Prominence of the Telephone and In a Lonely Place

I noticed that at the beginning of In a Lonely Place, Dix neglects to answer his telephone, and instead, prefers to let it ring and never call anyone back.  After meeting Laurel, he is more willing to answer phone calls and be more social.  In a way, this is representative of the fact that Laurel is normalizing him and bringing him back into the social scene.  It can be assumed that he keeps up his good behavior of answering his telephone when he's at home because he is the one to inform Laurel of the fact that they've been invited to attend a beach party thrown by his friend Brub and his wife Sylvia.  At the end of the film, it is the telephone ringing that saves Laurel from Dix strangling her.  The fact that Dix stopped to answer the telephone shows the effect that Laurel had on him, as well as the fact that there must have been some redeeming quality about him even though he almost killed the woman he loved.  He was willing to stop for something as insignificant as a phone call, which, in fact brought them great news about the murder, but it was too late.  The timing was off, and the really sad thing is that if the phone call had come earlier, Dix and Laurel may have lived happily ever after.

In contrast, Laurel always answers the phone until towards the end when she doesn't want Dix to find out that she plans to leave him and refuses to answer the call in front of him.  He gets violent and demands to answer the phone call and starts to realize that she plans on leaving him.  He follows her home and there, once his suspicions are confirmed, he proceeds to try to strangle Laurel since he doesn't want anyone else to have her if he can't.  As stated earlier, the irony is that the phone call from the police is what saves her life.  However, once Dix tells her to answer the phone, she's reluctant to do so, possibly because she is fearful of Dix at that point.  It just shows how the movie did a turnaround of who is willing to answer the telephone and who is not, as insignificant as that may be.

In a Lonely Place as Not a Stereotypical Noir

It was interesting to watch film noir that did not typically fit into the mold of classic noirs. Laurel was in no way manipulative towards Dix, or in general. The whole time I was waiting for Laurel to turn out to be the murderer of Mildred; however, neither her nor Dix turned out to be guilty. Laurel starts a romance with Dix and assumes that he didn't kill Mildred, yet she is still afraid of him because of his tough-guy mentality and attitude towards life. Dix is a classic noir antihero; he is a run-down screenwriter, who has had a few incidents with the police over the years. He is dark character and a suspect for Mildred's murder since he saw her last the night she was killed. Another thing --- the police aren't seen as corrupt in this film. It was depressing to see Laurel and Dix's relationship crumble not as a result of the murder, but as a result of Dix's uncontrollable inner rage. Of course, since it is a noir, relationships are destined to fail, and the film's ending is never going to be a happy one.

Bogart/Grahame/Director Nicholas Ray on the set of "In A Lonely Place".

Wat a face he got!

I meant to post about this last week, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  However, one thing I noticed in the stories we have been looking at is the use of flashback.  These tales have a tendency to be told as the protagonist recalls the past.  In "Double Indemnity," Walter Neff relates the whole film by telling Keyes the story through a recorder.  Then we can look at The Postman Always Rings Twice, where the reader finds out at the end of the novel that it is a confession before Frank gets executed.  And then lastly with "Out of the Past," a solid chunk of the film is Jeff recalling his past life.

Why do this?  I don't know if that's a common characteristic of noir, but it is definitely present in these works.  Is it because people are nostalgic of the past and therefore want their entertainment to be told to them in recollection form?  I don't have an answer, but I certainly would like to hear possible theories as to why these works use this technique.

Noir Parody

If you’re interested in noir parody, there’s a Steve Martin movie called Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid which pays homage to the noir style. The movie stars Steve Martin as a private investigator named Rigby Reardon who is hired to investigate the supposed murder of a woman’s father. The movie pays tribute to noir films by intercutting scenes from movies like Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice into the plot of the story. Steve Martin’s character interacts with actors like Humphrey Bogart, Lana Turner, and Fred MacMurray through the insertion of scenes from various noir films.

Here’s the trailer:

As evidenced in the trailer, the film parodies the noir style through the use of action, shadows, and violence. Steve Martin’s character uses a voiceover in order to evoke the noir style in a comedic sense. The movie also references some of the anxieties about World War II demonstrated in noir films through the use of Nazis as the antagonists in the film.

Femme Fatale

So, I kind of feel like this just needs to be on here...

Also it's hard to get tired of Nico's pronunciation of "clown."

Flashbacks in Film Noir

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Saw this on Xfinity earlier. Danny Devito, “Noir” in the title – the film is obviously satire, but I think its use of flashback storytelling is interesting. Both Out of the Past and Double Indemnity also used flashbacks. In both of those films, the flashbacks seemed didactic and confessionary. Even though Walter Neff's confession did little to exonerate his character, and despite his stated desire to escape, it still seemed to be as much about getting the murder off his chest as gloating before Keyes. Likewise, I think that Jeff's car-ride confession to Ann, in Out of the Past, definitely changes the way that we view his character. If he'd kept the business about Fisher's murder and Kathie to himself, rather than telling Ann, we might, for example, view his character is being dishonest and unrepentant about his criminal past. I'm not sure what else to make of the flashbacks, but they do seem to inject a bit of morality into the otherwise questionable characters.

