Out of the Past Gabrielle Rie Kamie 1
Out of the Past Gabrielle (Rie) Kamie 1 M 150194 -6
Contents 1. About “Out of the Past” 2. About Paul Schroder’s “Notes on Film Noir” 3. About Shannon Scott’s “Actively Retroactive: On the Couch with Film Noir: Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer”
I. About “Out of the Past”
Information Director: Jacques Tourneur Released: 1947 Writer: Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes) Budget: N/A (A-film budget) Producer: Warren Duff, Robert Sparks (executive) Gross: $90, 000 Music Composer: Roy Webb Production Co. : RKO Radio Pictures Cinematographer: Nicholas Musuraca Art Director: Albert S. D'Agostino, Jack Okey Distributors: RKO Radio Pictures, Sascha Filmverleih Set Decoration: Darrell Silvera, John Mc. Carthy Jr. Runtime: 97 minutes Editor: Samuel E. Beetley Aspect Ratio: 1. 37: 1 Negative Format: 35 mm
Robert Mitchum as Jeff Bailey/Markham Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat Kirk Douglas as Whit Sterling
Information ● Based on the screenwriter’s (Daniel Mainwaring) 1946 novel “Build My Gallows High” ● RKO, the film’s production company, initially rejected the pitch for violating the Production Code ● Despite focusing on B-films, RKO gave “Out of the Past” an A-film budget ● In 1991, the Library of Congress included the film to its United States National Film Registry ● The film is Robert Mitchum’s first role in an A-film
1. Cinematography ● During close up shots of Jeff and Kathie, only Kathie’s face is lit and can be properly seen → Indicating how Kathie “runs the show” and Jeff’s life has been compromised by her → Emphasizing Jane Greer’s beauty ● Incorporation of high-key lighting → Contrasting the sunny skies of California with the gloomy streets of San Francisco ● Strong shadows
2. Screenwriting ● Hard-boiled Fiction → Protagonist: a (retired) private detective → Conventional structure…? ● Dialogue → The witty remarks exchanged between the characters: they always mean something → “I sell gasoline, I make a small profit. With that I buy groceries. The grocer makes a profit. We call it earning a living. You may have heard of it somewhere. ”
3. Two love interests Kathie Ann -Doesn’t like being controlled by men -Listens to men -Smokes and engages in violence -Damsel in distress -Scenes (except during her entrance) use low-key lighting -Scenes use high-key lighting
II. About Paul Schroder’s “Notes on Film Noir”
1. The Formation of “Film Noir” 4 factors 3 phases War and post-war disillusionment Post-war realism The german influence The hard-boiled tradition 1941 -1946 Private Eye and Lone Wolf Phase 1945 -1949 Post-war Realistic Phase 1949 -1953 Psychotic acton and suicidal impulse phase
2. Film Noir is Not a Genre? -”Noir” as Tone and Mood “noir” merely means “dark” -A specific period from the forties to fifties i. e. german expressionism or french new wave
3. What Comprises Film Noir? -Style Scenes are lit for night, oblique and vertical lines, actors and settings are often given equal lighting emphasis, compositional tension, attachment to water, romantic narration, complex chronological order -Themes A passion for the past and present, but also a fear of the future, emphasis of loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity
III. About Shannon Scott’s “Actively Retroactive: On the Couch with Film Noir: Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer”
1. Symbolic -Film Noir as a retroactive critical category Initially thought of as a subcategory of the detective genre -“Nachträglichkeit” (Afterwardsness) A concept by Sigmund Freud, describing a “mode of belated understanding or retroactive attribution of sexual or traumatic meaning to earlier events” -”Point de capiton” Jacques Lacan’s theory of the relation between past, present and future, the anticipation of meaning and its subsequent, retroactive determination.
2. Real -Real is… “that which resists symbolisation absolutely. (i. e. a traumatic event). The cause of the repetition of the signifying chain, the repeated attempt to signify the impossible, giving rise to failure. ” -”Woman” is nonexistent “The set of woman is, I would say, an open set; or to put it another way, woman, in relation to the Symbolic order, is constituted as an open set. “ -”Noir” is nonexistent Many influential noir filmmakers, including Fritz Lang, revealed their lack of understanding of the term. It was only in retrospect they realized the attributes of their films was considered “noir”.
3. Imaginary -”[T]he realm of the falsifying ego, which is formed by a productive méconnaissance, the choice of identification with the complete and coherent mirror image over the dissatisfactory experience of the corps morcelé” -”The field of representations that a subject lives as his/her identity across self-images, alienated because structured by an (invisible) symbolic, and determined by the (inaccessible) presence of the significant other(s)”. The set of Man takes on a similar illusion of wholeness in order for it to function. =Closure
References Jewell, R. (2016). Slow Fade to Black: The Decline of RKO Radio Pictures. Oakland, California: University of California Press. Retrieved on October 24, 2017 from https: //books. google. co. jp/books? redir_esc=y&id=o 4 m. TCw. AAQBAJ&q=Out+of+the+Past#v=snippet&q=Out%20 of%20 the% 20 Past&f=false Schrader, P. (1972). Notes on Film Noir Reader. Scott, S. (2017). Actively Retroactive: On the Couch with Film Noir: Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer. Retrieved on October 23, 2017 from http: //sensesofcinema. com/2017/book-reviews/lacan-and-film-noir/ Tyrer, B. (2016). Out of the Past: Lancan and Film Noir. DOI: 10. 1007/978 -3 -319 -30942 -2_1
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