Gilda: The Singing Dancing Noir Heroine

"Sure, I'm decent."

Gilda is both interesting and terrifying to watch for the relationships the characters carry with each other. Johnny starts off as the narrator, but then by the end almost becomes the villain. The love triangle between Johnny Farrell, Ballin Mundson, and Gilda suggests relationships both of love and of doom, as is the case of Ballin. Through mere suggestion we question the nature of relationship between Ballin and Johnny, whom are extremely close. Then there is the sadomasochistic relationship between Johnny and Gilda. She walks and talks like a femme fatale, but she rises beyond being one by being sympathetic and relatable. In the 1940s it was traditional in films to show women in housekeeping roles; except in film noirs, wherein women who rebel against patriarchy would be punished. In the noir world women were not allowed to get ahead, or be freed; they were to be controlled. Gilda becomes unusual because of it’s portrayal of the title character in a different light; trying to promote herself, exhibiting herself in sexually, yet Gilda is depicted as being sympathetic. Gilda is more optimistic in the film world. Gilda is not a femme fatal, and she is able to persevere through her afflictions and come out the better for it.

Gilda is represented in strange ways. One of Ballin’s rules is that the club should be filled with men and unattractive women, so that Ballin can further control the gamblers by forcing their focus on gambling. With her appearance, Gilda disrupts the focus, redirecting it to herself. She is an exhibitionist, daring to challenge the authority of men over her body, by singing and dancing. Ballin has the rule that woman and gambling do not mix; however, Ballin when confronted by Johnny Farrell with this rule responds, “My wife does not come under the category of women.” Ballin may perceive and be attracted to Gilda for the fact that her behavior is masculine rather than feminine. There is an implied homosexual relationship between Ballin and Johnny. With that in mind it would be safe to assume the thing that attracted Ballin to Gilda would be her femme fatal like behavior. Femme fatales in noir is that they try to act like men rather than be servants of men, so is this could be the element that attracts him toward her. Gilda, the character in the movie world and the movie in our world, becomes a challenge toward patriarchal society. Richard Dyer writes that “The casting of Hayworth as Gilda gives the character a positive charge (where femme fatales are usually negative, in the sense of being absent in terms of personality, mere functions or the eternal unknowable.)”

. What becomes the strangest part of Gilda in the film noir universe is that she becomes sympathetic. Instead of a femme fatal sent to castrate the men, she becomes a woman fighting for her own happiness and freedom from those who are continually trying to control her.

Much of the uniqueness of the character of Gilda is created by Hayworth, the actress who played her. Other noir films had to get smaller actresses to perform due to small budgets; however, Gilda was not a B picture and therefore could afford a name actress. Rita Hayworth brought her charm to the performance of Gilda. Dyer writes about in the 40‘s Rita was considered a ‘love goddess’ for heterosexual men, but she was also “an identification figure for heterosexual women.” Dancing, he explains, was unnecessary for the character but was there because Hayworth was known for dancing. Dyer continues, “They introduce a new element into the construction of the character as a sexual object -- namely, movement.” The elements of dancing, movement, singing, and exhibitionism are all important to understanding the character Gilda, and her relationship with Johnny. He is always trying to control Gilda, not allowing her to dance, sing, or move freely. 

Johnny is punishing her, we are never told directly why and it becomes irrelevant.  Naremore probably best explains the noir hero by stating “In many cases, the noir protagonist's ability to serve as a role model is undercut by his quasi-gay relationships with men, by his masochistic love affairs with women, and by his more general weakness of character.” 

The extremes that Johnny goes to can not be justified in his treatment toward Gilda. In terms of plot development, the Nazis could have been interchangeable with gangsters. Nazis become a symbol of Johnny and Gilda’s relationship in the film and a reminder of the extremes of controlling people, allowing intolerance and hatred to blind people as it did Johnny. Johnny becomes a dictator in his treatment of Gilda, and her apartment, which he never visits, becomes her prison, from which she is never allowed to leave. After she runs away and is told that it is safe, she realizes that it was all a ruse, she was never safe. Though Ballin tries to kill Johnny and Gilda at the end, he never quite succeeds in behaving more outrageous than Johnny. He is controlling of Gilda even when she is married to Ballin, and forces her to play the good wife to Ballin. Motivations could stem from revenge against her, or that he wants Ballin to be happy and have an obedient and good wife, because of his feelings toward Ballin. Both of which could be true but it never really matters. Johnny feels threatened in the end by Gilda and that is why he treats her the way that he does. Angela Martin said, “she doesn’t necessarily have to kill or harm anyone, she just carries the threat by her very presence.” This better explains the reasoning of Johnny’s behavior. Johnny runs the casino with his own Gestapo, and treats Gilda with the hatred and intolerance that a dictator has for minorities, because he feels she is a threat by being there.

