Movies and Meaning- Pearson New International Edition

by Stephen Prince

  Combat films take a close-in view of the fighting and often concentrate on a small unit of soldiers engaged in ferocious and sustained battle. Unlike the battle epics, combat films tend not to show the high-level decision-making that has resulted in the fighting. This close-up focus often makes the politics of a given war more distant and less relevant to the immediate tasks faced by the characters of staying alive and prevailing against forbidding odds. Thus combat films tend to be about heroism under fire, regardless of what controversies may surround the war itself. This format has proven to be enduringly popular, and examples can be found from a wide variety of conflicts—

  World War II ( Bataan , 1943), Korea ( Pork Chop Hill ), Vietnam ( Platoon; Hamburger Hill , 1987; We Were Soldiers , 2001), and Somalia ( Black Hawk Down , 2001).

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  PLATOON (ORION, 1986)

  Combat films focus up-close on the experience of battle, often portraying small units engaged in ferocious fighting. Platoon redefined the treatment of the Vietnam War on film with its close attention to jungle combat. No film about Vietnam had shown jungle warfare so intensively before. Frame enlargement.

  Home-front dramas concentrate on the difficulties faced by families at home while loved ones fight overseas or on the problems faced by veterans who return home after combat. The home-front drama generally avoids much depiction of combat, preferring to concentrate on domestic sacrifice. This format was especially effective during World War II, as such powerful films as Since You Went Away (1944) and Mrs. Miniver (1942) demonstrate. Coming Home (1978) is a Vietnam era home-front drama. Grace Is Gone (2007) examines the impact of the Iraq War on the husband and children of a soldier killed in combat.

  An interesting subgenre of the war film is the submarine picture, which deals with the stress of manning a submarine in dangerous waters. Sometimes these films portray war, as in U-571 (2000), Destination Tokyo (1943), The Enemy Below (1957), Up Periscope (1959), and Das Boot (1981), the greatest film about submarine warfare ever made. Other films, however, put more stress on the hazardous nature of submarine duty and may incorporate a crisis in the chain of command with a threatened mutiny, with war or global conflict as a background element— K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), Crimson Tide (1995), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Gray Lady Down (1978), Ice Station Zebra (1968), and The Bedford Incident (1965).

  As these films illustrate, a genre does not have a fixed and firm boundary, and many films may exist on the edge of a genre, blending genre and nongenre elements.

  While many war films have celebrated glory and patriotism, the horror and savagery of war have produced a much darker tone in many others. In fact, many war films can be described as antiwar because they concentrate on the brutalizing effects of combat or on the oppressiveness of the military itself. The Big Parade (1925) is a powerful indictment of the slaughter in World War I, as is All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), a classic antiwar picture. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) are powerful critiques of the mechanism of war, the military 279

  The Nature of Narrative in Film

  U-571 (UNIVERSAL, 2000)

  Many war films have focused on conflict involving submarines, giving rise to a popular and enduring subcategory of the genre. These films emphasize the hazards and stress of serving on board a submarine in a theater of war. Many, but not all, are set during World War II, as is U-571 . Frame enlargement.

  system, and the sacrifice of young lives. So too is Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron (1977). Robert Aldrich’s Attack (1956) and Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998) indict the brutality of command and the dehumanizing effects of combat.

  The critical tone of these films is counterbalanced by the stirring portraits of heroism offered in pictures such as Glory (1989) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). The war film, therefore, encompasses affirmation and critique, as well as liberal and conservative points of view. One of the most powerful and complex of human behaviors, war has fascinated filmmakers and drawn them to it, and they have responded from a variety of moral and political perspectives. The great war films are about the specifics of a particular conflict, as well as the timeless issues that war raises.

  PATHS OF GLORY (UNITED

  ARTISTS, 1957)

  Numerous films in the genre

  have an antiwar point of view or

  are highly critical of a particular

  conflict or of the military. One

  of the genre’s antiwar classics,

  Paths of Glory shows three sol-

  diers in World War I framed for

  cowardice by a corrupt officer

  intent on covering his mistakes,

  put on trial, and then executed.

  Stanley Kubrick’s film shows the

  machinery of war as a vast, pow-

  erful institution against which the

  individual is relatively powerless.

  Frame enlargement.

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  The Nature of Narrative in Film

  FILM NOIR

  Film noir emerged much later than many of the other genres, which have roots in the silent era. Noir began in 1941 with Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon. Citizen Kane ’s visual design featured shadows and low-key lighting, which created a dark, ominous-looking world on screen, and this look became an enduring part of film noir.

  The Maltese Falcon ’s story of crime, betrayal, and corruption helped establish the themes and type of story that would be central to noir.

  Noirs are dark, pessimistic films, telling stories about crime, often with an urban setting emphasizing shadows and darkness. The classic period of noir lasted until 1958, but the genre has influenced so many contemporary directors that the term neo-noir is used to describe the films they make in the genre today.

