Noir Happyness

Every time I watch a Noir film such as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Out Of The Past I find myself wondering just what it is about these films that make them so entertaining. I have to admit that in watching most films from the 60's or before I find myself very bored and wishing that I was not wasting hours of my life. So what exactly is it about Film Noir that makes it such an amazing period of film?

I found myself wondering if it was the technical aspects of film Noir that interested me. And without out doubt many noir films photography is indeed very intriguing. I think I could get many hours of enjoyment watching a movie such as Out of the Past and dissecting it scene by scene trying to figure out exactly how each shot was done. The lighting and camera work for many Noir films is amazing. But then again there are quite a few B Noir films such as Detour where basically all of the moves are routine and most of the lighting is done in the simplest way possible. Plus in comparison to todays movies the technical aspects of even the best Noir are not that special.

I would have to say that I believe that the main reason why people love the Noir period was the overwhelming style change in Noir movies as compared to so many others. Never before, nor afterwards has the style thats exhibited in Noir movies been anywhere remotely as prominent as it was during this period. The differences in plot create a very different type of story.

Consider Out of the Past as just one example. Out of the Past is a story about a detective who gets him self mixed up with a girl whom is wanted by his employer. He is later attempted to be tricked by him employer in an effort to get him back. What I found so interesting about the plot of this movie is that the main character Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) remains on top for basically the entirety of film except the end of the movie. What I mean by this is that he always seems one step ahead of everyone else. When he goes to find the girl Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) he finds her before she even knows she is being tracked and then manages to trick his boss, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) into thinking that he didn't find her. He is then later on is brought back to his boss again who tries to trick him by setting him up for a murder he did not do. However, Jack immediately sees threw this and soon regains the upper hand eventually bringing Sterling down. The ending is the only part where we really get a sense that Jack has run out of luck because he is finally put into a position where he has no way out.

This sort of story where the “good guy” has the upper hand through out the film until the very end is basically the opposite of most films today. when watching a good crime or action film today, like the borne identity for example, you get the feeling that the main character is always in a desperate situation until the very end. They always narrowly escape time and time again before finally getting free at the end. To me its very interesting and almost makes me happy to see, in Noir, a character that appears to be on top of the world for the good portion of the move.

Noir

In reading Schraders' Notes on Film Noir I found myself agreeing with almost everything he said except perhaps his statement that Noir is not its own genre. As Laura put it so well in her blog Film "Grey" or Film "off-White": Film Noir Schrader defines genre to be "a type of tacit contract between filmmaker and audience that promises a certain type of plot, character, setting, style and so on" Based on this I find it hard to see how he can consider Film Noir not to be a genre in its own right.

Schrader says that Noir is defined by more subtle things like tone and mood rather then by content and plot. With that I am inclined to agree with him. It is the tone of Noir which makes it so different. However, I would have to argue that it is the content as well as the lighting that establishes tone in Noir. The tone that is kept dark and deceitful, as well as the happy endings would not work with the content of todays movies. Could you imagine a super hero movie like the fantastic four ending in them all dying in some crazy accident. Or turning around and all stabbing each other in the back. While that would work for an interesting movie I feel that the content of the crime movie, where the main character is involved in more then just stopping the crime, leads itself a bit better to the dark tone of Noir.

Another reason that I think Noir is really its own genre is the amout of influence it has had and the difference between it and other genre's. Film Noir sticks out today even as a type of film that is different then any other genre because of the fact that the bad guy often wins. Something which is still talked about and revered 50 years after it ended deserves its own recognition. Also as Alex Kikka put it in his appropriately titled blog Another Noir? the odds of another time period in which another Noir type genre comes again is very unlikely. This means that Noir was not only special and different but also potentially unique.

I found it really interesting to think about the depth that the characters have in Film Noir. Generally characters in movies today are either all good or all bad. This isn't necessarily that different in film Noir as most of the characters are simply bad. But the protagonist usually has more depth to him. While we want the protagonist to be good he often does bad things that we as the audience must come to reckon with. Or even if we do not see any bad in him we must at least have to deal with the fact that in the end he will fail. Seeing a good character fall into a situation that we as the audience know he will not be able to get out of is an interesting feeling in its own right. One that we dont get to explore very often in cinema these days.

Culture and Women

In reading what Mets and Mulvey have to say on the objectification of women in the movies of today I find it very hard to refute what they have to say. It is true that in many movies of today the female leads sexuality is often shown and used. The main plot is often put to a halt for such time as well. For instance consider todays action film, most have a stereotypical sex scene or at least a large amount of sexual tensions between the main male protagonist and the women in the movie. Consider The Italian Job, the romance between Stella and Charlie has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of stealing the gold. Most of the time this romance and sexual tension does not fit the main plot at all and therefore has to create a side story just for it self. This is not ever really noticed because over time we have come to expect this in movies.

When I think about this topic I cannot help but notice a growing trend. If one considers the films from the nineteen fifties and sixties one will notice less of the objectification of the female body than to today. Yet the objectification back then was an aspect of the culture of that time as is the objectification of today. There has been a trend both in film and in our culture of women wearing more scandalous things and acting in ways that would not have been appropriate a few years ago. This trend in both culture and film shows that they are interconnected. In my opinion film simply provides a very good visual medium for the objectification of women and therefore is easily used to show our cultures thoughts on the matter. Over time as our culture has changed so has film. As this chance has occurred we have slowly become more and more desensitized to the objectification of women. This is really not that different to the way we have become desensitized to violence. Violence in films such as psycho seemed to push the limit when it was made but seems like nothing compared to the films of today. The same is true for romance in movies, the objectification of the women in Hitchcock's rear window was seen as pushing the line in 1954 but against movies of today is almost nothing.

