This study will analyse the concept of film genre; in general terms and within Film Noir. Firstly, it will define what film genre is. Secondly, it will assess primary Noir conventions, using examples from Double Indemnity1. After each, it will explain how these reflect contemporary ideologies. Thirdly, it will assess how Sunset Boulevard2 meets and subverts Noir conventions.
Film genre evolved from repeated set patterns and characteristics within groups of films dealing with similar themes. Categories developed through this continued repetition. Audiences soon expected films within each type to “behave” in a distinct, particular way. This means genre films developed to become “cultural rituals” which collectively express and reflect “shared problems and values of … society.”3
So if the repetition of characteristics defines a genre – what constitutes these characteristics?
In Rubin’s Thrillers, he states that:
“a genre comprises two types of element: semantic (i.e., related to the specific signs used to produce meaning) and syntactic (i.e., related to the general relationships between those signs).”4
In other words, semantics are the commonly used mise-en-scene and iconography of a genre (e.g. in westerns: Stetson cowboy hats, horse-riding posses, saloons, drunk aged prospectors, barren desert landscapes, etc.) – and the syntactic is how these are used to convey the themes, problems and solutions that the genre deals with. (In westerns: a loner’s journey to acceptance, the conflict between “civilised” whites and “barbaric” native Americans.) Therefore to be successfully included as a genre film, a movie must adhere to the expected semantic & syntactic conventions.
However, genres do not have rules set in stone. They evolve over time, depicting the changing lives of the audience. Conventions can be subverted – depending on the narrative and a director’s creativity – hence many films are included in more than one genre. The concept of film genre can therefore be seen as flexible.
Film Noir is a particularly flexible film genre. Commonly defined as starting in 1941 with The Maltese Falcon5 and ending with in 1958 with Touch of Evil6, they are included in other genres – such as Detective, Melodrama, Thriller, Gangster – and were never produced under the Noir label. It is a retroactive classification, now considered a genre because the films collectively express an ideological vision of U.S. life with a stylistic approach, tone and atmosphere that is unique. No other genre is so reliant on visual style & presentation.
Double Indemnity is a classic Noir film – it adheres to the expected conventions completely. This study will now show these, using examples from this film.
Chiaroscuro composition is Film Noir’s expected stylistic convention. Chiaroscuro is a:
“pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to colour”7
In Film Noir this means: the frame is black – contents are “painted” with expressive, minimal shapes of light; characters are often only silhouettes; that Venetian blinds cast bars of shadows across rooms and faces (trapping characters in prison-like situations); street scenes are recognisable only from car and lamp-lights. Noir is set after sundown – so it is natural that this representational form should become customary.
Double Indemnity has chiaroscuro compositions throughout. Every pivotal moment is shrouded in darkness: when Phyllis suggests the death of her husband, her face can not be seen, only the outlines of her hair; when Walter strangles Mr Dietrichson we see her barely visible stone cold face; Phyllis shoots Walter in complete darkness. Walter’s narration describes the entire film’s chiaroscuro atmospherics:
“The windows were closed and the sunshine coming in through the Venetian blinds showed up the dust in the air.”8
Noir films regularly have characters enter a room, then turn a light on or off, altering the composition through their actions. In Double Indemnity this is done with great effect during the penultimate scene by Phyllis – she turns the light-shade off – foreshadowing her own dark intentions to kill Walter.
Chiaroscuro compositions were pioneered by 1920s German expressionist film-makers. They fled 1930s Fascist Europe to Hollywood. This migration from genocide, I suggest, caused them to compose with bleak, dark frames. Relying on blackness, or nothingness, to create compositions from, can be seen as a reflection of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, written in the same era. This bleak nothingness leads to the next Noir convention.
