*Bonus Paper
The Maltese Falcon is a movie which has been enjoyed for over 70 years and I believe it will continue to delight fans for decades to come. It is a movie which stands the test of time for a variety of factors. First, there is the director's commitment to every shot, from a seven minute long shot to the point of view we see with the camera throughout the movie. Second, the talented acting by the cast-Bogart's anti-hero Spade is THE standard for detectives in the film noir genre. Third, the story has an unexpected twist or a slight of hand that leaves the audience wanting to unfold the mysteries. There are so many to list beyond these, but this paper will focus on the archetype of the "femme fatale" in movies and how movie goers still expect a less complex mindset from their
…show more content…
From Jessica Rabbit to Claire Underwood the femme fatale is strong, smart, determined to create their own path, and unconcerned about who must be manipulated to bring about the end they desire. For this reason, I submit that the Maltese Falcon would be a hit today because Bridget is the femme fatale we love to hate but hate to love- one only has to consider the success of the movie Gone Girl to see the possibilities. In Gone Girl the main character Amy is a clever, perfectionist and spurned woman creates her own destiny and her cheating husband Nick is the "sap" who is played- of course she is also off the charts crazy, but that's not the point for this essay. Consumers are still lulled into feeling sad for the poor woman the first half of the movie and just when it seems that our main character has disappeared from the film, it is revealed an exquisite web of lies woven together to make an
The Maltese Falcon, was not only a detective film, but a film that displayed many different aspects of the female and the male character in the movie. The film was more than a story, but a story that explored the ideas of the detective genre and the different characteristics of femininity and masculinity. It also brought forth subjects of sexual desires and the greediness of money. The characters and the visual motifs in the film contributed to the developing of the plot and assisted in creating a more detective and gender oriented film. In the film, The Maltese Falcon, the role of men and women are portrayed in different ways in the film to show the distinct functions of masculinity and femininity between the characters.
Maltese Falcon is a classic original film. The film’s theme is about greed, love, and deceit. This classic black and white film has great dialogue and scenery. Camera affects and angles add to the film as well. The final scene where Sam Spade is telling Brigid O’Shaugnessy that he is going to turn her in is a powerful scene. This is my favorite scene of the semester because of its climatic end as well as Sam Spade revealing his true side.
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir directed by John Huston and staring Humphrey Bogart as the private investigator Samuel Spade. Through a series of twists and turns, Spade is taken across the city of San Francisco in pursuit of a mysterious black statuette of a bird of prey. The film is a prime example of classical Hollywood cinema and contains many of the key principles in classical narration as well as continuity editing. One such scene that represents these techniques begins at 50:56 when Samuel Spade seeks out Mr. Gutman to discuss the secrets surrounding the elusive statuette.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
The story of Dashiell Hammet’s “The Maltese Falcon” has all the elements of a classic thriller; suspense, mystery, love, murder, greed, and betrayal. All of these arise when a treasure worth millions comes within reach of a handful of stereotypical individuals who will stop at nothing to have it. Unlike stories with natural disasters or other uncontrolled outside forces influencing the story, “The Maltese Falcon” uses different stereotypical characters to develop and structure the plot in a number of ways. First an identical goal helps create the plot around the characters, as each of their different stereotypes influences their actions developing the plot as well as controlling it by placing the characters within their own boundaries and limitations.
From Casablanca to The Dark Knight, the majority of global audience has adored melodrama as a genre since the beginning of the golden age of Hollywood. We appreciate these dramas for strong appeal to our emotions. As a result, melodramas are a tremendous tool to evaluate the tides of society’s value. Male melodramas, usually driven by the characters’ masculinity, therefore, are not only useful to assess our preference for an engaging thriller, but also means to determine the sameness in our humanity for the strong emphasize on masculinity as a storytelling device. Gran Torino and The Hustler are two films from the two completely different periods (modernist and classical); however, they carry resemblance similarities for introducing the salvation
Many film critics are familiar with a certain time period of film from 1941 to around 1957 called Film Noir whether that is through reading another critic’s article or actually watching a Film Noir. With Film Noir, there has been a lot of debate on what defines a Film Noir from plot to visual style. The Maltese Falcon (1941), one of the beginning film Noir’s, addresses the different aspects by exploring the adventures of Sam Spade, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and other characters in retrieving and returning the Maltese Falcon, in exchange for hefty sum of money. We meet Sam Spade as Brigid O’Shaughnessy requests his help in searching for a man who “ran off” with her sister. With Brigid enlisting Sam’s help, we begin to explore Sam’s moral character.
