Category Archives: Assignments

Out of the past

This film begins with a man looking for Jeff Bailey. Jeff Bailey is a simple gas station owner. He works with a kid who is deaf. The man looking for hims starts at a diner then travels to the gas station asking the kid some questions. This man then speaks to Jeff about their old life about how they both were detectives. Jeff then reveals his past to his girlfriend telling her the entire story of his life as a detective and how he buried his partner who his old girlfriend killed.

I enjoyed this film the most out the ones prior because it had a much more interesting storyline. The characters seemed much more realistic and the story kept itself interesting. The loyalty each character had was questionable except for the kid. Since the beginning you could tell the kid was going to be loyal to Jeff since he looked like he didn’t trust anyone later he saves Jeff’s life. This film was the typical film noir with a femme fatale who gets the main protagonist Jeff in trouble except in this film she tries it twice, once being in the past and then again in the present.

Murder, My Sweet – A Noir That Played With Itself

Murder, My Sweet is an interesting film noir as it presents new elements that we haven’t seen in the ones we’ve watched so far. It starts off with the usual private eye (Philip Marlowe) who is accused of murder and we go into flashback to see how he got into this predicament. All the classic material is present: bright lights of the noir city, the fast-talking, witty, money-grubbing, playful-at-times protagonist, the beautiful yet manipulative femme fatale, dingy workplace, shadows; it’s all there.

However, new aspects are also introduced: our protagonist didn’t commit any crime this time (although he still agreed to kill a man), and we finally see a happy ending where he gets the girl. Something else that I noticed was when Philip is passed out in the bed, this is the first time we see a noir “hero” sick and in such a vulnerable state. He actually loses his mind and goes crazy. We are caught off guard because we’ve always known our protagonist as being smooth and calm no matter the situation.

Other such aspects are the “black pool” transitions when Philip gets knocked out and the “spider web vision” he sees when he’s in a daze. There is also the dream sequence where he’s hallucinating walking through doors and falls down a black hole (which reminded me of that scene from Vertigo). This almost seems out of place in a noir film because we’ve never seen these stylistic choices done before. This film wasn’t afraid to play around with the genre – hence the title – and stray from the norm just a bit enough to see what it was capable of. And good thing, too, because we probably wouldn’t have such modern classics as Sin City and Watchmen. It’s interesting to see where these ideas stem from, even as early as 1944.

Shadow Play: Out of the past

During the last class we were asked to come up with a definition for Film Noir. In retrospect, our definitions seem a little narrow minded when compared to the film, Out of the past. In the film, unlike the others we watched, our “Gumshoe” isn’t really a detective per se. The movie starts with a man entering a small town, looking for a man named ‘Jeff Bailey’. To the townspeople, Jeff is just a stranger who turned up one day and pumps gas at the station. He works alongside his assistant, known only as “The Kid” (And I checked, there’s no name for the guy) a deaf young boy. But, as the movie goes on, we see there is more to Jeff and his companion. The movie goes back into the past without warning, giving us insight to the man Jeff really was. Before pumping gas, he worked as a private eye for a man named Jack. Jack’s partner, Kathy, has apparently skipped town with a large sum. However, he’s more concerned with finding her than he is the money. Jeff goes across the border to tail her. As quick as lightning, a relationship form between Jeff and Kathy and they run off to start a new life together. Jeff thinks Kathy is a damsel in distress but it’s clear after she shoots another of Jack’s henchmen that she is actually our femme fatale for the movie. From there on out Jeff is stock between one trial after the other, ranging from fraud to murder. In the end, he pays the ultimate price for finding a way out of it. This movie takes a break from some of the themes seen in the other movies while still being true to its genre.

Shadow Play: Double Indemnity

During our last class we viewed the film Double Indemnity, based on the book of the same name. Though there are several differences between the book and the film, the key characters are basically the same. We have two character types that appear in Noir film, the femme fatale, Phyllis and the not so good protagonist, Huff.The film had its share of controversy, taking 8 years before getting made. The main themes of the novel/film include infidelity, murder, and suspense.

Neff/Huff is a insurance salesman that goes door to door. The trouble begins when Neff/Huff meets Phyllis. In the movie she appears slightly under-dressed. In the novel she is in pajamas. Either way, from his narrations it is clear he has more than her husbands auto insurance on his mind. Soon, he is accusing Phyllis. Neff uses the situation to enact his wish of getting over on his insurance company. However, it is clear that he is merely a puppet in Phyllis’ plan. As we learn from her step daughter Lola, Phyllis most likely murdered Lola’s mother.

