Category: Articles

The Themes of Film Noir

Out Of The Past (1947)

These thumbnail interpretations from the book Film Noir by Alain Silver and James Ursini, are compelling renditions of the two essential themes of film noir:

The Haunted Past… In the noir world both past and present are inextricably bound… One cannot escape one’s past… And only in confronting it can the noir protagonist hope for some kind of redemption, even if it is at the end of a gun.

The Fatalistic Nightmare. The noir world revolves around causality. Events are linked… and lead inevitably to a heavily foreshadowed conclusion. It is a deterministic universe in which psychology… and even the structures of society… can ultimately override whatever good intentions and high hopes the main characters may have.

(p. 15)

The Crimson Kimono (1959): Little Tokyo Rift

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

An unusual film from pulp noir director, Samuel Fuller, set in LA’s Little Tokyo. The search for the killer of a stripper brutally gunned down in late-night traffic on the streets of LA is the pretext for a deft study of race, love, jealousy, and friendship. Fuller’s signature expressionist lighting, jumpy takes, and jarring jazz score keep the viewer off-balance.

Fuller’s screenplay takes us from inner-city sleaze to a Shinto temple and back. There are intriguing conversations on art and painting, love and music, race and prejudice, loyalty and friendship, that not only propel the narrative but also give the major characters amazing depth and complexity for such a short film (82 mins). The thriller aspect is not neglected with an exciting surprise ending.

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

I am struck by Fuller’s humanity. Little Tokyo is not a just an exotic locale, it is place of genuine interest that is explored with intelligence and respect. There is a quiet hiatus in a Shinto temple where a peripheral character, a Japanese-American man, attends a memorial service for his son, a US soldier killed in action.

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

A strong performance by then new-comer, James Shigeta, as an LA cop, is complemented by solid support from Glenn Corbett as his police partner and ex-Army buddy. Victoria Shaw and Anna Lee shine as the female leads Chris and Mac, intelligent women of contrasting ying and yang persuasions: Chris the demure innocent abroad and love interest, and Mac as the hard-drinking painter and proto-feminist with a heart of gold. Fuller truly loved and respected women, taking the noir genre beyond the narrow misogyny of the femme-fatale stereotype.

Enjoy it on a wide-screen.

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

Film Noir Essays On-Line

Brute Force The Maltese Falcon

These on-line essays are well-written and serious studies of the film noir genre:

No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir by John Blaser

Film Noir’s Progressive Portrayal of Women by John Blaser

Film Noir & the Hard-Boiled Detective Hero by John Blaser

The Outer Limits of Film Noir by John Blaser

Nietzsche and the Meaning of Noir by Mark Conard

Dark Art by Chris Fujiwara

An Introduction to Neo-Noir by Lee Horsley

The Urban Landscape of Marxist Noir by Alan Wald

European Film Noir by K H Brown

Film Noir: Fear In The City by Bruce Hodsdon

Film Noir and the German-Hollywood Connection by Hyde Flippo

Film Noir as Deferred Action by Steffen Hantke

Rerunning Film Noir by Richard Schickel

Shades Among Shadows: The Murder Mystery, Film Noir, and Poetry by David Lehman

Lost in the Dark: The Elusive Film Noir by Patrick Ellis

The Cinematic Flaneur:
Manifestations of modernity in the female protagonist of 1940s film noir
by Dr Petra Désirée Nolan

Film Noir: You sure you don’t see what you hear? by Raffaele Caputo

Cat People (1942): Another sound – the panther – it screams like a woman

Cat People (1942)

“Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys, so does ancient sin cling to the low places, the depressions in the world consciousness.”
 – Opening Credits

The first of a string of B horror classics from RKO, this haunting tale of a cat-woman is an expressionist tour-de-force. Directed by Frenchman Jacques Tourneur, filmed by the Italian cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, and produced by Russian-born Val Lewton, from a screenplay by DeWitt Bodee. Later in 1947 Tourneur and Musuraca teamed again to make Out of the Past.

Tourneur uses stark lighting and moody night shots to suggest horror and foreboding in scenes that are rendered completely only in the viewers’ imaginations.

Simone Simon portrays the woman doomed from birth with understated intensity, and her engaging performance gives the erstwhile demon a fragile humanity.

This highlights another connection to film noir. The cat woman is not just a captive of her accursed fate, but imprisoned by her very sexuality, which can be expressed only by unleashing her demonic self.

From the closing credits:

But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My world, both parts, and both parts must die.
Holy Sonnets, V. – John Donne.

A visual feast and a multi-layered literate tale of darkness.

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The Third Man (1949): Sublime

The Third Man (1949)

A not-too-smart hack novelist, Holly Martins, blunders onto the streets and dives of post-war Vienna to solve the riddle of how his shady friend, Harry Lime, died…

The Third Man ranks up there with Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and The Grapes of Wrath as one the great English-speaking films: a multi-faceted jewel of a picture.

From the innovative opening credits, introduced by the haunting zither rendition by Anton Karas of the movie’s theme, you are hooked.

With great performances from Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard, with a strong supporting cast in an adaptation by Graham Greene of his own novel, director Carol Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker together define a dark and intriguing filmic universe that renders the city of Vienna as important as the the story which is played out on its streets and below.