Here Gilda is caught dancing with another
man, and Johnny has come to pull her away.

Gilda refuses to allow herself to be controlled. She puts up with the cruelty Johnny gives her, perhaps, more than most would. Through it all she dances, she sings, she owns herself and refuses to be owned by Johnny, by keeping her movement free. While Hayworth was a pin-up model, and a sexual fantasy for men, there is a feminist element of freedom with her in this role. Dyer wrote “the particular kind of movement, the association with it of Hayworth’s image, its narrative placing, all make it possible to read Hayworth-as-Gilda... in Marjorie Rosen’s terms: ‘for the first time a heroine seemed to say, “This is my body. It’s lovely and gives me pleasure. I rejoice in it just as you do”, or else in terms of male heterosexual enjoyment of the character - of surrender rather than control.” An element of male masculinity in film noir and Gilda becomes about control, as Johnny controls Gilda.

Another difference between Gilda and other film noirs is everything gets straightened out, for the most part, and ends with a more traditional happy ending. Instead of being punished in the end, Gilda is rewarded. Johnny changes, acknowledges his wrong-doing against Gilda and asks for her forgiveness. Ballin, the only person standing between them and won’t let them go, gets killed. The two go off together away from the casino and the Nazis. While the change of Johnny is presented logically, with Uncle Pio and Detective Maurice Obregon appealing to Johnny to be more sympathetic and reasonable throughout the film, but the transformation is still quick and magical. Not surprisingly, some of the writers were women, and perhaps that is why this stands out as a more pro-feminist film. So the writers could have been trying to appeal to men to drop misogynistic behavior and live harmoniously with their female counterparts.

Johnny fights Nazis and cops who want to control him. Johnny even fights off luck. Then he ends up trying to control Gilda. Why should Gilda be any more controlled than he? Film noir exemplifies masculine behavior, and Gilda’s plea is to allow the Gildas of the world to continue to sing and to dance. Gilda is not a femme fatal because she is not one sided, and she becomes sympathetic. Gilda is free because of her movement. She sings and dances, and refuses to allow herself be controlled. Unlike many film noirs female characters, Gilda becomes a role model for women.

¹ Dyer, Richard. ‘Resistance Through Charisma: Rita Hayworth and Gilda.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. Kaplan, E. Ann.British Film Institute. 2008. 119.

² Dyer, Richard. 120

³ Dyer, Richard.

⁴ Naremore, James. More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. 2008. Ebook edition.

⁵ Martin, Angela. ‘Gilda Didn’t Do Any of Those Things You’ve Been Losing Sleep Over!’: The Central Women of the 40s Film Noirs.’ Women in Film Noir. Ed. Kaplan, E. Ann.British Film Institute. 2008. 208.

⁶ Martin, Angela. 208.

Sequoia Sempervirens of "Vertigo"

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't watched Vertigo already, do not read on.

In Vertigo, Scottie and Madeleine escape up to Muir Woods to look at the redwood trees together. The sequence is powerful not just because of the beauty of the redwoods, but because of the overpowering nature of them. Scottie and Madeleine, who is really Judy, are reduced as figures into small mammals in comparison to the sequoias. Madeleine projects her fear of death and the unknown. Scottie tries to comfort her and get her to open up, but gets pulled further into Madeleine’s lies. The feeling is of despair and hopelessness for the two characters; though they are together now, there are forces suggested ripping them apart. Those forces are the implied; through a ghost story told by Gavin and Madeleine Elster that Scottie begins to believe, and the truth that Gavin Elster has hired a doppleganger to be his wife and mislead Scottie as part of his plan to kill his wife. This sequence conveys the treachery of Scottie’s friend Gavin setting him up, Judy impersonating Madeleine to mislead him, and at the same time the supernatural happening which is all part of the set up.