The “hero” of Noir films is expected to be a charismatic, immoral, beaten, alienated misogynistic loner, fighting for “bucks”, fighting the system, fighting to stay alive. He is Out-for-Himself. He has no family and no history. He continually wears a trilby hat, suit and trench-coat. He is involved in the “under-belly” of the law. He is usually a Private Detective – although there are many variations. He investigates the amoral rich and/or powerful gangsters. This investigation will take him through a labyrinthine urban nightmare world of deadly twists and turns, where fate lies not in his own hands. Often beaten-up, shot and drugged, his life is a bleak existence where certain doom is inescapable. The femme fatale serves to brighten his world – but will soon become the prime element in his inevitable downfall.
Walter Neff in Double Indemnity, is such a “hero.” He may not be a private “dick,” but he is involved in the law – as an insurance salesmen. He has worked in the system for years, and, like every other Noir character, is tempted by “fast bucks.” He narrates that:
“one night, you get to thinking how you could crook the house yourself. And do it smart. Because you’ve got that wheel right under your hands.”9
He is allured by fifty-thousand dollars, tempted by Phyllis – and is prepared to kill a complete stranger to get both – just because the chance is there. (Like Bogart says in In A Lonely Place:
“There’s no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality.”)10
However after the murder and insurance stitch-up has been perfectly executed, Walter is overwhelmed with inevitable doom:
“suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. … I couldn’t hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.”11
His guilty paranoia engulfs him. He loses his only meaningful relationship, with his father figure, Barton Keyes, due to his life becoming a tragic nightmare:
“I could feel my nerves pulling me to pieces...”12
Walter Neff’s portrayal, and the world he inhabits, is an extension of the previous contemporary ideologies mentioned. The 1930s and 40s were bleak, stressful decades: the world economy crashed; dictatorships ruled most of the globe; world wars became numbered; civilisation was on the brink of destruction. Noir heroes are therefore inevitably nihilistic, narcissistic, alienated, self-centred loners. In a world which is continually out to get you, how else could you survive?
The femme fatale stems from similar ideologies. But as a woman surviving in a patriarchal world, she becomes the most potent Film Noir element.
We expect the femme fatale to be glamourous, alluring and mysterious. She wears heels and attractive dresses; the hero will have a fetish for her legs – as exemplified by Walter’s obsession with Phyllis’s anklet in Double Indemnity. The following Chandler quote further illustrates this, and also shows Noir’s origins in 1930s detective novels:
“She was stretched out … so I stared at her legs in the sheerest silk stockings. They seemed to be arranged to stare at. They were visible to the knee and one of them well beyond.”13
Femme fatales always mean trouble. We expect her to be duplicitous and manipulative – using her sexuality to cloud the hero’s judgement and make him do as she pleases. She will be married and financially dependent on a much older, richer man than the hero – thus she creates another Noir convention: the love triangle. Such a love triangle means certain death for her husband.
Phyllis in Double Indemnity is a prime femme fatale – already married, already a murderess – she tempts Walter with the idea of killing Mr Dietrichson so that he may have her. As an insurance man, she gets him to work out the details; lets him feel in charge – even though he is manipulated from the start. She is the catalyst which pushes him to “crook the house” – and like all femme fatales, is like Eve in Genesis – tempting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit…
Noir films are also melodramas. These are: “dominated by an active female character,” (usually a victim); are full of secrets and chance events; are omnisciently narrated; and moreover represent the:
“problems, anxieties, difficulties and worries of women living in a … patriarchal society.”14
Film Noir checks these boxes. Although males play the leading roles15 – females are the central characters. Phyllis serves this purpose: her entrance is the narrative’s “birth” – her death is it’s “funeral.” She causes every action in the film. It is her story – told through Walter. This is the conventional Film Noir narrative format.
World War Two considerably changed gender relationships. Women entered the “male” workplace during the war – and gained economic independence. Therefore there were less jobs available to returning troops, as:
“many women no longer believed setting up a family to be their top priority.”16
So it is unsurprising the femme fatale should be portrayed as a threatening “spider-woman.” She is primarily a misogynistic creation – although there is equality in her conveyance. She has the same nihilistic, narcissistic, self-motivated outlook as the male characters – but must operate differently under the constrictive gender codes of the time.