  A huge number of noir films were made in the classical period. Their titles very often express the defining noir mood of anxiety, paranoia, corruption, and violence—

  Raw Deal (1948), Brute Force (1947), The Dark Corner (1946), Criss Cross (1949), In a Lonely Place (1950), Night and the City (1950), They Live by Night (1949), and Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

  The hero is often a victim in these stories, caught in a web of crime and betrayal, and the mood of fatalism is strong, the sense that his acts and choices are foredoomed. The films often tell the story using flashbacks and voice-over narration, which add to the sense that all will go wrong for the characters. Walking the streets at night in Double Indemnity (1944), the hero, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), realizes that he cannot hear his own footsteps, that his is the walk of a dead man.

  The hero is often menaced by a seductive but dangerous woman, known as a femme fatale , or “deadly woman.” This character type is one of noir’s most famous and can be found in Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd. (1950), Kiss Me Deadly , and many others.

  The classical period of noir is tied to World War II and the Cold War, and these eras certainly helped to influence the sense of anxiety in the genre. But noir also has roots in crime fiction, particularly the hard-boiled crime and detective novels of DOUBLE INDEMNITY

  (PARAMOUNT, 1944)

  Even in daylight, the world of

  noir was dark. The slanting shad-

  ows of Venetian blinds fall on

  Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray)

  in a room barely illuminated by

  the afternoon sun. The Venetian

  blind imagery was used widely in

  the genre. Frame enlargement.

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  The Nature of Narrative in Film

  MURDER, MY SWEET

  (RKO, 1944)

  The world of film noir is one of

  anxiety, paranoia, darkness, and

  crime, given memorable visual

  expression in moody black-and-

  white cinematography. The crime

  novels of Raymond Chandler and

  others furnished many of the

  genre’s stori
es. Here, Chandler’s

  hero, private investigator Philip

  Marlowe (Dick Powell), is startled

  by the sudden appearance of

  a thug, reflected in his office

  window. Frame enlargement.

  Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett, many of which were

  made into film noirs—Cain’s Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key (1942).

  Chandler created noir’s most enduring private investigator, the character of Philip Marlowe, who has appeared in numerous movies adapted from Chandler novels—

  Farewell My Lovely (1944 and 1975 remake), The Big Sleep (1946 and 1978 remake), Murder My Sweet (1944), The Lady in the Lake (1946), Marlowe (1969), and The Long Goodbye (1973).

  Noir also was influenced by paintings and photographs of the city stressing loneliness and alienation (the paintings of Edward Hopper and the photographs of Arthur Fellig, known as “Weegee”). But whereas the gangster film defines the city as a place of excitement, glamour, and power, film noir used these influences from painting and photography to portray it as a place of danger and fear.

  The genre also found a key influence in the visual style of German expressionist cinema, particularly its low-key lighting and exaggerated camera angles portraying a world that is off-kilter. Many of the German directors and cinematographers who had created these films immigrated to Hollywood and began making film noirs.

  Numerous influences, then, combined to create film noir, and the genre’s striking visual design attracted some of the best cinematographers of the period. John Alton, for example, created some of the deepest and blackest shadows to be found anywhere in American film in such pictures as T-Men (1947), Raw Deal , and The Big Combo (1955). He also shot with wide-angle lenses to exaggerate his shadowy lighting. The last shot of Big Combo is one of the definitive and most famous images of noir, showing the film’s two principal characters, backlit as silhouettes, walking away from the camera and into a mysterious, undefined region of fog and mist.

  The shadows and low-key lighting of noir achieved their power in the black-and-white cinematography of that period. For the most part, noir in its classical phase is a black-and-white genre, and this is as it should be. The contrast of light and dark achieved in low-key lighting is far more powerful and expressive in black-and-white.

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  THE BIG COMBO (ALLIED

  ARTISTS, 1955)

  John Alton was the genre’s most

  radical cinematographer, with

  the deepest shadows and most

  extreme compositions. Here,

  a table lamp dominates most

  of the frame, with the three

  characters placed in shadows

  in the background. In the film’s

  last shot, Alton uses fog and

  silhouette lighting to create a po-

  etically undefined environment.

  Frame enlargements.

  Color cinematography tends to soften shadows, to weaken the contrast of light and dark, by supplying the additional information about coloration that is lacking in black and white. Color cinematography can use low-key lighting, but the result lacks the sharp contrasts that black-and-white achieves.

  NEO-NOIR For this reason, perhaps, the classical phase of noir ends about the time that color cinematography replaced black-and-white as the norm of film production.

  The last classical film noir is generally considered to be Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958), with brilliant black-and-white cinematography by Russell Metty.