Hitchcock’s use of mise-en-scene projects this sense of disparity and hopelessness in the forest sequence. The trees are huge and majestic, overpowering the image of the screen. Andre Bazin illustrates the idea of image when he said, “By image I here mean, very broadly speaking, everything that the representation on the screen adds to the object there represented.” Madeleine and Scottie are viewed in the corner as tiny figures in the screen. The dichotomy of the characters and the trees make the scene sinister. There is light in the front ground of the shot where the car is, however, in the corner of the shot Scottie and Madeleine are walking into it is darkened by the shade of the trees. The viewer in this shot is suddenly transported with the fade from a comfortable sea road to a menacing land, where we feel foreboding danger lies in waiting for us. In the next shot we have a similar placement when we see the two standing next to a large singular sequoia. Scottie and Madeleine talk about the tree, and Scottie tells her it is “two thousand years or so.” The tree’s given age, combined with the juxtaposition of the wide shot, gives us a menacing view of a giant domineering sequoia tree enveloping them. Madeleine talks about how many people must have lived and died in the tree’s lifetime, furthering the ominous feeling set in the woods. However, the film is now building up to the idea that as old as these trees are so is Madeleine’s “soul.” In the film this will propel Scottie to believe Madeleine, allowing him to become a rube in Elster’s plot.

Madeleine and Scottie are dominated by the giant sequoias. Scottie blends in, while Madeleine's coat makes her stand out.

Mortality becomes an issue in this scene.The lifespan of the trees, as Madeleine points out, shadows the life and death over several individuals during that point and time. She states that she does not like the trees, because it puts her into the frame of mind of “knowing she has to die.” The trees become a symbol of life and death; both Madeleine’s “former” life and a foreshadowing of her future death, as Madeleine Elster and then as Judy Barton. Madeleine talks about the future as if it were hopeless, and we feel as though it were hopeless because we remember Madeleine’s past “life,” and the tragic death there. This scene, as well as several others in the movie, have a sense of foreboding and disparity about them.

The forest is presented as being very dark. Light has trouble getting through the trees, the trees and the floor being covered by deep shadows. Scottie and Madeleine themselves are lit in such a way that you would almost think that they were indoors, not outside. Madeleine wears a white coat through the sequence so she stands out in the shadows; whereas Scottie is wearing a dark suit and blends in with the shadows in shots as he walks in arm with her. They are shot with soft romantic lighting, with Madeleine practically glowing. It is believable lighting within the redwood forest, and draws us into the scene. The romantic glow on her face as Scottie questions her, probing about her “past” life, as she tries to deflect the answers, makes us begin to believe her lies, just as Scottie begins to believe them as well. The two of them are in the literal and metaphoric dark as Gavin Elster, the real Madeleine’s spouse, makes his plans to kill Madeleine. The two are pawns in his plans, and Scottie is in the dark.

In the end of the sequence they leave the redwood forest. Scottie asks Madeleine where she would like to go, and she responds, “Somewhere in the light.” With that they exit the forest and go back to the beach, where they find light. Then Madeleine leads Scottie back into the darkness by answering his questions with more lies. The forest is the set up, and this is the punchline. Madeleine is then capable of telling Scottie about the deal with the grave in Spain. She questions her sanity and states that she isn’t mad, but gives into the delusional idea that her past life is haunting her. This allows Scottie to kiss her, signing his fate, as he falls in love with her. Hitchcock makes use of rear projection in this sequence by timing their kiss with the splash of an ocean wave. The two events happening at the same time make it all the more dramatic, and it seems to be destiny for the two to kiss. The whole sequence is about the disparity of Madeleine and Scottie falling for it. We believe him because the woods become a dark tunnel that they are passing through together, after which Scottie is able to “rescue” her and bring her into the light. 

Hitchcock is considered an auteur director, as well as a genre director at times. This means that there are repetitive motifs, themes, and ideologies in his films that reflect who he is and what he thinks. Robin Wood wrote, “It is only through the medium of the individual that ideological tensions come into particular focus, hence become of aesthetic as well as sociological interest.” Robin Wood explains that the suspense of his Hitchcock’s films, “his ‘suspense’ always carries a sexual charge in ways sometimes obvious, sometimes esoteric....[S]exual relationships in his work are inevitably based on power, the obsession with power and dread of impotence being as central to his method as to his thematic.”

 Hitchcock uses the obsession with power and sexual relationships in Vertigo as well, slowly developing Madeleine and Scottie’s relationship. 