The above are the primary semantic conventions of Noir. They create the Noir syntactic: the lonely, despairing, pessimistic tone; the overall negation of life; the inescapable threat of death. This psychological mood is what most defines a film as Noir.
Sunset Boulevard subverts many Noir semantics – but uses these to create the expected syntactic. This study will now analyse how this film meets and subverts Noir conventions.
It starts with death – the conventional Noir opening (even if shown as a flash-back or forward: death always starts Noir films.)
Atypically the film is not a criminal investigation – instead: a lead up to the crime.
The opening scenes show Joe in various city locations in search of cash. These are shot in daylight – unconventional for Noir films. But it is narrated by the hero, as in Double Indemnity.
Instead of becoming trapped in a labyrinth of dark alleyways, Joe is caged within Norma Desmond’s gothic mansion. This provides the particular Noir style and atmospherics: both the rickety exterior with ghostly tennis-court – and the vainly-decorated foreboding interior.
Norma is an atypical femme fatale – older than the hero and financially independent. She is glamourous – but Joe is not attracted to her. Still, he falls into her “web” – tempted by the chance of “fast bucks…”
The film’s sexuality is not as overt as other Noir films. Norma does not sexually manipulate the hero – she buys him. As exemplified by her handing Joe money to purchase her cigarettes.
The diction is not innuendo driven – as in Double Indemnity. However, it is pickled with colourful metaphors and snappy dialogue. Previous quotes used in this study illustrate how metaphor is continually used in Noir – everything is poetically implied. (Which, I suggest, was caused by the Hayes Code, which prohibited the explicit.)
Sunset Boulevard is not reliant on chiaroscuro composition – although there is a fair amount. The framing is generally horizontal: conventional Noir uses tilted, low and high-angled shots considerably.
It has an array of intertwined minor characters, another Noir characteristic. These help to twist and turn the plot, to make it somewhat convoluted and melodramatic. In Sunset Boulevard the minor characters are: the finance men after Joe’s car, the butler, Joe’s agent, the director Norma previously worked with, Joe’s friend Artie and the girlfriend he steals from him. All developing the plot into a heavily foreshadowed conventional Noir ending – death. But it is a subverted ending – the hero dies – not the femme fatale, as is usual.
The psychological mood-journey Sunset Boulevard takes audiences through is the paramount reason it is Film Noir – as well as the many other conventions it meets.
Film Noir is an unique genre. Unlike all others, it offers no solutions to the problems it addresses. Through it’s stylish nature, it reflects modern life’s dark-side, where:
“everybody is lonely, lost”17
Where every journey takes you: “straight down the line”18 to death.
REFERENCES.
Double Indemnity. Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures, 1944).
Sunset Boulevard. Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures, 1950).
Warren Buckland. Teach Yourself Film Studies. 3rd Edition. (Hodder Headline, 2008) Pages 111, 113, 124.
Martin Rubin. Thrillers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.) Page 4.
The Maltese Falcon. Director: John Huston. (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1941).
Touch of Evil. Director: Orson Welles. (Universal International Pictures, 1958).
Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chiaroscuro?show=0&t=1294167286 (accessed 05-01-2011)
James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Billy Wilder. Double Indemnity script. (1944.)
http://sfy.ru/?script=double_indemnity_1944 (accessed 05-01-2011)
In A Lonely Place. Director: Nicholas Ray. (Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1950.)
Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep. (London: Penguin, 2005 Edition.) Page 16.
Mildred Pierce. Director: Michael Curtiz. (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1945).
Clash by Night. Director: Fritz Lang. (Wald/Krasna Productions, 1952).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Ace in the Hole. (1951.) Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures.)
The Asphalt Jungle. (1950.) Director: John Huston. (MGM.)