Nontraditional women in noirs

It is interesting to see how independent the women are in noirs. Kathie, in Out of the Past, is strong-willed, defiant, and very much a not-so-typical woman. Kathie does not act like a stereotypical female, as the other female character, Ann does. Ann cherishes relationships and marriage. She is innocent and traditional compared to Kathie. We are not interested in Ann, though, as much as we are the fearless Kathie. We never  see happy marriages in noirs. There is no aspect of marriage in Out of the Past. Kathie wants Jeff to run away with her, but she never asks him to marry her. Kathie brings on her own death in the end because she refuses to be taken down by the men in her lives. She is the one giving Jeff the ultimatum in the end: either run away with her or take the blame for the murders. I just found this to be particularly interesting because we typically see it the other way around. It seems like the reason that this women are so deadly and destructive is because they are confined to a certain role in society and have no room for any kind of mobility. Maybe their destructive ways is a result of their confinement in society, especially in regards to men and marriage. Noirs do not show marriage as a happy, normal aspect of life, but as confining and restricting for women.

Quotes from Noir works

It seems that every time we finish up a movie or book in this class, there are always a few quotes that stick out to me and define the works as a whole. As Out of the Past comes to an end, here are the quotes that caught my attention.

" We've been wrong a lot and unlucky for awhile. We deserve a break" - Jeff

"All women are wonders because they reduce men to the obvious" - Whit

"If I have to, I'll die last" -Jeff

Any happy endings for anyone?

I would have liked to see a happy ending for Ann and Jeff, but I know that's too much to ask of a noir film. From my understanding, if I took it the right way, one thing that even further rejected the happy ending was how Ann will forever be under the impression that Jeff was going to leave with Kathie. When Ann asked the deaf/dumb boy if he was going to leave with her, he said yes; so the truth didn't even come out at the end that Jeff was setting Kathie up to get caught. I took that as Kathie living under a false impression of the truth, therefore leaving her with a somewhat bad ending.
Basically everyone else ended up dead.
But the deaf/dumb boy seems to be only one that didn't turn out to be in a worse place by the end of the movie. Does anyone else see good endings for characters?

Jeff Bailey = Most Hardboiled, Yet Most Moral of All the Noir Protagonists?

I definitely agree with Arick that Robert Mitchum's Jeff Bailey (also known as Jeff Markham) seemed like the quintessential hard boiled detective. As far as being a film noir antihero though, he seemed less tragic or tortured than Walter in Double Indemnity or Frank in the Postman Always Rings Twice; however, that made his death at the end of the film more depressing for me since he seemed a little bit more ethical than the other typical noir anitheroes. It was good to see that he wasn't a fool like the rest of the noir protagonists we read about, including Johnny Marr from Rendezvous in Black,and didn't continue to stay with his mistress (except for setting her up) after he realized she was trouble. I was also glad to see that the Deaf Kid (even though I don't think he is credited with a legitimate name) didn't conform totally to the victimized disabled person or bitter/evil/vengeful disabled person trope. One last question, what would have come of Jeff and Ann's relationship if Jeff remained alive? Although Jim (Ann's local admirer) is a law officer, he still seemed like a pretty shifty character to me and a little too possessive over Ann, so some violent confrontation might have taken place between the two.

Who is the most Hard-Boiled of em all?

Out of the Past seemed to be an exercise in masculine apathy. I absolutely loved the cool-guy indifference Mitchum's character Jeff displayed throughout the movie... It got me thinking about the concept of characters being 'hard-boiled', with the reflection that they are soft on the inside, but hard shells on the outside. While we have many more doomed Noir heroes to realize yet in the course, Mitchum seemed to be an egg boiled till oblivion- no runny yolks here. I personally enjoyed most of the movie, finding the dialogue to be only a little bit campy, (fewer 'babies' mentioned) and the ultimate fate of Jeff and Kathie was satisfying within the progression of plot.
It is interesting that the birth of the cool seems to be found in the hard-fighting-man attitude these Noir heroes possess, and I often wonder now if the character of Jeff is the most 'hard-boiled' of all the Noir men we have seen yet. Johnny Marr caved in at the sight of his beloved Dorothy, Walter Neff thought he was so damn crafty, and Frank Chambers was just a bum lookin' for a dame. But Jeff's character seemed to never turn off the joe-cool persona, couldn't get enough cigs, and also huge trench-coats are great for carrying around vast parcels of information, such as tax returns, briefcases, etc. If a trench-coat that huge isn't cool.... I really don't know what is then.

Noir Lecture and Out of the Past

Okay, so, I'm going to do two posts in one here.

First, let's talk about the library lecture we attended. Overall, I'd say I really enjoyed it. I thought that the student writers were good, especially that guy at the end. I unfortunately couldn't stay until the end, but I was pretty fascinated with Robert Polito reading that excerpt from the author David Goodis. I can't remember what he was reading from (i.e. which of Goodis' work), but it was some pretty exceptional writing. Considering the fact that Goodis is noir writer, the excerpt that Polito read seemed to be incredibly cold and frank, two attributes that are particularly important in noir as we all know. I really wish I could have stayed until the end.