Double Indemnity blog

In light of what we spoke about in class, Double Indemnity surely exhibited all the characteristics of crime, drama and of course a film noir.  To begin, you have the beautiful seductive, the “oh, but I can’t…” vulnerable female who manipulates the male and situation to get her ways. No doubt the femme fatale in the story who leads the “good guy”, not true in every story, astray.  Then you have the male, who of course gets seduced and easily manipulated into doing things he probably would have never thought of doing prior to their meeting. Even though in this particular movie he was not portrayed as he was in the book, he was still vulnerable and easily manipulated. In the book he knew all the protocols, rules and regulation, thus making it seem as if he had thought of committing the crime or falsifying documentations prior to Mrs Dietrichson, Phyllis Nirdlinger in the book version, ever bringing it up to him.  Therefore, showing his shadow is greed as well.

As far as generic conventions and contexts, the story begins by with the protagonist telling us the story himself by recording his confession, and so we are captivated to know what occurs since we do know that a crime has been committed.  As the story progresses, we see the plot is this idea of having to commit a crime, due to greed, by making someone vulnerable. This meaning using the femme fatale to manipulate the male protagonist. Similar to how it occurred in Maltese Falcon when the female used the detective to get what she wanted. Both stories led us to believe that the woman were innocent when in fact it differed. I believe that the femme fatale was Mr. Huff in Double Indemnity since he did the killing and he ended up killing Phyllis when she failed to kill him.  She to me was used by him when things did not go as planned for him and ended up turning himself in. Maltese Falcon was the other way around and the female was turned in.

Overall, for me I truly enjoyed watching Double Indemnity.  The narrative and the plot kept me wondering how things will unfold, even though it was predictable. As I stated before I’m not a fan of black and white films but this movie was actually one I enjoyed watching.

 

Double Indemnity – Femme Fatale

Since we talked mostly about femme fatales in class, I focused mainly on the one introduced in last week’s film, Double Indemnity. We described a femme fatale as being beautiful, one who leads the main character into danger, and feigns naivete or weakness to hide manipulative goals. Phyllis Dietrichson had all of these characters and then some.

In the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to her with nothing on but a bathrobe. She doesn’t try to hide her seductive nature, even with Walter Neff, a stranger, in the house. Later on, she starts making Walter as well as us – the audience – feel for her as she talks about how lonely she is and how worried she is about her husband. Phyllis uses this pity to gain the insurance agent’s trust. When she hints at the idea of a scam to get insurance for her husband without him knowing, Walter catches right on, and leaves, distraught. She, of course, comes back all innocent to apologize and kisses him to regain his trust. The woman knows this agent is her only chance to get what she wants and she cant let him get away that easy. Once she does gain his trust back, she immediately changes her story to say that her husband abuses her, and leaves her alone constantly. Apparently, she cares nothing about him now. When Walter decides to help commit the murder Phyllis agrees with no hesitation; “straight down the line”.

After the crime is successful, Walter becomes more and more paranoid and guilty as time goes on. Deep down he still has a heart and killing someone is eating him up inside. Phyllis, on the other hand, feels no remorse or guilt at all. She goes on just wanting to be with Neff like nothing happened. Eventually when Walter thinks they’re going to get caught, he tells her that they need to pull out and forget the money. Phyllis then completely changes character and drops the innocent, sweet girl act. She becomes conniving, wanted to bring Walter down with her if he doesn’t go through with the original plan. Another man she supposedly “loves” and she’s ready to betray him at the drop of a hat. When Walter finds out about her “meetings” with Nino, he decides to back out and frame them instead. Phyllis hears his plan and points a gun on him. We see that she has grown somewhat attached as she cannot pull the trigger. This makes it even more saddening when he eventually has to shoot her and turn himself in, as we know they both loved eachother by the end.

This shows another great film noir convention as it can create characters that we can feel sorry for but also possess ambiguous qualities. Qualities that we typically relate to the “bad guy”. They can be either the antagonist, protagonist, or both depending on the audience’s view.

Reading and Writing Assignments for 9/12/13

Writing:

Write 2-3 paragraph blog post on The Maltese Falcon. Discuss the genre conventions you saw in the film as you’ve come to know them through other films you’ve seen. Also, please discuss the figure of the detective in this film and especially his relationship to those around him (policemen, criminals, femme fatales) in the film. Finally, feel free to discuss your overall impressions of the movie.

Reading:

Readings for 9/12:
* Film Noir: The Trouble With Genre
* Emily Nussbaum, “Difficult Women