A Discussion of Film Noir, Out of the Past, and Rick Altman

Although a significant amount of ambiguity has developed around the term “film noir,” this film genre primarily encompasses crime dramas seeping in darkness and pessimism (after all, its emergence followed The Great Depression). Film noir concentrates largely on plays of light and shadows to communicate an emotional realism that is absent in the average crime story. Other common elements of film noir include the use of voiceover and flashback, a sexually independent female character, and a psychological turning over of characters.

Out of the Past is a classic example of film noir (even the title is suggestive of its genre). In particular, its characters are excellent examples of the typical roles in a film noir. First we have Jeff (Robert Mitchum), the existential protagonist who restrains himself from showing any sign of emotion (one of the few times he does is when he knocks over a glass of water at the table, but he is only pretending to be upset to act as a distraction). His restraint and joylessness exemplify the “classy cool” figures prevalent in film noir. Next we have Kathie (Jane Greer), the lethal female lead who commands all eyes on her when she walks into the room. Her eroticism and confidence demonstrate the chief female character in a film noir.

The interplay between Jeff and Kathie evokes a subject central to the film noir genre, which is a corrupt woman’s destruction of a basically good man through his love for her. In Out of the Past, Kathie wavers between Jeff and Whit, which in the end leads to the finishing of all three characters. The flashback device shows exactly what leads up to the protagonist’s fall, which starts off when Jeff encounters Kathie in the Mexican café. I thought the use of the flashback in this film was of particular interest because Jeff knows before the flashback is over that Kathie is destroying him. By laying out for the audience what happened, Jeff comes to accept this fate and even embraces it. Many other films in the film noir genre (Chinatown, for example) exhibit the tendency for the male protagonist to become suspicious of the betrayal of the female lead but is found to be wrong. However, in Out of the Past, this speculation turns out to be a truth that comes to threaten Jeff’s life much more forcefully than in any of these other film noir films. The end of the movie leaves viewers with the realization of Jeff’s grand error in his misguided and ultimately fatal love for Kathie.

Although it is demonstrative of many aspects of film noir, I would argue that Out of the Past also displays elements characteristic of other genres as well. This supports Rick Altman’s argument in “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre” in which he argues that genres survive by borrowing from other types of genres. It is this cross-fertilization of genres that keeps audiences from getting bored. Looking at Out of the Past, consider once again the flashback sequence. Between Jeff’s longing gaze as he is sitting in the Mexican café watching Kathie walk out of the sunlight, the romantic interlude on the abandoned boats on the beach, and their desperate escape from Whit and his crew, it seems as much a romance as a film noir. Also, the general fast pace of the film and the many guns and shootings that takes place evoke characteristics of an action film. Overall, I really enjoyed the film because it had so many different elements incorporated into it that made it interesting and fun to watch.

Coming to Terms with Cache

Cache is one of the most dissatisfying movies I’ve ever seen. The frustratingly long takes put me to sleep in my seat. What is even more irksome, however, is how the viewer is constantly deprived of seeing the off screen space and the reverse shot all the way through the end of the film. The off screen space never becomes on screen space, so we never learn who is seeing or shooting. Instead of becoming engrossed in the film, we become increasingly aware that there is a camera watching and recording. The constant, conscious awareness that there is a camera is precisely what is irritating.

I don’t believe that director Michael Haneke intended to stress the audience out in this manner without reason. As implied by the title (“cache" means hidden in French), many elements of the story are bound to be kept from us. For one, viewers are never entirely sure if the scene that is taking place is actually happening or whether it is simply a clip of one of the tapes sent by the mysterious stalker. The plot itself revolves around secrets: Georges keeps to himself that he was the reason Majid was sent away to an orphanage and prevented from receiving a solid education. He also doesn’t confide in his wife when he suspects that Majid is sending the messages and tapes. Anne has a secret of her own- that she has been meeting up with her friend Pierre for emotional consol and maybe also physical. Pierrot realizes Anne’s possible affair and keeps the knowledge locked up inside him, resulting in irrational behavior on his part. And of course, the biggest secret of all that is never found out- who is terrorizing the Laurent family? Clearly, the film is swarming with secrets, and by depriving viewers of off screen space and the reverse shot, Haneke takes the motif of secrets to a whole new level. In a way, putting the viewers in the place of the camera makes them feel as if they themselves are surveilling the Laurents. Perhaps we are the stalker? Of course, I don’t actually believe that this is what Haneke is implying, but perhaps the character we are meant to identify with is actually the mysterious stalker.

Although I did not particularly enjoy this movie, I left the screening with a desire to watch it again. There were so many unanswered questions lurking on my mind that make me want to sit through it one more time to see if I pick up on any clues that I may have missed the first time around. In this respect, it seems that Haneke’s unconventional approach to cinematography is effective after all.

Generally, the way a movie moves forward is through shot-reverse-shot patterns (such as in conversations and point of view shots). We have been trained to think that when the camera moves, it is someone looking. In essence, there are two fields in every image: the field of the character (on screen) and the field in which he/she is being looked at (off screen). If the image is held long enough, we become aware that there isn’t really anybody looking; there is only a camera. Upon this realization, we fall out of the story and the realism that the fiction has created for us. In Cache, we question at many points throughout the film, “Who is seeing this?” Daniel Dayan suggests in his article “The Tudor-Code of Classical Cinema” that this is the point that we fall out of ideological effect of the film. This explains why I was not absorbed in the movie, and was left with so many questions at the end. However, I believe that although we may be faced with boredom and confusion upon watching it, the way that the off screen space is not revealed is actually effective for this particular film. Perhaps Haneke wanted the audience to be able to feel ignorant of a secret the way all the central characters do. Whatever the director’s intentions, the movie clearly would not have had close to the same mysterious effect if filmed in a different manner.