This essay critically examines Shane Black’s movie ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ in respect to the Film Noir Genre. The Film Noir genre dominated the 1940’s with its distinct style that captured audience at that time (Grant, 1986). This style was also not extremely famous as compared to other action movies such as “Spiderman” or animated movies like ‘Shrek”. This genre was distinct and one of the central themes of the movie was violence (Browne, 1998). This genre also involved scripts where the characters created sometimes didn’t have to get involved in a certain situation but because of being in the “wrong place at the wrong time” they automatically become involved (Grant 1986). An example of this is Harry Lockhart and Gay Perry. Film Noir was displayed in movies by using certain images, typically darker scenes which were sometimes filmed away from society (Browne, 1998). The movie showed images of smoke which featured in the movie at the scene that was filmed in a club. Smoke was generally a symbol of danger. This genre is known for its mood and tone. Basically, the Film Noir genre represented among other things criminal activity and corruption that consumed the cities (Grant, 1986). This was brought about by wars that seemed to have influenced this style of film. Film Noir was represented in Principles where “….the theme is hidden in the style; and Bogus themes are often flaunted that contradict the style” (Grant, 1986:181).It was also not like the movies that were highly sparked with heavy lighting. The Noir genre was associa...
In today’s rapidly advancing society, there are only a few forms of entertainment that have truly withstood the test of time. Of these, the film industry is arguably the most immortal, continuing to be the dominating force in entertainment with global box office revenue expected to increase from 36 billion in 2016 to 50 billion in 2020. In today’s world, film matters for the same reason that art does, that being it embodies and highlights the state of affairs within the world at time, specifically those values, attitudes and beliefs of the culture within which and for which the film is made. Arguably the most iconic plot structure of a film is that of a hero’s journey. A hero’s journey encompasses an individual or group that set out on an epic quest to achieve a seemingly impossible objective whilst facing extreme difficulty and turmoil at every step along the way. In this presentation, John Lasseter’s 1998 blockbuster A Bug’s Life, will be analysed with respect to its context and receival by audiences, the values, attitudes and beliefs it conveys as well as it’s hero’s journey.
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
The characters are a crucial element in developing the narrative of a film. The characters in Breathless do not act the way one expects those of Hollywood cinema to act. The woman who distracts the police officer in the opening scene seems as if she may be important, but is in fact never seen again. This happens again in a subsequent ...
DeMille's classic has become a much loved treasure of early American cinema because of its treatment of the daring subject matter. Rather than being condemnatory towards the `new woman', the film exposes the possible dangers that could befall such a character. Janet Staiger sums up the film accurately when she considers that,
During the 1900s the role of women and the definition of femininity was changing. The Cult of Domesticity was fading away and the idea of womanhood was exploring new directions. Women were voting, working, and, in Anaïs' case, even acting as the traditional male role of a relationship. As women changed so did the femme fatale, evolving past the simple idea of the temptress Eve as a foil of the virgin Mary. This modern femme fatale frightened the general public because it was the personifications of their fears. During the nineteenth and twentieth
The Reasons Behind the Popularity of Action Films In this essay I am going to explore the conventions of action films and their popularity. People love action films, and when they go to see one there are conventions you would expect to see in the film All plots of action films are based on the same outline, Hero and villain meet, there's a disruption of order, and mission, then everything is sorted out when the villain dies and everything returns to normal. There are Stock characters that you expect to see in this genre of film, the hero, the villain and two attractive ladies. The main action is around a male hero, however, modern films have featured female heroines for example Angelina Jolie in 'Tomb Raider'. If the hero is male he is always good looking, intelligent, brave, chauvinistic, and manages to escape from life threatening situations, however the hero will always have a weakness, and if the hero is male the weakness is normally women.