Bennett, P., Hickman A., Wall P. (2007.) “Film Noir” in Film Studies: The Essential Resource. (London: Routledge).
The Big Heat. (1953.) Director: Fritz Lang. (Columbia Picture Corporation.)
The Big Sleep. (1946.) Director: Howard Hawks. (Warner Bros. Pictures.)
Body Heat. (1981.) Director: Lawrence Kasdan. (The Ladd Company.)
Buckland, W. (2008.) Teach Yourself Film Studies. 3rd Edition. (Hodder Headline.)
Cain, J.M., Chandler, R., Wilder, B. (1944.) Double Indemnity script.
http://sfy.ru/?script=double_indemnity_1944 (accessed 05-01-2011)
Chandler, R. (1939.)The Big Sleep. (London: Penguin. 2005 Edition.)
Clash by Night. (1952.) Director: Fritz Lang. (Wald/Krasna Productions.)
Dark Passage. (1947.) Director: Delmer Davies. (Warner Bros. Pictures.)
Double Indemnity. (1944.) Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures.)
Harland, J., Timmons, N. (2006.) AS Film Studies. (Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd.)
Gilda. (1946.) Director: Charles Vidor. (Columbia Pictures Corporation.)
In A Lonely Place. (1950.) Director: Nicholas Ray. (Columbia Pictures Corporation.)
Kiss Me Deadly. (1955.) Director: Robert Aldrich. (Parklane Pictures Inc.)
The Lady From Shanghai. (1947.) Director: Orson Welles. (Columbia Pictures Corporation.)
The Maltese Falcon. (1941.) Director: John Huston. (Warner Bros. Pictures.)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chiaroscuro?show=0&t=1294167286 (accessed 05-01-2011)
Murder, My Sweet. (1944.) Director: Edward Dmytryk. (RKO Radio Pictures.)
The Naked City. (1948.) Director: Jules Dassin. (Universal International Pictures.)
Night and The City. (1950.) Director: Jules Dassin. (20th Century Fox Productions.)
Out of the Past. (1947.) Director: Jacques Tourneur. (RKO Radio Pictures.)
The Postman Always Rings Twice. (1946.) Director: Tay Garnett. (MGM.)
Rubin, M. (1999.) Thrillers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)
Sartre, J.P. (1943.) Being and Nothingness. 2009 Edition.(London: Routledge.)
Scarlet Street. (1945.) Director: Fritz Lang. (Fritz Lang Productions.)
Sunset Boulevard. (1950.) Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures.)
Touch of Evil. (1958.) Director: Orson Welles. (Universal International Pictures.)
1 Double Indemnity. Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures, 1944.)
2 Sunset Boulevard. Director: Billy Wilder. (Paramount Pictures, 1950.)
3Warren Buckland. (2008.) Teach Yourself Film Studies. 3rd Edition. Hodder Headline. Page 111.
4Martin Rubin. (1999.) Thrillers. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Page 4.
5 The Maltese Falcon. Director: John Huston. (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1941).
6 Touch of Evil. Director: Orson Welles. (Universal International Pictures, 1958).
7Merriam-Webster Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chiaroscuro?show=0&t=1294167286 (accessed 05-01-2011)
8James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Billy Wilder. Double Indemnity script. http://sfy.ru/?script=double_indemnity_1944 (accessed 05-01-2011)
9Ibid.
10 In A Lonely Place. Director: Nicholas Ray. (Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1950.)
11Double Indemnity script.
12 Ibid.
13Raymond Chandler (1939)The Big Sleep. Penguin. London. 2005 Edition. Page 16.
14Warren Buckland. (2008.)Teach yourself Film Studies. 3rd Edition. Hodder Headline. Page 113.
15The only exception is: Mildred Pierce. Director: Michael Curtiz. (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1945).
16Warren Buckland. (2008.) Page 124.
17Clash by Night. Director: Fritz Lang. (Wald/Krasna Productions, 1952).
18 Double Indemnity script.
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