Secondly, I want to mention Out of the Past. I loved it. I loved the characters, the story, the actors - just about everything. There was one thing, specifically, that I enjoyed about all else: Robert Mitchum's character, Jeff Bailey/Markham. While I did have sympathy for the other characters we've dealt with - that is, Walter Neff, Frank Chambers, and Johnny Marr - when they met their demise, I felt this quite strongly for Jeff. For one thing, he didn't seem sleazy like Walter (see Walter's initial exchange with Phyllis) or Frank (I mean, in the second chapter, he's already banging another man's wife), nor was he a psychopath out for revenge like Johnny; no, Jeff didn't hit me like that. Instead, he seemed, as Kirk Douglas' character, Whit Sterling, put it, "smart and honest." Of course, I do acknowledge that Jeff does lie, but it's only to get himself away from a situation that someone else put him in, in most cases. Jeff wants to leave the past behind him and live out his days as an honest man; that is to say, unlike the other three characters, instead of looking for trouble, trouble found him (I know there can be arguments on the contrary to this, but I still feel like, most of the time, Jeff wanted to just be left alone). Additionally, Jeff also resigns himself to his own fate. Walter (in the film version of Double Indemnity, anyway) pleads with Keyes for a head start, Frank tries to have his death sentence overturned, and Johnny - well, Johnny sort of had his coming sometime after the second rendezvous. Jeff isn't like this; he doesn't want to drive off with Kathie into the sunset, and decides to call the police to take him in, even though there's virtually no way for him to beat the wrap at that point. In a number of ways, I feel like this makes Jeff at least a little more virtuous than the other characters we've discussed.

Also, I really liked the film because it had KIRK FREAKIN' DOUGLAS. I mean, seriously - enough said right there.

Noir Student Readings

I really enjoyed attending the Noir event in the library on Monday.  Polito's talk was very informative, and the students' work was impressive.  The two female students' writing stood out to me and I thought that they were of publishable quality.  However, the male student's writing seemed too unpolished, which, I understand may be his interpretation of Noir, but I felt that some of his descriptions could have been a bit more subtle and not as crude.  The male student's way of reading seemed too exaggerated and I had trouble connecting with his story or being drawn into it.  I'm not sure if it was the student's way of writing or his delivery of his story that bothered me.  It might have been both, but I'm not sure.  However, all the students should be congratulated for writing works for the Noir genre.

Library Event Discussion

A thread for questions, observations, and comments about Robert Polito's talk and, if you wish, other aspects of the 8 October noir event at the library.

"And what is love anyway but the unattainable, the reaching out toward an illusion?"

Our Friday discussion in which people asked, Is Johnny's revenge not all about him? and How serious is his love? addresses some important questions, both about the characters' psychology and about whether the novel works at face value. What is revenge about? Does the novel do enough to immerse you in its world that you can buy the existence of the Great Love described in its initial pages? Is the vague and generic description of the two lovers an asset or a detriment: would it be more persuasive if we knew what they liked to talk about or what their families had been like? Does the account of the love between Johnny and Dorothy suffer by comparison with other loves in the story?

Johnny's Mental State

In Rendezvous in Black, I really liked the progression Woolrich used in order to demonstrate Johnny’s descent into psychosis. The book is written in such a way which keeps the reader somewhat confused about Johnny’s state of mind, and there never is any deep analysis into what happened to Johnny’s mental state after Dorothy’s death. We know that he snapped, and we eventually come to realize that he murders the women, but we are not exactly sure about what happened to him. As readers, we are only left to understand Johnny’s psychosis through his actions of murdering the women.

Johnny’s first murder is passive. He inflicts harm without ever interacting with the woman, so we are unable to gather further insight about him. The next murder involves physical harm, but we are not given details about how Johnny was able to acquire access to his victim.  Finally, with Sharon, we see how he manipulates the situation and forces Sharon to leave her husband in order to kill her. This murder, along with the murder of Madeline, shows how demented Johnny is. I found it interesting that Johnny is able to slip out of his stupor of waiting for Dorothy to “return,” charm the unsuspecting women, force them to fall in love with him and murder them. His final murder truly shows how sadistic and psychotic Johnny has become since he tracks down and murders Martine, a defenseless blind woman.

Woolrich also demonstrates Johnny’s increased psychotic behavior by allowing the reader to sympathize with the murdered women. With Jeanette Garrison, I felt that I was never given a chance to sympathize with her since Woolrich establishes this narrative after her death. With Martine, I was able to sympathize with her since the narrative enabled me to follow her attempt at trying to escape her own murder even though she does not succeed. Through this technique of establishing the stories of the women, Woolrich allows the reader to infer that Johnny has become progressively psychotic. While reading, I became interested in the characters and felt increasingly disgusted with Johnny after each murder. The increased emotional impact in each of Johnny’s crimes allowed me to see how psychotic Johnny had become.

What does everyone else think? Did Johnny descend further into psychosis as the book continued or did his mental state remain consistent throughout the book?