What people oughta do is get outside their own house and look in for once...

I seem to have taken another unintentional hiatus. Winter break involved a lot less "break" than I thought it would, but I'm back at school now and taking two more film classes this semester. Well, one is actually a French class in which we study French films. In French. This will go swimmingly, I'm sure. Anyway, I still have a whole bunch of notes and blog posts in various stages of construction from last semester, so hopefully the backlog will keep me from going off-air again for a while. For now, I'm going to pick up where I left off.

By pure convenient coincidence, I saw Hitchcock's Rear Window in my Film History class last semester on the same day that I saw his earlier film, Rope, in The Movie Industry. It was my first time watching both movies, and seeing them just a few hours apart I couldn't help comparing the two and drawing some conclusions about Hitchcock as an auteur.

To some extent, Rear Window seems to be Hitchcock's second attempt at the continuous-take effect that he first tried out in Rope. At least, he seems to have learned from his previous mistakes; Rear Window is shot with a lot of long takes and a fluidly moving camera, but there are cuts where necessary to keep the audience interested visually as well as psychologically. Additionally, there is often a lot more going on within the frame than there was in Rope. Although both films take place entirely within the confines of one apartment, Rope kept the camera confined indoors, with the large windows serving only as a backdrop and to indicate the passage of time. In Rear Window, the titular pane offers the camera -- along with protagonist L.B. Jeffries -- an escape. Through his own camera lens, Jeff can view the entire apartment building (which, by the way, was the largest set ever built at the time the film was made) or zoom in on any one residence. Likewise, there are many different areas of the screen on which the audience can concentrate during those long takes, because the frame is filled with the activities of many different interesting and eccentric minor characters.



In addition to being a great technical improvement over Rope, Rear Window is a quintessential psychological thriller. The decision to trap the camera inside with Jeff gives viewers a keen sense of his growing fear and desperation, even when they may find themselves siding with other characters who think he's off his rocker. At any given time, the audience only has as much information as Jeff does, and as a result shares his feeling of helplessness. This emotional connection, formed from the beginning of the film onward, increases the suspense felt at the film's climax, when finally Jeff begins to hear ominous footsteps outside his own door.

I watched it get dark outside, and didn't even turn on the light...

1944's Double Indemnity is considered one of the first true films noir, if not the very first. It was certainly a turning point in many ways -- as the first James M. Cain novel to be approved by the Hays Office for adaptation, it set a precedent for darker, racier material than anything that had been seen since the pre-Code era.* Like Casablanca before it, Double Indemnity is largely a product of World War II.

The darkness and shadows that help define the film are largely the result of wartime restrictions, but the absence of available lighting was artfully turned into an opportunity to further explore the bleak tone of the narrative. The famous effect of venetian blinds casting shadows across the characters' faces suggests entrapment as they find themselves living in fear of having their crime discovered. The frosted glass in the office doors makes each character's shadow often the first and last part of them that the audience sees. It's even worked into the dialogue, as in the quote I used for the title of this post. The sense of darkness that pervades the film is more than just aesthetic; it's psychological, exposing the audience to the sense of hopelessness and claustrophobia that Phyllis and Walter feel in the aftermath of murdering Phyllis' husband.

The war had other effects on Double Indemnity's production as well. To avoid government censorship from the Office of War Information, the screenplay was set in July 1938, so it was not portraying the home front in a time of war. However, this created its own problems, as many props needed to make the set look realistically pre-war were unavailable at the time of filming due to rationing. This issue was most pressing in the scenes when Walter and Phyllis meet at the grocery store. To prevent cast and crew from making off with the canned goods, undercover federal agents patrolled the set, heightening the sense of paranoia already inherent in the movie's script.



Gender and sexuality are particularly strong themes throughout the film. Phyllis Dietrichson, ever the femme fatale, is introduced from a low angle, visually giving her power over Walter Neff right from their first meeting. The dialogue involving her anklet was created specifically to get their sexual tension past the censors; the result is a conversation laced with metaphor and innuendo, the first of several throughout the film. However, Phyllis' ownership of her sexuality does not come without a price. Although both main characters have dark sides, the woman is portrayed as more evil than the man, a common theme in hard-boiled stories such as this. In the end, both characters paid for their crimes with their lives as required by the Code, but Phyllis is the first to die, and Walter's shooting her can be seen as the first step in his redemption.