The strength of the story is more than the engaging cavalcade of characters in a true human comedy, but the deep analysis of love and friendship, and the imperatives of conscience. Is loyalty out of passion stronger and more genuine than the loyalty of friendship, where the object of affection is amoral and commits despicable acts?

The following kaleidoscope of frames from the film convey the film’s atmosphere:

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The Stranger (1946): Jungian Noir

The Stranger (1946)

Nazi war criminal is stalked in a sleepy Connecticut town…

A strong thriller with Orson Welles directing and playing the lead in a screenplay by Victor Trivas. Edward G Robinson is solid – as always – as the investigator, with the beautiful Loretta Young perfect as the innocent and loyal wife. Welles’ deft direction and the camera-work of Russell Metty transform an over-the-top thriller into a moody and intelligent noir, where Jungian concepts of the unconscious are woven with a taut psychological study of the deranged mind of a desperate man.

Strong expressionist lighting make the visuals so compelling that dialog is not needed to propel the story at all – the essence of film art that was largely lost when the talkies arrived. This feat is achieved with particularly strong performances by the leads:

  • Robinson’s mannerisms and the clever use of his pipe as a prop,
  • Welle’s controlled demeanour with all the emotion subtly expressed facially, and
  • Young an emotional powerhouse portraying kinetically the full range of emotions from the joyous innocence of a bride-to-be to the hysteria of a woman clinging to her last shred of faith in the man she loves.

The Stranger (1946) The Stranger (1946)

The Noir Of War

War: Vietnam 1967

Many write of the “existential dread” in the aftermath WW2 as the catalyst for film noir.

A very young Bob Dylan’s Masters of War in 1961 put the focus back on to war itself:

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

The Lady From Shanghai (1947): “Then the beasts took to eating each other”

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)“Do you know…
once, off the hump of Brazil…
I saw the ocean so darkened with blood it was black…
…and the sun fainting away over the lip of the sky.
We´d put in at Fortaleza…
and a few of us had lines out for a bit of idle fishing.
It was me had the first strike.
A shark it was.
Then there was another.
And another shark again.
Till all about, the sea was made of sharks…
and more sharks still.
And no water at all.
My shark had torn himself from the hook…
and the scent or maybe the stain it was, and him bleeding his life away…
drove the rest of them mad.

Then the beasts took to eating each other.
In their frenzy…
they ate at themselves.
You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stinging your eyes.
And you could smell the death reeking up out of the sea.
I never saw anything worse…
until this little picnic tonight.
And you know…
there wasn´t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.
l´ll be leaving you now.

George, that´s the first time..
anyone ever thought enough of you to call you a shark.
If you were a good lawyer, you´d be flattered.”

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

A brilliant jigsaw of a film noir from Orsone Welles, with a femme-fatale to die for, and a script so sharp and witty, you relish every scene. You can watch it again and again, and find something new each time.

The long yacht voyage is used to both develop the characters and as a homage to Hayworth’s beauty and the eternal feminine in the flesh and in nature.

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)The Lady From Shanghai (1948)The Lady From Shanghai (1948)The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

The climactic confrontation and shootout at the end in an amusement park mirror-maze is breath-taking. The restored print available on the DVD is so sharp that it is hard to believe the picture was shot 6o years ago.

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

To be savoured with patience and your full attention.

Visions of Light: Noir Cinematography

Most film analysis favours the auteur approach, where the creative credit is focused on the director.

The 1992 documentary on great cinematographers from the silent era to the 80’s, Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography, shifts the spotlight to those who actually wielded the camera.

Orson Welles in recognition of this creative contribution, in the credits for Citizen Kane (1941), shared direction credit with his collaborator and director of photography, Gregg Toland:

Citizen Kane (1941)

The following slideshow features 32 great examples of the “black” light of film noir featured in Visions of Light. Director of Photography credits are list at the end of the post.

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Mildred Pierce (1945) – Ernest Haller
The Killers (1946) – Woody Bredell
Out of The Past (1947) – Nicholas Musuraca
The Naked City (1948) – William Daniels
Young Man with a Horn (1950) – Ted McCord
The Big Combo (1955) – John Alton
The Night of the Hunter (1955) – Stanley Cortez
Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – James Wong Howe
Touch of Evil (1958) – Russell Metty

The Naked Kiss (1964): Pulp Noir

The Naked Kiss (1964): Pulp Noir

discomfited staggering between camp, noir, and grotesque melodrama, might be more a result of studio tampering than Fuller’s misdirection. It is also difficult to discern just what sort of censorship the studios achieved, for whatever they did was austerely permeated by social taboos the likes of abortion, prostitution, child molestation, and murder.

IMBD Comment from jeanpesce

Samuel Fuller, writer, director, and producer of The Naked Kiss, apparently disclaimed this film after alleged re-editing ordered by studio bosses before its release.

I found the film largely emotionally distant, but the story of a prostitute who tries to remake her life in the face of social prejudice and male misogyny is perversely involving. A noir sensibility pervades, but it is not really a film noir as the anti-hero is a woman who is punished for being good: though her violent actions may be justified in a closed sense, they are not necessarily the only reasonable responses.

The best scene is when the text of a newspaper headline is flashed across the screen: it is a veritable punch to the stomach.

Fuller was a pulp director who tried to understand women and support their empowerment, unlike directors like Quentin Tarantino, who seek to debase the feminine.

Something different.