Deutelbaum, Marshall. 1987. “The Birth of Venus" and The Death of Romantic Love in Out of the Past. Literature/Film Quarterly, 15(3).

Dussere, Erik. 2006. Out of the Past, into the Supermarket: Consuming Film Noir. Film Quarterly, 60 (1).

Peterson, L.S., Place, J.A. 1974. Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir. In: B. Nichols ed. Movies and Methods, Volume 1. 1976. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 96-106, pp. 325-338.

Gates, Phillipa. 2008. The Three Sam Spade’s: The Shifting Model of American Masculinity in the Three Films of The Maltese Falcon. Framework: The Journal of Media and Film, 49(1).

Hayward, Susan. 1996. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 148-152.

Luhr, William. 1998. Border Crossings in Out of the Past and L.A.Confidential. Bilingual Review.

Luhr, William (ed.). 1955. The Maltese falcon: John Huston, director. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Manon, Herbert.S., 2007. X-Ray Visions: Radiography, Chiaroscuro, and the Fantasy of Unsuspicion in Film Noir. Film Criticism, 32( 2).

Mulvey, Laura. 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16(3), pp. 6-18.

Osteen, Mark., 2008. The Noir’s Cars: Automobility and Amoral Space in American Film Noir. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 35(4).

Salt, Barry., 2009. Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis. 3rd ed. London: Starwood Press, ‘Chapter 17: Film Style and Technology in the 1940’s’ pp. 251-266.

Schatz, Thomas. 1988. The Genius of the System. London: Pantheon Books. pp. 308-11.

Wallis, Tom., Pramaggiore, Maria. 2007. Film: A Critical Introduction. London:Laurence King. pp. 382-386.


- Further films that I have viewed which may be said to belong to the Noir genre will be posted in the filmographies of ‘Cultural Activities’ posts.


Film Noir Filmography

The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis, Security Pictures/Theodora Productions,  USA, 1955)

Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1947)

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1944)

Farewell My Lovely (Edward Dmytryk, RKO Radio Pictures, USA, 1944)

Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky, Enterprise Productions/Roberts Pictures Inc, USA, 1948)

Gilda (Charles Vidor, Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1946)

The Lady From Shanghai (Orson Welles, Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1947)

The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, Warner Bros. Pictures, USA,  1941)

Niagara (Henry Hathaway, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,  USA, 1953)

On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, RKO Radio Pictures, USA, 1952)

Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, RKO Radio Pictures, USA 1947)

The Reckless Moment (Max Ophüls, Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1949)

Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster,  RKO Radio Pictures, USA, 1940)

They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, RKO Radio Pictures, USA, 1949)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA, 1946)


Billy Wilder Filmography

The Apartment (Billy Wilder, MGM, USA, 1960)

Avanti (Billy Wilder, Jalem Productions/Mirisch Corporation/ Phalanx Productions , Italy/USA, 1972)

A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1948)

The Front Page (Billy Wilder, Universal Pictures, USA, 1974)

Irma La Douce (Billy Wilder, Mirisch Corporation/Phalanx Productions , USA, 1963)

One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, Mirisch Corporation/Pyramid Productions USA, 1961)

Sabrina (Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1954)

The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder, Charles K. Feldman Group/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, USA, 1955)

Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, Ashton Productions/Mirisch Corporation, USA, 1959)

Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1950)

Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, Edward Small Productions, USA, 1957)

Image Sources:

‘' Flawed male protagonist, or the anti-hero, 'Walter Neff' (Fred MacMurray) and the femme  fatale 'Phyllis Dietrichson' (Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, USA, 1944) ' [online] Available at: http://gracchii.blogspot.com/2007/04/double-indemnity.html> [Accessed 17 November 2010]

‘' Rita Hayworth as the reluctant femme fatale, 'Gilda'. From Gilda (Charles Vidor, USA, 1946) ' [online] Available at: http://closetmelbourne.blogspot.com/2010/07/iconic-dress-rita-hayworth-in-gilda.html > [Accessed 17 November 2010]