Many of Hitchcock’s films have male protagonists that stare obsessively at their female counterparts, such as in Rear Window and Marnie. Vertigo has an obsessive protagonist as well. Scottie becomes a voyeur, a spectator, watching Madeleine. Laura Mulvey wrote that, “Scottie’s voyeurism is blatant: he falls in love with a woman he follows and spies on without speaking to.” In the redwoods sequence it is much the same as well. He watches her, never tells her anything but only asks her questions. Mulvey says that Scottie’s “erotic drive is to break down and force her to tell by persistent cross questioning.” That is exactly what Scottie does here in this scene; he watches Madeleine, never telling her much about himself, instead only interacting with her by interrogating her like a police officer, digging deeper into Madeleine’s hesitant stories, which makes her more believable.

The scene in the redwoods gives way to the feeling of despair about the doomed relationship between Scottie and Madeleine. As they walk through the forest, discussing Madeleine’s thoughts, we are aware of both the words she says and doesn’t say. The tragic nature of their relationship is given a feeling of predetermined doom, that life will outweigh them. Hitchcock’s use of mise-en-scene presents the redwoods as giants bearing over Scottie and Madeleine, suggesting in the long run they are insignificant, which they are, even in their own lives, being pawns in Elster’s plans. The lighting is dark and bleak in the forest, with most of the trees covered in shadows, the light hidden from them. Scottie, as well as the audience, begins to believe Madeline's deception and thinks she is being drawn in by a past life, while at the same time the atmosphere doesn’t betray the reality of Judy and Elster’s lies to Scottie. 

General Impressions from "Cabaret"

I was afraid the decadence and hedonism that I knew would be portrayed in Cabaret would be too much for me, however it was not. The film is PG and is relatively tame. The emcee I would imagine is too much for people, and there is an open tolerance of sexuality talked about with many people that more conservative persons will not enjoy. Historically the depiction of sexuality is accurate in the film. Despite what many people want to believe, all of these controversial bits we talk about today were still around then. Yet, it is not so much the elements of the sexuality that struck me but the technique.

Editing in the film was startling and moved the scenes quickly. We watch Brian Roberts yell at a Nazi soldier, and then kicked down a Nazi flag. Before we can witness the fight there is a straight cut to Roberts in bed with a broken arm and a black eye. The fight is implied, we have the set up, and the resolution, but not the actual event, it is created in our minds from the clues given. Films today rely too much on violence, and spectacle. When in fact they are incredibly unnecessary for story telling purposes, only there to provide bloodlust and dazzle us. Cabaret is all too aware that it detracts from the story, and moves it right along. There are only ever jump cuts throughout the film, no fades, or any other kind of transitions. The cuts add to the immediacy of the growing Nazi threat that is ever so present throughout the film by making us uneasy. It also challenges us as viewers to invest ourselves more into Cabaret because we would suddenly be in another scene without any indication of time or space passing, and we have to be more involved in the film to figure it out.

There was much I wanted to write about the theme of Cabaret, but after several tries to write I felt I could not do it justice without dedicating more time than I originally wanted.

General Impressions While Watching In Time.

This are general thoughts and feeling upon watching In Time. I fear that I run short here, but there is a thing as too much.

In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, features Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried as a pair that harkens back to the Bonnie and Clyde style duo, with shades of Robin Hood. In the film time to live is handed out to people like paychecks after they turn 25, and they never age after that point. Timberlake’s character, Will Salas, is from the lower class ghettos; and is mysteriously given over a hundred years worth by Henry Hamilton before he kills himself. Hamilton, played by USA’s White Collars star Matt Bomer, gives an existential crisis that challenges the immortal upper class: no one should live forever, because what does your life matter if you don’t die. (He never says it in those direct words, but that is how I took it.) Salas then breaks into the upper class part of the city, where he meets Amanda Seyfried’s character Sylvia Weis. Together they become a Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood-esque duo, robbing banks for years and handing them out to the poor.

Time is measured on the arms of individuals,
like a quasi bioengineered watch.When it hits zero, you die.

Not to many films are “pure” genre films, meaning that they adhere to the rules and formulas of any one specific film. There are bits and pieces of film noir, science fiction, and caper/heist films in here. It moves slow like a film noir, never using the fast cuts that we see in most modern action films today. More importantly, in my humble opinion, there are moments the camera lingers on characters as the let an emotion settle in them, or they think. It doesn’t linger on the characters thinking in a Douglas Sirk film, it still is slower than most films, (Michael Bay,) and does mean it is more intelligent than most films, (again Michael Bay.) Many people have complained about this film being too slowThe original point of the creation of fast editing and montage was to insure the audience would not think, but allow the film to think for them,(any commercial and again, thank you, Michael Bay.) I think that intellectuals in the meantime are put off by the parrelels it may have with Bonnie and Clyde, but this is forgiveable. Films, especially American films, reuse familiar film Genre formats when presenting outlandish and abstract ideas that people may reject. If you do not believe me watch Oceans 11 and then Inception, and tell me there are no parallels between the two films. I found that the pacing of the movie, its beats, and its twists kept me into the story and entertained.

