In
the nineteen forties, the American dream suffered a traumatic blow due to war
and psychological trauma. The eternal
optimism of yesterday became the limping daydream of barbaric human
animals. We were able to fathom
beautiful delusions, but our instinctual drives would always prevent their
fulfillment. The Set-Up, in 1949, opens on a series of signs which reflect this
fractured psyche. The bold lettering of
Paradise City, a boxing arena, dominates the frame. Below it, the sign of a nightclub, Dreamland, glows
in the darkness of night. Beneath these
two, the much smaller sign of a restaurant flashes Chop Suey. The combination of these play like an
equation: Paradise City + Dreamland = Chop Suey. Chop Suey, an American rendition of Chinese
cuisine, is an outdated term for all things inauthentic (think, what a bunch of
hooey, Chop Suey). This equation seems
to put its own words to the state of the American psyche. Dreams wrapped in delusions equaling an
inauthentic way of life. A flavor made
in America; a flavor we all love. With this
bitter taste on our tongues we made authenticity a criminal, romanticism a
fugitive, and put lovers on the run.
The Set-Up
is a boxing Noir. Scorsese talks at length about boxing movies being the
perfect metaphor for life. The fight is
in the ring, the ring of life. The bell
dings and you start to fight, round, after round, after round until someone is
knocked out. This boxing film involves
an organized racket fixing the fight.
The fight is the one last chance at victory for the hero. His wife wants him to quit but he is a
fighter and a fighter’s gotta fight—even though this may be his last. His wife can’t stand to see him take the
beatings any longer. She thinks she
knows he is going to lose again, so she takes a bet out against him, hoping to
retire with the money. From the very
beginning this film has no sympathy for the weak. A paper boy tells a fight card peddler complaining
about fairness to “take a hike”. We
watch the truth of struggle and survival take place in and out of the
ring. In the alley behind the arena the
gangsters bust the hero’s hand because he fights honest and fair. He won, but he and his wife are left with
nothing but his honor. In the world of Noir,
you can fight fair to the end, but it always ends with disaster.
The
same is true in The Asphalt Jungle,
made in 1950 by John Huston. This heist
movie embodies the phrase, whatever can go wrong, will. Mr. Emmerich, a wealthy lawyer, cheats; on
his wife and a gang of jewel thieves. The
main theme in this film seems to tell us beware our passions as they eventually
become our downfall. Dix loves horses;
no matter how much money he steals, it all ends up at the track. He is never able to buy back his family farm,
but at least he is able to bleed out there while horses sniff his corpse. Mr. Emmerich gets found out by the thieves
and fingered by the cops; but in the end he blows his brains out—a fitting
death for the worst kind of double-crosser.
Mr. Emmerich was blinded by pride and greed, but Doc is smart until the
end; that is, until his love of young girls distracts him long enough to be
caught. I find it eerie that Marilyn
Monroe got her start in this Film Noir.
The period saw Freudian narratives and analysis popularized. The narratives made Marilyn a star while the
analysis destroyed her life.
Though
1950 is a pivotal year for Noir, as they became harder and more realistic, it
was still the height of the production code era. A script still had to be approved before
production, which meant inserting moral scenes. In one such scene, the Police Commissioner
demonstrates dramatically to the press what the world might be like without the
Order of the Police. Though, I think Houston
shows the mark of a great filmmaker as this scene is well done and less jarring
to the narrative than other examples. A
classic Noir sense of loss and longing to return runs through the film via Dix.
The first thing he wants to do when he
gets that money is to bath in a creek and wash off the city dirt. We can see Doll cry a little inside as she realizes
she is part of that city dirt. For the
most part, Film Noir has two motivations, passion and greed. This one has a touch of both.
Sunset
Boulevard, made in 1950 by Billy Wilder, only really includes the first
motivation through the fear of abandonment designation. There is a sub-genre of Film Noir, however,
which discusses love. It attempts to
embody the reality of love within the bounds of the Noir story world. It is called, lovers on the run. In a world where people live false lives
manageable only through shared deluded constructs, anything outside the
construct is an attack. Being barbaric
animals, these people will then counter-attack in defense of their way of
life. In the world of Noir, any
authentic or unique experience is such an attack on the society at large. This climate of the Noir story world creates
the perfect storm for lovers on the run.