*Further information on Double Indemnity and its long struggle to gain approval from the Hays Office can be found in my professor's textbook, Blackout: World War II And The Origins Of Film Noir by Sheri Chinen Biesen

I'm the only cause I'm interested in...

I feel a little bit redundant, writing out a blog entry on Casablanca. Of all the gin joints movies in all the towns in all the world, I feel like nearly everyone, even non-classic film fans, has seen this one. What can there possibly be left to say about it?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Watching it in class this semester was far from my first time seeing the film, but it was my first time thinking about it in the context of wartime Hollywood. This movie, in many ways, is a product of World War II.

In 1942, when Casablanca was made, Hollywood was feeling the effects of wartime rationing just as acutely as the rest of the country. Electricity was in particularly short supply. As blackouts and brownouts rolled throughout the region, directors had to be exceptionally creative. The tight restrictions on lighting resulted in the innovative use of darkness and shadows seen throughout the film. An example from early in the movie is when Rick takes money from the safe; he is off screen, and all the audience sees is his shadow on the wall reflecting the action. What light they did have available is used very carefully; for instance, it is often reflected in Ingrid Bergman's eyes, making them shine to play up her character as the vivacious beauty for whom both Rick and Victor Lazlo would sacrifice their freedom.



For all the material restrictions that came during the second World War, many existing creative restrictions began to ease. This was in large part due to the creation of the Office Of War Information, which strictly regulated any films that depicted either the homefront or the warfront. In conflicts between the Hays Office and the OWI, the OWI always won. Many previously censorable details -- Renaud accepts sexual favors in exchange for visas, there is rampant corruption among officials, Rick and Sam have an interracial friendship, and Rick and Ilsa admit to an affair, to name a few -- got by the Production Code because they served the war effort, which was seen as the greater good. The character of Rick himself can even be seen as allegorical to the U.S. involvement in the war, going from isolationism to interventionism once the stakes are high enough.

Although Casablanca is best remembered as a simple but well-crafted love story between three people, I find it even more compelling when looked at through the lens of history. The story of how the picture we all know and love came into existence is almost as interesting as the movie itself.

Take Hitler and stick him on the funny page...

Exciting things happened this week! After months of resistance, I finally came over to the dark side and joined Twitter. If you scroll down a bit, you'll find my inane ramblings (okay; you'll find my other, shorter inane ramblings) in the sidebar.

...But that's not the exciting thing (even I'm not that Internet-obsessed). The exciting thing is that I'm now officially a Radio/TV/Film major. To celebrate my finally getting off my arse and filling out paperwork, I'm going to get off my arse (though not literally, as I type faster when seated) and write a blog post. 'Bout time.

I loved His Girl Friday the first time that I saw it, but after watching it in class earlier this semester, I found that I have a whole new appreciation for the film since I've also seen its predecessor, The Front Page. The two are nearly identical in places, save for the one small detail of Hildy Johnson's gender. Howard Hawks took quite a risk there, and I have to say it paid off; for once I prefer the remake to the original.

His Girl Friday is known, of course, for it's fast-paced and witty dialogue, which even has the characters talking over each other at times, presenting realistic exchanges that are quite unlike most classical Hollywood films. To balance the speed of the action, Hawks shot the film at a slower pace, using long takes wherever possible to keep the audience from getting overwhelmed. However, he also wasn't afraid to use montage at key points to emphasize, for example, the frenetic mood of the press room after escaped inmate Earl was found hiding in a roll-top desk almost literally under the reporters' noses. The montage editing was also used to quickly recap the action, as each of the reporters gave their own small -- and sometimes false or contradictory -- piece of the story. The varied camerawork keeps the film from looking too much like a staged play, despite the fact that much of it takes place in only one room.



The clever script included a few inside jokes. For example, Ralph Bellemy's character was described as looking like Ralph Bellemy -- personally, I couldn't see any resemblence whatsoever -- and the last man who said he had Cary Grant's character licked was called Archie Leach, which happens to be Grant's real name. Many of the film's jokes had a much darker tone, however, including minor character Molly's suicide attempt being played for laughs. Surprisingly edgy, this movie is a shining example of a black comedy.