As Bonnie and Clyde meets Robin Hood, robbing the rich,
distributing to the poor.

This film draws several parallels with the real world. The first and most obvious in American culture is the concept of health care. With publicity about the American health care system by the media, example Sicko by Michael Moore, and Obama’s failing fight for a universal healthcare many people will watch the film and think that it is exactly like that. In many ways it is. It is more about the distribution of wealth, not just in the U.S., but there is also the implication of a world wide phenomenon, (the ending hints playfully at the idea of there always being a bigger fish.) We have witnessed the 99 percent riots, and the movie hints at a similar goal. 

Seyfried and her father belong to In Time’s 1 percent population. Those that live there move slowly, compared to those that live in the slums. In the slums you have to rush or else your clock might run out and you will die. The 1 percent are leisurely in their pursuits, and don’t take any risks because the only way that they can ever die is “with a bullet.” Seyfried’s characters father quotes Social Darwinism, wherein only the strong survive, as his justification for his life style. He even says that for him to be immortal, many people have to die. I know that there are those in the audience that will watch this and think he maybe over the top as a villain, but any educated person, or any person who has listened to similar people know that these are direct lines from this world.

The movie never hints at socialism, but compassion, I believe. This maybe a misreading by me because I want to believe in the Capitalist system despite its inherent flaws because I enjoy the liberties attained to me by the American system as opposed to the restrictions by the Socialist system. Timberlake and Seyfried’s characters are generous with their time, even if it means running their clocks down to a point it may risk their lives. If everyone in a Capitalist system was generous there would be no Occupy Movements, there would be no need. However, we do have Occupy because there is corruption. Social Darwinism has nothing to do with Darwin directly, or with science, but business leaders misreading of Darwin in the early turn of the century 1900’s. I’m not suggesting that every CEO or banker is like this either, but in fact I have heard many interesting discussions with some that explain it is not truly them but the main thing we are all worried about: the system broken.

If you think I am contradicting myself, I can understand your thinking. I must explain myself here a little bit. I took a Humanities class last semester, and my Professor explained that no system works properly. A socialist system, as history has witnessed, is just as corrupt as a capitalist system. It is better for us to work inside the system and try to change it, and have “compassion” as we work in it. However in the movie it never goes in this direction. Cillian Murphy plays Raymond Leon, a police detective who came from the slums, worked his way up, and now fights for the system. Timberlake and Seyfried continue to fight outside the system, tearing it down slowly. This model of change could not work in our world, because the system in our world is even bigger than the one in In Time, and therefore even more police forces. Perhaps this is Andrew Niccol working in the system for change, he made the movie with the system to get people talking and thinking. This is something I will have to research in the future, perhaps, as to his thoughts on his film.

There are many more things that can be said, and should be said about this movie. I will close with these last thoughts: it was amazing this movie was made. It isn’t subtle in who it is attacking, big businesses/banks, who are funders of big movies like this. It almost doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t get more press, and was not a success. However, with the Occupy movement this movie capture the zeitgeist perfectly, so why was it not a bigger success through grassroots? I believe that this movie though it was not a success, like many great movies such as Citizen Kane, will appreciate in time.

Film Noir: the Genre that Wasn’t a Genre

Because it is not a set genre, as Science Fiction, people disagree as to what is and is not Noir. Schrader writes, “Almost every critic has his or her own definitions of film noir, along with a personal list of film titles and dates to back it up. A film of urban nightlife is not necessarily a film noir, and a film noir need not necessarily concern crime and corruption.”

 Keeping this in mind how do we determine what is a film noir? By its style, its content, and the mood it presents we determine whether it is “Film Noir.” Noir has its own style, that harkens back to German expressionism, and it uses it to convey its mood. The mood of Noir is caused by the events of the time.