One of the characters, usually the male lead, is made a criminal due to
misunderstanding or being forced to act in defense against society. He attempts to escape, becomes a fugitive,
and is pursued by some representation of authority, i.g. Police or crime
boss. Early in his escape he encounters
a woman who understands him; after all, women have been persecuted by male
dominated society for generations. She
helps him escape, even if it is only through her understanding, and typically
joins him on the road—becoming a lovers on the run flick.
TheyLive by Night; made in 1949 by Nicholas Ray, is a great example of this type
of lovers on the run story. Bowie is a
young man, imprisoned unlawfully as a minor, convinced by two career criminals
to escape from prison. While on the run,
he and the gang kill a Police Officer and lose all hope of turning back. Except for Bowie. Bowie is somehow freed through his love of
Keechie, the neglected daughter of a poor drunken filling station
operator. They attempt to hide out in a
cabin and Bowie is then pursued not only by authorities, but the gang as well. When Bowie tries one final escape to save
Keechie and his unborn child, a vengeful and selfish woman sets them up to be
nabbed by the authorities. Bowie dies in
a hail of gunfire while Keechie is left to raise his unborn child alone. Their fatal flaw wasn’t robbing banks or
running from the law, but falling in love.
Love, in the world of Noir, dooms one to a life on the run and premature
death.
This romantic plot, where the man
finds salvation through the woman, is not typical in Film Noir. Gun Crazy, made in 1950 by Joseph Lewis,
is the more classic structure for Noir.
In this case, the man is more psychologically stable in the beginning,
though neutered. Then, one day, he meets
a woman lusting for power, though unable to achieve said power without a
fallace. So she is forced into the role
of the black widow, to lay in wait for the perfect man, one made erect only
through her intervention. The two become
interdependent and whole in the presence of the other. Gun
Crazy makes these themes even more evident through its fetishism of guns.
Bart is a sharp shooter obsessed
with guns because of the power and purpose he feels while wielding a gun. However, he cannot fulfill the true nature of
his talents—to kill. He trains others to
shoot and kill but isn’t whole shooting targets. Bart meets Annie. Annie is a sharp shooter who shoots with
flare. She lusts for more power and
material wealth but is only limited by the man she uses. Upon their meeting, that man is a carnival
boss. But with Bart in the picture it
quickly becomes obvious that she can have more.
Together, they are made whole. Bart is complete through her ability to kill
and she through his fallace. They do
stick-up jobs until there is nowhere else to turn but Bart’s past. There he is confronted by his impotence
through his family and friends. In the
final moments, Bart chooses to kill Annie rather than let her kill. They die in each other’s arms when the posse
opens fire. Here a man corrupted by a
woman, though, fulfilled through her, loves her, is again punished by society
for his reluctance to fall in line.
These films are more sentimental than other Noirs. They’re almost responding to the traumatic
times as a Neorealist might, had they been American instead of Italian. They
Live by Night opens with text on the screen telling us the story is about
two kids who haven’t been introduced to the world. This is supposed to express their innocence
and set the audience up to empathize.
This Noir takes the view of the sick barbaric individual and flips it on
its head, depicting society as the sick one.
It denounces original sin, highlights the innocence of youth untouched,
of love when allowed to flourish and grow.
I think the scene with the Justice of the Peace also says this. He knows the world is harsh and so he refuses
to sell them false hope. He basically
tells them that the only hope at salvation is in love itself. That love will be given no quarter, always on
the run under the scrutiny of society.
Love will either save you outright or you’re doomed to the same
imprisonment of the system like everyone else.
Gun Crazy has similar thoughts. The two eventually realize there is no way to
rationalize their love or their behavior.
They know they must run or die, though Annie chooses to fight against
the power and Bart’s past, he would rather die in each other’s arms as martyrs.
