Transcript Week 6, Feb 12th: The Classical Noir Directors

Week 6, Feb 10th: The Classical Noir Directors
1) Howard Hawks
Screening: The Big Sleep Howard Hawks (1946)
Readings: Walker, Michael, (1993) "The Big Sleep: Howard Hawks
and Film Noir," 191-202 in Cameron, Ian, editor, The Book of Film
Noir. pp191-201.
Howard Hawks (1896 – 1977)
Howard Winchester Hawks (1896 -1977)
American film director, producer and screenwriter
popular for his films from a wide range of genres
such as Scarface (1932), Bringing Up Baby (1938),
Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday
(1940), Sergeant York (1941), The Big Sleep (1946),
Red River (1948), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) ;
Rio Bravo (1959). Awarded the Academy Award
(1975) “a master American filmmaker whose creative
efforts hold a distinguished place in world cinema”,
and in 1942 nominated for the Best Director Oscar
for Sergeant York.
Hawk’s multiple genres
The Western (Red River [1948], Rio Bravo [1959], El Dorado
[1967]); the screwball comedy (Twentieth Century [1934],
Bringing Up Baby [1938], His Girl Friday [1940], Man’s
Favorite Sport? [1963]); Film Noir (The Big Sleep [1946]); the
historical epic (Land of the Pharaohs [1955]); the musical
comedy (A Song is Born [1948], Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
[1953]); science fiction and horror (The Thing [1951]); the
combat film (Air Force [1943], The Dawn Patrol [1930]); the
biopic (Sergeant York [1941]); the adventure film (The Big Sky
[1952], Hatari! [1962]); the gangster film (Scarface [1932]);
the racing film (The Crowd Roars [1932], Red Line 7000
[1965]); the prison film (The Criminal Code [1931]); the
aviation film (Ceiling Zero [1936], Only Angels Have Wings
[1939]).
“Hawks worked in virtually every conceivable
genre but, more remarkably, he left his
characteristic mark on so many of them. Far
from being hemmed in by genre conventions,
Hawks was able to impress upon these genre
films his own personal worldview. It is
essentially comic, rather than tragic,
existential rather than religious, and irreverent
rather than earnestly sentimental”
Bibliographic sources
Belton, John, The Hollywood Professionals (Vol.3): Hawks,
Borzage, Ulmer. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1974.
Bogdanovich, Peter, The Cinema of Howard Hawks. New
York: Museum of Modern Art, 1962.
McBride, Joseph, ed., Focus on Howard Hawks. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972.
McBride, Joseph, Hawks on Hawks. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1988.
Thomson, David, The Big Sleep. London: BFI Publishing,
1997.
Wood, Robin, Howard Hawks. (rev ed.) London: BFI
Publishing, 1983.
The Big Sleep (1946) Directed Howard Hawks
Produced by Howard Hawks
Written: Raymond Chandler
Screenplay: William Faulkner,Leigh Brackett &
Jules Furthman
Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe
Lauren Bacall as Vivian Sternwood Rutledge
Music by Max Steiner
Cinematography Sidney Hickox
Editing by Christian Nyby
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date August 23, 1946
Text origin
One of Raymond Chandler's best hard-boiled
detective mysteries transformed into a film noir,
private detective film classic. This adaptation of
Chandler's 1939 novel was from his first Philip
Marlowe novel. Chandler took segments of two of his
own, previously-published stories that appeared in
Black Mask magazine: "Killer in the Rain," and "The
Curtain." It was directed by Howard Hawks, scripted
by Nobel laureate William Faulkner (with additional
assistance from Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman),
and scored by composer Max Steiner.
The Big Sleep (1946)
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
Plot summary
Very complex, confusing, logic-defying whodunit
with a quintessential private detective (Marlowe),
false leads, unforgettable dialogue and wisecracks,
raw-edged characters, sexy women (including the two
daughters of a dying millionaire, a bookseller, and
others), tough action, gunplay, a series of electrifying
scenes, and screen violence.