To understand film noir, we have to understand and interpret the mood of the time. World War II was ending, and soldiers were coming home. Many of them came home to the jobs, positions, and other posts of life to find their worlds upside down. Women had taken over in many aspects of society. Traditionally men were the bread winners, but with them fighting the war, now women stepped in. Women gained independence they did not have before. The change of gender roles created a threat to the masculinity for many men returning home. Many of those same men had faced tough situations that conflicted with their moral senses. The redefining of morality and the world led into existentialism. Robert G. Porfirio writes “Existentialism is an outlook which begins with a disoriented individual facing a confuse world that he cannot accept. It places its emphasis on man’s contingency in a world where there are no transcendental values or moral absolutes, a world devoid of any meaning but the one man himself creates.”

 The change of the world created an existential outlook for many of those returning from the War.

The confused existential outlook reflects itself into film noir. In Double Indemnity we witness Keyes moral confusion when he realizes that his best friend, Neff, has taken him for a ride. Again in The Third Man, Lime has taken his best friend Martins for a ride. These men are faced with the fact that their friends have betrayed their moral centers and therefore Keyes and Martins must decide wether they should betray their moral code of friendship, or their general sense of morality. The black and white world ends here and ethical decision making becomes grey. Schrader writes about the hard-boiled detective novels that Film Noir has its roots in, “The hard boiled writers had their roots in pulp fiction or journalism, and their protagonists lived out a narcissistic, defeatist code. The hard boiled hero was, in reality, a soft egg compared to his existential counterpart...”

The portrayal of women in Film Noir, as femme fatales, represent a threat to masculinity. They are powerful dominant women. Sometimes they act as catalysts for murder, Double Indemnity, try to frame the protagonist, The Long Goodbye, or use him to get to their objective, The Maltese Falcon. Gaylan Studlar writes, “the protagonist’s meeting of a woman governs his direction and his doom, a situation that would be repeated, with variations, throughout much of film noir in Hollywood’s postwar years.” The Femme Fatale is mysterious and dangerous. She is seldom presented as a fully fleshed out character. In This Gun for Hire, the hit man Phillip Raven is given a fully thought back story which he tells. Not too many Film Noir’s give this for women. Richard Dyer rights, “...woman in film noir are above all us unknowable. It is not so much their evil as their unknowability (and attractiveness) that makes them fatal for the hero.To the degree that culture is defined my men, what is, and is known, is male. Film noir thus starkly divides the world into that which is unknown and unknowable (female) and, again by inference only, that which is known (male).”

 Woman in Noir become the unknown, the grey space, defying ethics. Phyllis Dietrichson best portrays this in Double Indemnity, her personality which allows her to kill is never fully explained. She lives in the shadows, literally and metaphorically, hidden from Neff. It should be noted that not every film noir has a femme fatale. This Gun For Hire has a positive female force which makes the killer Raven reconsider his methods and actions. Just as not every noir needs a femme fatale not every noir needs to adhere to the rules of noir. 

Noir has a greater cinematic presence than other film genres do to the restrictions presented on it at the time. James Naremore writes in “More than Night: Notes About Film Noir” of the limitations that filmmakers were allowed to show. The HUAC was suppressing political commentary by the left wing filmmakers. The Production Code Administration, Will Hays, and the MPPDA would not allow filmmakers to show gruesome violence, or sexual matter. Such impositions only helped the creative process of the filmmakers, wherein they continued to put in subject matter but in a more stylistic fashion. Double Indemnity, for example, uses a fade to imply sexual intercourse, whereas the book had a sense of urgency. Yet the implication is still there, the same effect is used in the Maltese Falcon as well. “Hollywood in the 1940s always depicted sexual intercourse through symbolism and ellipsis,” writes Naremore, “Scenes such as these remind us of what Christian Metz calls the “peculiarity” of censorship, which always allows things to pass around it.... The censor...seldom leaves a blank spot or an X across a scene. “You can see the censor,” Metz remarks, much as you can see the workings of a secondary revision in dreams; usually it manifests itself as a slight incoherence or displacement...and from the point of aesthetics, it sometimes has salutary results.” He continues to talk about how censorship restrictions upon films often give it a “confusing and dreamlike” quality in many pictures. This does not just apply to sex, but depictions of sexuality, violence, and other offbeat elements of the stories censors did not like.