These ideas don’t die with Bowie or Bart, but are carried
on into New American Cinema by Beatty and Altman. The Neo-Noir pictures produced during this
new era had become more intentional and self-aware thanks to the French NewWave. Critics like Godard coined the
term Film Noir in Cahiers du Cinema, where they raved about the dark American
films that had been totally overlooked and undervalued by American audiences. Godard said that Nicholas Ray is cinema and
had it not already been invented he would have done so. Warren Beatty was influenced by the New Wave
and decided to bring it to America. He
made a film with Arthur Penn kick-starting “New American Cinema”. The term was coined by Pauline Kale when
writing about their film, Bonnie &Clyde, made in 1967. In this film we
see the male body as the vehicle of power to be manipulated through feminine
intent more obviously than in Gun Crazy.
Gun Crazy was one of Bonnie & Clyde’s major influences
along with Breathless. These films depict a silent feminist
revolution via the neutered male ego and his sex.
Bonnie & Clyde also
shows us a sick society full of docile bankrupt people and business. Though I don’t think its intent is sympathy
for the individual, but merely for us to see them. We are to be informed through them as Beatty
is through Belmondo and the New Wave.
Clyde overcompensates for his impotence with cocky confidence. We know he is aware of his impotence through
his desperate need for approval from Bonnie.
In Gun Crazy, Bart was totally
unaware of, or at the very least cognitively dissonant of, his impotence. I suspect that Clyde was informed through his
parents, Michel and Patricia, yet doomed to repeat the sins of his forefathers
until freed finally at breath’s end.
Another
leading figure of New American Cinema is the director of Thieves Like Us, made in 1974 by Robert Altman. He also plays homage to his Noir roots in
this film, a remake of They Live by Night.
Altman claims he didn’t know, until
signing on to produce and direct Thieves
Like Us, that it was a remake as he wasn’t aware They Live by Night was based on the book. Neo-Noirs are more naturalistic than
expressionistic Noirs of Classic Hollywood Cinema. In Thieves
Like Us, for example, we see Bowie and Keechie have sex. In fact, we see them in bed together for
quite some time. While in They Live by Night, our only hint that
they’ve consummated their marriage is through her pregnancy. The dialogue of Neo-Noir is more naturalistic,
at times seemingly improved, but somehow doesn’t feel any more realistic to
me. It lacks the subtlety of Film Noir. Though this is intentional because these
filmmakers were free to produce their films however they wanted. And, of course, the film is in color—though
full of shadows and texture, not a high-key Technicolor picture.
Though
I love all of the films discussed so far, the film which I liked the most is In a Lonely Place, made in 1950 by Nicholas
Ray. Dixon Steele is a man without
hope. A writer in a world where those
who employ him do not value his creative work, but merely use it as a commodity
to be bought, carved up, and sold to the masses. He is driven to violence around those who
disrespect the professionals victimized through the slaughter of
creativity. Dixon attacks a studio
executive after he slights the drunken actor.
So, it is established early on though there are appealing attributes to
Dixon, he is unpredictable and dangerous.
It is here where the perspective begins to shift from the typical to the
feminine. His love interest slowly
becomes more and more paranoid as she believes Dixon has the capacity for
murder. She thinks of leaving him and he
tries to stop her only to realize himself that he has again raised his hand to
a woman, and this time one he loves. He
cannot control the world that continually misunderstands and rejects him. This traumatized soldier can no longer
soldier on. He glances back once more
from the darkness to the woman he loves, simultaneously convicted and
vindicated.
This
narrative plays on multiple levels. To anyone
struggling with a demon, to the artist who struggles alone, and to the lonely
place of love. It embodies the essence
of a man; vulnerable, ugly, and needy.
It starts off about a murder but the murder almost becomes
secondary. It acts as a catalyst for the
female lead to manipulate the audience psychologically as she struggles to
decide whether she or society are right about Dixon. It depicts us as fearful creatures, so
concerned with betrayal we cannot truly trust, or love. It shows us how violence and emotional
extremes are inextricably linked to creation.
If one looks at the explosion of a star, sex, or in this case, the
writing of a story. Noir lives in us
all. We are inextricably linked to
darkness. Without it we would never know
the light. Film Noir’s influence
continues on in our society, pop culture, and my own appreciations.