A classic film noir
Although a classic film noir, it has no flashbacks, no
voice-over narration, and little evidence of
expressionistic images. The film was not recognized
by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences
in any of its award categories but is now considered a
canonical noir film and one of Hawks’ best films.
The Production Code
The PC would not have condoned the exposition of
explicit details of portions of the depraved plot
anyway (the references to drug use, Carmen's
nymphomania, the pornography racket, and the
homosexual relationship between Lundgren and
Geiger). Without a voice-over narrative, the audience
is allowed to follow the point-of-view experiences of
the detective and conclude what they want about his
search for solutions to the confused puzzle.
Two daughters
The General compares the morality of his two daughters. The
older daughter, Vivian, is feisty and strong. The spoiled,
sexually-perverse, younger daughter is named Carmen:
“They're alike only in having the same corrupt blood. Vivian is
spoilt, exacting, smart and ruthless. Carmen is still a little child
who likes to pull the wings off flies. I assume they have all the
usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves. If I
seem a bit sinister as a parent, Mr. Marlowe, it's because my
hold on life is too slight to include any Victorian hypocrisy. I
need hardly add that any man who has lived as I have and who
indulges for the first time in parenthood at my age deserves all
he gets.”
Martha Vickers
What is much more important than the basic
blackmail-murder plot is the stylish method and
process of the private detective’s quest, that the
viewer identifies with and shares, as he makes his
way through the murky world of nasty crime from
one oppressive setting to the next, or from one
wicked character, fallen woman, or femme fatale to
another, until eventually discovering love with his
female protagonist.
Production details
Although the film was released in mid-1946, it was
actually filmed mostly in the fall of 1944 (about six
months before Bacall and Bogart were married).
Pictures of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on walls,
in the Acme Book store, and in the detective's office
hint that the film was shot mainly in late 1944, and
finished in early 1945. By mid-1946 when the film
was released, after awaiting the release of other warthemed films, FDR had been dead for a year.
Dark paranoia
The atmosphere of the film is dark and paranoiac full of suspicion, existential dread, and intrigue. The
film's title, The Big Sleep, refers to death.
Blackmailers and murderers commit their ill deeds
(gambling, pornography, vice, perversion) while the
world continues on its course, almost asleep.
Marlowe's single-handed pursuit and investigation of
pervasive corruption and treachery is met with
deception, threats of extermination, and violence
(although most of the killings are discreetly
committed off-screen). Robert Mitchum reprised the
role of Marlowe in the remade UK classic mystery
The Big Sleep (1978), with the setting transferred
from a 1940s Los Angeles to an updated 1970s
London.
Noir dialogue
Carmen: You're not very tall, are you?
Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Carmen: Not bad looking. Oh you probably know it.
(while twirling and biting a lock of her hair)
Marlowe: Thank you.
Carmen: What's your name?
Marlowe: Reilly. Doghouse Reilly.
Carmen: That's a funny kind of name.
Marlowe: You think so.
Carmen: Uh, uh. What are you? A prizefighter?
Marlowe: No, I'm a shamus.
Carmen: What's a shamus?
Marlowe: It's a private detective.
Carmen: You're making fun of me.
Marlowe: Uh, uh.
Carmen (she leans back and falls into his arms,
throwing herself at him): You're cute.
Sternwood: “How do you like your brandy, sir?”
Marlowe: “In a glass.”
Sternwood: “I used to like mine with champagne.
Champagne cold as Valley Forge and with about three
ponies of brandy under it...I like to see people
drink...You may take off your coat, sir...Too hot in
here for any man who has any blood in his veins. You
may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Nice
state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by
proxy.”
The gaze
The visual exchange is masculine at every level,
except that Vivian is a woman. Begley refers to Laura
Mulvey’s famous description of spectatorship of a
showgirl, in which the male sees the woman-as-object
but the woman identifies with the male subject in her
return of the desiring gaze.
Suggestive mise en scene