The style of Noir comes from the camera. Dutch angles, long shots, low-key lighting, foggy sequences, long shadows, neon lights in a night time environment, and wet streets reflecting city lights are all some of the key elements of Noir. Compositions play heavy into Film Noir. Schrader writes, “Compositional tension is preferred to physical action. A typical film noir would rather move the scene cinematographically around the actor than have the actor control the scene by physical action.” Often characters are framed so that the city seems to be bearing over them, as if it will crush them very soon. A similar ominous effect is created by filming actors low angling up so that the ceiling dominates over them. Frames within the film frame were often employed to give a fatalistic feel toward a certain character. Such as the bars that fall over Brigid O’Shaughnessy at the end of the Maltese Falcon, to represent the prison where she is sent to. There are too many film noir stylistic motifs to talk about here, but it is important to note them to understand how it ties back into the heart of Noir, its bleak existential outlook. Even when Noir has a happy ending, such as Sam Spade solving the murders in the Maltese Falcon, it is still bleak because his partner is still dead, and the woman he fell in love with is going to prison because he sent her there.

The period of time in which Noir existed was a turbulent time, marked by the war and its end. Returning soldiers were trying to understand the world that they had stepped into, having an existential crisis. Like other art film drew from the world around it at the time it existed. The filmmakers often depicted very dark material, darker than what many censors would allow them to depict literally, so instead they depicted elements artistically on the screen. Noir style is very important to understand it as a genre. However, as it has been shown here, it is important to understand the social and philosophic reasoning for using the style. Merely looking unique or splendid for artistic sake would not be enough to make it a wonderful film style.

Bibliography:

Dyer, Richard. “Resistance Through Charisma: Rita Hayworth and Gilda.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. Kaplan, Ann.

Naremore, James. More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. University of California PRess, Berkeley and Los Angeles. 2008. Ebook edition.

Martin, Angela. “Gilda Didn’t Do Any of Those Things You’ve Been Losing Sleep Over!’: The Central Women of 40s Films Noir” Women in Film Noir. Ed. Kaplan, Ann.

Porfirio, Robert G. "No Way Out: Existential Motifs in the Film Noir" Film Noir Reader. Ed. Silver, Alain and Ursini, James. 8th ed. New York: Limelight Editions, 2006.

Schrader, Paul. "Notes on Film Noir." Film Theory and Criticism. Ed. Braudy, Leo and Cohen, Marshall. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Studlar, Gaylyn. "Double Indemnity" Film Analysis: A Norton Reader. Ed. Geiger, Jeffrey and Rutsky, R.L. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.

Control in Gamespace

McKenzie Wark wrote the book Gamespace, drawing parallels between our reality and the beloved video games of our society. In it he drew many life comparisons, about the fomulation of our "gamespace" and ourselves, and the need for video games. Video games, he feels, are necessary because they give us options where movies do not, but unlike reality conform to fairness toward the rules. However, as video games have become more complex and advanced they become more chaotic like this world.


Yet this world is a game. As we play video games and develop theories on how to overcome the obstacles--gamer theory--we also develop theories on how to overcome obstacles in everyday life--gamespace. Gamespace is the world in which we live in. As we continue to develop theories for gamespace, the gamespace changes. McKenzie Wark argues that games like “The Sims” are so popular because this world does not follow the rules it gives. McKenzie writes in Gamer Theory, “If it is a choice between ‘The Sims’ as a real game and gamespace as a game of the real, the gamer chooses to stay in The Cave and play games. The contradiction is that for there to be a game which is fair and rational there must be a gamespace which is neither.”(49) In “The Sims” the player follows the rules given to get to achieve career goals they wish to succeed in. However, in the real world many of us have followed the rules only to get passed over. When I was in Retail Management I followed all the rules to move up the ladder, however, because of office politics that were beyond my reach, another person was given a promotion that was meant for me. This is the gamespace that we live in, a place that contains shifting rules, which do not always result in predictable success.

So what then allows for success in society? Wark writes, “Here is the guiding principle of a future utopia, now long past: ‘To each according to his needs; from each according to his abilities.’ In gamespace, what do we have? An atopia, a placeless, senseless realm where quite a different maxim rules: ‘From each according to their abilities--to each a rank and score.’ Needs no longer enter into it. Not even desire matters.”(21) As if we were in a game, our abilities best determine who we are in society. Our everyday life is like a game; we are driven to compete and succeed, to win against all others. “Gamespace wants us to believe we are all nothing but gamers now, competing not against enemies of class or faith or nation but only against other gamers.”(24)