All that being said I feel that reprimanding film for its objectification is not fair. While there are stereotypes in film that have developed and could be removed they are a result of our cultures reflection on the nature of film.

Something that bothered me in my reading of Mets and Mulvey was that both of them used freud theory to back up there arguments. While parts of his theory are still somewhat useful the theory itself has been proven false many times and is now looked upon as something not reputable enough to really support an argument. Specifically I do not agree with Mulvey when she talks about mans fear of castration when he looks upon a females body. If that fear was really a determining factor in anything to do with the objectification of women and the development of early children then I feel the objectification would be less because of it.

Cache

Many people in talking about the film Cache have commented on the films lack of suturing. Where suturing, as described by Graeme Turner in his book Film as Social Practice, is a way of tying the audience into the film so that they do not notice the camera. I agree that Cache does not suture you into the film in the same way many of today films do. I however would argue that Cache does suture you into the film in a different way.

Cache in my opinion exploits two different kinds of cinematography. It uses some standard practices when it is developing the story of the protagonists or telling something that is not important to the main plot. This is not necessarily distinctly noticeable on its own but it becomes so when we compare it to the other type of cinematography. That of long shots, in both the length and distance. These two types I would argue fulfill two different purposes. The first sutures the audience into the place of the protagonists. It allows us to relate to them if only a little. The second makes us aware of the camera. This is generally not a good idea as Turner says, but in this film the camera actually plays a part. The camera that is watching these people is a major part of the story, and by putting us in the place of the camera we become sutured to it.

The first shot of the film accomplishes this, by zooming out and having the protagonists be watching a film we understand that the long shot means that there is a camera watching. Haneke uses this fact by using other long shots that make the watcher wonder if there is someone else watching. This is actually a very neat effect because we are for part of the story watching the protagonists and for part of it watching the villian.

Another interesting thing about this film is the fact that most of it is not resolved. Alot of people comented on this in their blog. I found it very intersting but not unexpected for two reasons. The first is that the film already seemed to drag on and seemed like it needed to be ended. Also the whole plot of the film relied on the fact that we did not really know what was going on. This is the only reason that we can identify with any of the characters at all, because they are also trying to figure out what is going on.

The narative structure of this film is also an interesting example. While it is linier it spends almost the entire movie trying to do what the watcher does not expect. There is a sense of suspense that builds throughout the entire movie and only really culimnates in the scene where Majid kills himself. This causes the casual watcher to be bored throughout most of the long shots at the begining which then causes the effect of the death scene to be much greater. After Majid dies the watcher feels a new kind of suspense and expectation in each of the long shots from then on. This is a very interesting and powerfull effect. It also makes the watcher wonder even more at the end as his death is never really resolved along with so many of the other aspects of the movie.

Sleeplessin Seattle

Sleepless in Seattle I found to be a very interesting example of narrative style in film. For anyone who has not seen the film it is about a man, Sam, who's wife has died, and a woman, Annie, who at the beginning of the movie is engaged to a man named, Walter. The man's son, Jonah, calls up a radio talk show and talks to the woman about his father being depressed from his lost wife. The woman, along with many others among the greater American continent, hears the talk show. She over time decides to get in contact with Sam, despite her relationship with Walter, and ends up writing him a letter. Jonah finds the letter and decides to go along with the letters plan and go meet Annie in new york. Sam tells Jonah that they cannot go. But Jonah will not take no for an answer and goes alone. Sam then has to new york to find his son and ends up meeting Annie with whom he falls in love with almost immediately.

The narrative structure of this film I found to be very interesting because of the fact that it is really two stories in one. Sam and Jonah have their own story and Annie has hers. In truth the two stories interact very few times in the movie. They only influence each other four times, when Annie first hears the talk show, when she writes her letter, when she goes to visit Seattle, and finally when they meet in New York. Other then that the stories function independently as does the plot development which for a good half the movie is only indirectly influenced by the others plot. However, despite all of this I would still argue that this narrative is a good example of the kind of narrative space talked about by Heath and supported by Cooper. It follows a very linear plot development culminating in a happy ending as only Hollywood can supply.

One thing that I found very interesting in this movie was the difference between the two main characters. Most movies follow the stereotype that the man is the one who chases the woman. In this movie Sam does literally nothing to get together with Annie. He reads her letter but is not impressed and has no intention of meeting her. He in fact would never have gone to new york were it not for his son. He actually spends a very large part of the movie dating another woman with no intention of meeting Annie at all. Annie on the other hand is with her fiance but spends a rather large part of her time looking for and trying to get with Sam. She is the one who does things like finding out where he lives and tracking him down in the middle of Seattle. Another interesting thing is the looseness of relationships in the movie. The audience spends the movie rooting for Annie to get together with Sam despite the fact that they are both in other relationships. Annie has very little trouble at the end of the movie leaving Walter, who it turns out is actually an amazingly nice guy. At the end Sam also finds it very easy to leave his girlfriend of the past few months for Annie. This is an especially interesting fact when we consider his loyalty of almost two years to his dead wife.
Sleepless in Seattle is an interesting movie, and a good example of Narrative, while still having an intriguing narrative structure. However, It does leave me questioning the plot as to why Walter was made to be such a nice guy and why Annie was able to leave him so easily.