The Maltese Falcon is a film directed by John Huston in 1991. In French, film noir means a black film. This is a style of filmmaking characterized by such elements as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d)
The early example of the noir style includes dark, stylized detective films such as Maltese Falcon 1941 by John Huston, This Gun of Hire 1942 by Frank Tuttle. From the visual, we can see that the film noir is all black and white, dark with lots of shadows. This shows a high contrast lighting or we call as low key. This film-noir has added some element of German expressionism which is oblique vertical and horizontal lines.
The story usually uses a cynical, pessimism and dark theme. Not only for male characters, in film noir, we also can find out corrupted characters, fatalistic themes, hopeless tone, blurred morals, and intellect. All the character are showing the reality of them while in the world of criminals.
The story is a noir film usually involves a male character who is cynical, hard-hearted, and disillusioned who encountered a female character who is a beautiful but seductive femme fatale. The female character will usually use their sexuality to manipulate the male character to fall for her and fulfill her desire, which then leads the men to corruption and a downfall (filmsite.org, n.d.). The male main characters in film noir who are hard-hearted are usually detectives or investigators who solve the case and reveal the truth or plot of the femme fatale. This is to portray the independence and the job-earning power of women after the war that was being a threat to the men in the society and to preserve the masculinity, dominance or status of the men. In the noir film, most of the main struggle is male protagonist vs female Fatale.
Overall, film noir is not a genre, It is a type of film that only defined by more subtle qualities of the tone and mood. Film noir is a specific period of film history. This theory founded in 1941 and the was a post-world war 2 which is during the forties and fifties that possessed particular themes and cinematic styles. Film noir is actually an influence on the expressionist film. Film noir films will also use a low key and high contrast lighting to create a gloomy appearance. The shots are usually taken at night with low lighting as it can bring out the sense of danger in the narration and the characters also tend to have a very huge and sharp cast shadow to show the morally ambiguous trait of the character. The shots are also often taken at a low angle as another way to create the distortion feel for that particular scene without using an unnatural distorted background that can be seen in an expressionist film.
This film is talking about a woman named Ruth Wonderly approached Samuel Spade and Miles Archer for helping her following a man - Floyd Thursby to looking for her sister. Unfortunately, Miles Archer, and Floyd Thursby been murder. On the other hand, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who is Thursby's partner, meets Samuel and seduced him for help. However, her identity had been revealed by Gutman to Sam. Sam turns over Brigid O'Shaughnessy to the police when he realized that she was the one who killed Miles. And all these things happened is because of the Maltese Falcon statue.
Maltese Falcon 1941 is one of the best films that can explain film noir. In the film, we can find out one film noir trait in the film is the role of cynical and hard-boiled man and a beautiful and seductive femme fatale. Sam Spade is the detective, a cynical and hard-hearted man and he hardly falls to any women and his role also to dominate any woman in the story. Besides that, Brigid O’Shaughnessy is a beautiful woman in the story, she uses her beauty to seduce every man to help her to do the stuff. But Sam Spade is a hard-hearted man, he passes Brigid O’Shaughnessy to police even though she seduces him for sympathy.
Second, the setting of the film was much influenced by expressionism. Some shot was taken in low angle, in the movie to show the distorted body shapes. In the whole film, we can found that the film was in dark and it shows a high contrast of lighting. With the high contrast of lighting, in the film can find out a lot of the shadows in the films. For example, when the scene of Miles been murdered, there should be a dark place, but they use a high contrast of lighting.
In the film, the theme is pessimism, cynical, and dark. As a crime film, the using of the background music is very suitable to cover the mysterious feel of the story. The character in film noir is all reality, they are all selfish and care about themselves since in the forties is a crime and violence happen often.
As conclusion, film noir is a type of film that shows the reality of people. Not only in film, in the real world, people also apply "noir" in their daily life. Some people only take care of themselves.
REFERENCE :
Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. Film Noir.
Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/film-noir.
Filmsite.org. n.d. Film Noir.
Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html.
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