Those who have control over the gamespace wish to keep control; they are the military-entertainment complex. Like a video game, gamespace and its inherent rules can grow stale and boring. Wark states “Boredom becomes pervasive, uncontainable--a real threat.” Wark continues that the military-entertainment complex displaces the boredom of one game into another, always striving to keeping players entertained. “Boredom with any particular game is always displaced onto another game, before it calls into question the imperfections of gamespace as a poor excuse for how one could live and labor among these richly productive and seductive lines.”(173) The enemy of the game is boredom because it recalls for gamers the fact that “the most deluded of gamers can eventually realize that their strivings have no purpose, that all they have achieved is a hollow trophy, the delusion of value, a meaningless rank built on an arbitrary number.”(166) Wark wrote this examining gamers and games, but in gamespace this can be applied as well. The accumulation of products, goods, money, and land all amount to a hollow trophy. Society has to change the rules of gamespace, the same rules that frustrate us and passed me over for a promotion, otherwise the players may leave or try to change the gamespace.


http://www.amazon.com/Gamer-Theory-McKenzie-Wark/dp/0674025199/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331713647&sr=8-1

Societal Backlash against the Images of the Spectacle Society

This was written in December during the beginning of the 99% protests but thought I would publish it now with no good reasoning.

Many Americans among the group that is currently being called “the 99%”--the group behind the widespread “Occupy” activities--have grown tired of not having power over their own lives. The Watts Riot in 1965 was similar to today’s Occupy movement in causation, but different in execution. Debord writes in the Decline and Fall of the Spectale-Commodity Economy, ““The Watts riot was not a racial conflict: the rioters left alone the whites who were in their path, attacking only the white policemen, while on the other hand black solidarity did not extend to black store-owners or even to black car-drivers.” Class separation has long been ignored in America, and class of wealth has now become a spectacle of its own. Those of us in the 99% are given to view the lifestyle of those in the 1% as a commodity, something to aspire to, something to aquire. However the lifestyle of the 1%--and the power that it represents--remains a spectacle for the 99%. The Watts riot and the 99% movement are both about tearing down the separation brought on by viewing the spectacle of the 1% class.

The Watts Riot was a backlash against the spectacle created by capitalism. The blacks in the riot had become frustrated with a system that would not help them, but flaunted, in a spectacular fashion, commodities in front of their eyes. They looted the 1%, taking items from stores. Debord again writes, “The Los Angeles blacks take modern capitalist propaganda, its publicity of abundance, literally. They want to possess now all the objects shown and abstractly accessible, because they want to use them. In this way they are challenging their exchange-value, the commodity reality which molds them and marshals them to its own ends, and which has preselected everything.” After being taunted to want commodities, they wanted to tear down the walls of spectacle and take what they wanted. 

Spectacle creates a schism for society. We experience life without having personal experiences. In an advertisement, we watch people use a vacuum cleaner, and they tell us how great it is; vicariously we understand how smooth and quiet it runs. Yet we have never used the vacuum. Debord writes in the Society of the Spectacle, “Separation is itself an integral part of the unity of this world, of a global social practice split into reality and image.”(3) The combination of separation and spectacle exists not only with commodities, but in all aspects of life. Government becomes a spectacle wherein many people feel that they can witness political events, but that they have no direct effect on them or their world. Tension builds and mounts until people have had enough and riot, or create movements.

The events of the Watts riot raised questions. Looters would take stolen fridges to homes without power. This is an example of the overwhelming desire for commodities. Debord continues in the Decline and Fall of the Spectale-Commodity Economy, “Once it is no longer bought, the commodity lies open to criticism and alteration, whatever particular form it may take. Only when it is paid for with money is it respected as an admirable fetish, as a symbol of status within the world of survival.” What is forgotten by the general population is that the images in advertisements and other forms of propaganda spectacle are nothing. As Debord says in the Society of the Spectacle, “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.” What is an image but printed ink, or light reflected from a screen. We give meaning to the images; the images have no thought or real power but what society gives them. Steven Shaviro comments on Andy Warhol’s view of images, “Images are nothing like objects. When things retreat into their images, the way they do on TV, they lose their solidity, their palpability, their presence. Images have a weightlessness that is both mysterious and soothing. They haunt us, like ghosts; they empty out space, the better to flicker interminably in the void. Images are premised upon a visibility so extreme that it relegates the world to a state of almost transparency.”

We allow the spectacle of society to control and run our lives. However, it is not real, it has no true power. Yet our relations with those images give them power: power to separate our society into classes, power to make us desire commodities that have no use. They, in the end, are nothing. However, we want them to be something, and that is why they have power.

Sources:

¹ Debord, Guy. The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy,The Situationist International Anthology, 2006; http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/10.Watts.htm

² Shapiro, Steven, 16 Andy Warhol, Doom Patrols, 2007, http://www.dhalgren.com/Doom/ch16.html