For Friday February 20, 2009

THE BIG HEAT

THE FIRST WEEK of the second semester we'll begin to study chapter four of your textbook; CINEMATOGRAPHY. Of course, we can never study one element of cinema apart from many others, so our main focus will be on cinematography.
    For Friday, February 20, the scheduled film is The Big Heat  (Fritz Lang, 1953). Director Lang was a legendary German filmmaker of expressionistic classics such as Metropolis and M before he emigrated to the United States where he built a second career as an American filmmaker.
    It was once argued that Lang never equalled his German films in his American ("Hollywood") career. But under the influence of auteur criticism, with emphasis on a director's stylistic "signature" (his "personality" as shown in the films) that view has changed. Of course, there are no final verdicts in aesthetics (art appreciation). But this is the latest evaluation of Lang's Hollywood period.
    The Big Heat belongs to the genre known as film noir ("black cinema," as the French critics named it). Some prefer to call film noir a style, not a genre. For example, Citizen Kane is clearly filmed in the noir style but would not be called film noir.
    But practically speaking, if people "go" to a film noir the way they "go" to a Musical or Western, then film noir is also a genre. People "go" to The Big Heat expecting a certain plot, characters, and mood, the way they go to a Western such as High Noon expecting to see horses, gunfights, etc.
    Whether style or genre, noir is a world of shadows, weak men, dangerous women, and futile lives seemingly controlled by Fate. This point is often made in noir voice-overs, whereby the hero narrates his doom at the beginning of the film, so that the viewer already knows the hero's fate before the story of his fate begins. The voice-over is typically narrated in a doomed or defeated voice, as if the narrator has given up all hope even before the film begins. Indeed, in one famous example (Sunset Boulevard), the hero (or better: "antihero") is already dead when the film begins!
    Film noir (sometimes typed film noir, in italics) was an offshoot of both the crime and detective films, but with a new focus on the underside of human nature shared by both criminals and cops. In its purest form, the criminal is not even a professional gangster, but just a weak male dominated by a "femme fatale," or dangerous woman, goaded into proving his manhood by any means, even crime.
    Prevented from seeing the newest American films during World War II, the French critics caught up with the films after the war and noticed a change in style in many of them. The camera angles were often canted or tilted, suggesting a world out of joint. The characters were typically troubled men haunted by the past and controlled by a dangerous woman. The tone was darker, with many scenes shot in low-key lighting with heavy shadows. Hence, the French named these films "black films," or "film noir."
    The titles of the films themselves reflect a new nihilism in the American cinema, with titles often using words such as "nightmare," "dark," "murder,"
    Suprisingly, Lang's The Big Heat does not use as many low-key lighting effects or canted angles as other noir films. But his apparent purpose seems to be to link noir and "normal" worlds (the policeman's home).
    Enclosed are study pictures for the film as well as a film noir montage. Since the caption below the picture may not be easily readable I have retyped it here:

Following World War II, French critics were able to view many American films made during the war years. Seeing them together in a short period of time these critics remarked a noticeable change of style in some of them. They were shot in low-key light with dark cast shadows (hence the name,  "film noir," or "black film"). Locales were often in shabby rooms or on rain-slicked streets. Their "heroes" were weak or troubled men (but also women) engaged in a last desperate attempt to redeem lives of futility and shame, usually by means of a crime to please a dangerous woman (the "femme fatale"). Fate itself was often indicated by a voice-over that started the film, as if the end was already known in the beginning. The titles themselves used suggestive words such as "dark," "murder," nightmare," "past" (since the noir hero is haunted by a shameful past), and "evil," as the posters show.