  But the genre proved to be an enduring one, revived by contemporary filmmakers drawn to its visual style and its moral pessimism. Neo-noir films are shot in color but 283

  The Nature of Narrative in Film

  CHINATOWN (PARAMOUNT, 1974)

  Noir has endured long past its classical phase. Neo-noir films revive the genre in color. In Chinatown , set in the 1940s, Jack Nicholson plays a Philip Marlowe–like private investigator who uncovers a scheme to control Los Angeles’ water supply. Neo-noirs also may be set in the present day, such as Palmetto or Femme Fatale . Frame enlargement.

  use a low-key lighting style to evoke some of the visual qualities of noir in its classical period. The noir revival began in the 1970s and is still ongoing. Chinatown (1974), more than any other film, revived the genre for the contemporary era, and modern filmmakers were immediately attracted to noir’s stylish stories of greed, temptation, and defeat. Taxi Driver (1975), Body Heat (1981), Blood Simple (1984), At Close Range (1986), The Grifters (1990), After Dark, My Sweet (1990), Gun Crazy (1992), Red Rock West (1993), L.A. Confidential (1997), Palmetto (1999), Femme Fatale (2002), and Sin City (2005) are just a few of the recent neo-noirs.

  Sin City includes many of the elements of classic noir—a detective hero, a gritty and dangerous urban locale, a visual look defined by shadows and darkness. And yet it owes as much to the Frank Miller comics from which the film’s three stories have been drawn. Moreover, the urban settings are entirely digital; they were never actually photographed the way that cities were in classic noir.

  In this respect, Sin City illustrates one of the enduring questions about noir—Is it a genre or is it really a visual style that can be attached to different kinds of film? Scholars of film have debated this question for years because many films, which are not noirs, have used the style. Blade Runner (1980), for example, is a science fiction film whose central character is a detective straight out of film noir. The Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) has a nightmare sequence that becomes a film noir. And Batman Begins (2005) visualizes the comic book character in terms of a noir visual design. All these films include noir elements, but none would be considered film noir.

  Ultimately, noir is both a style and a genre. Stylistically, it defines a look that many films can emulate of whatever genre. But as a genre, it has clear origins in the hard-boiled school of crime fiction that flourished in the 1920s–1940s, and filmmakers in that period knew that they were making film noirs, even though the name itself wasn’t coined until later. A dead-on parody of film noir appears in 1947. My Favorite Brunette, starring Bob Hope as a nebbish who wants to be a hard-boiled detective like he’s seen in the movies, satirizes noir slang, flashback plotting, and voice-over 284

  The Nature of Narrative in Film

  BLADE RUNNER (LADD CO., 1982)

  Scholars and critics have debated whether noir is a genre or simply a visual style.

  Whatever the answer, it is certainly true that the style of noir has been tremendously influential, appearing in numerous films outside the genre. Blade Runner , for example, a science fiction film, uses noir’s low-key lighting and 1940s-style fashions to evoke its world of crime and anxiety. Frame enlargement.

  narration and includes an uncredited cameo appearance by a big noir star of the period, Alan Ladd. Such a thorough parody suggests strongly that noir was a clearly recognized genre of film.

  Film noir is one of American cinema’s most famous, distinctive, and enduring creations. Today’s directors will continue to make neo-noirs because they love the look and the stories and because doing so connects them to a great heritage of Hollywood film.

  SUMMARY

  In their most popular form, movies tell stories, yet the film medium also can inform and instruct by observing real events (these movies are called documentaries), or it can represent pure shape, line, color, and form rather than real things (these are experimental, “underground,” or avant-garde films). Yet it is narrative films that have captured the popular audience. The turn toward narrative emerged very early in film history and has been present ever since.

  Present in all cultures, narrative thinking is an essential human ability. Fictional narratives, the kind movies typically employ, grow out of a particular context in which the storyteller and the audience agree to play make-believe in a
way that grants the fictional story a special status: Its truthfulness is not counted to be as important as its artistic organization and its power to delight and to compel belief.

  Filmmakers create narrative structure by establishing discrepancies between plot and story. Using flashbacks, the omission of detail, or other devices, filmmakers can re-arrange the proper order of story events and/or create obstacles to the viewer’s assimilation of story information. If skillfully done, this will arouse the viewers’ interest and make them keenly interested in seeing the full outcome of events. Among the most popular of plot structures is the classical Hollywood narrative, which offers a clearly dominant line of main action and one or more interrelated secondary lines of action. This narrative type is clearly motivated, forward moving, and establishes explicit causal relationships among 285

  The Nature of Narrative in Film

  its story events. Alternatives to the classical Hollywood narrative may feature implicit or minimal causality or, in extreme cases, an antinarrative orientation.

  All stories are told by someone, although the collaborative nature of cinema makes it difficult to identify a single or sole author. In film, narration is produced by the complex of structural elements—the camera, lights, sound, color, set design, costumes, and other elements of structure. While these can be used to imply a character’s subjective perspective, point of view in the cinema is usually third person, with implicit first-person components.

  KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

  antinarrative

  explicit causality

  real author

  classical Hollywood

  genre

  story

  narrative

  implicit causality

  subjective shot

  convention

  implied author

  surprise

  counter-narrative