A Companion To Film Noir Analysis

It is his greed that puts the entire narrative in motion as Gutman is the only person that originally acquires knowledge about the past and actual value of falcon. At one point he discovers he has received a false version of the falcon but he figures he will continue his adventure to acquire the actual bird. "For seventeen years I have wanted that little item and have been trying to get it. If I must spend another year on the quest--well, sir--that will be an additional expenditure in time of only"--his lips moved silently as he calculated--"five and fifteen-seventeenths per cent."

The 1940’s were a time of war and then prosperity for Americans, not only in wealth but in a chance for a better education and social economic status. Films went from patriotic during the war to a more realistic portrayal towards the end of the war in 1945. By the second half of the 1940's, with an injection of expatriate directors trained in the German visual evocation of emotion to the French poetic realistic films, a new style of films were about to emerge. A similar change was also happening in reality, from the hope of the formation of the United Nations to the start of the Cold War.

Among the common peculiarities of film noir, the distinct division between the male characters and the different representations of women reinforce notions of masculinity and gender roles. Furthermore, in the 1940’s film noir was Hollywood’s way to illustrate a world in where pessimism and suspicion dictated people’s lives. Mostly presented as detectives or a lone wolf, the men are portrayed as cold-hearted, disconnected, and cynical to show their hopelessness and disillusionment of the society they lived in. Along this depiction, multiple women are placed into different roles, to either play the seductress and/or a menace to the male protagonist. In the The Maltese Falcon film noir, the male protagonist is characterized as a typical male

Film Noir, a term coined by the French to describe a style of film characterized by dark themes, storylines, and visuals, has been influencing cinematic industries since the 1940’s. With roots in German expressionistic films and Italian postwar documentaries, film noir has made its way into American film as well, particularly identified in mob and crime pictures. However, such settings are not exclusive to American film noir. One noteworthy example is Billy Wilder’s film Sunset Boulevard, which follows the foreboding tale of Joe Gillis, the desperate-for-success protagonist, who finds himself in the fatal grips of the disillusioned femme fatale Norma Desmond. Not only does the storyline’s heavy subject matter and typical character

Film Noir is a fairly self-explanatory name. French for “Dark” or “Black Film”, this style (not genre) of film is pretty much summed up in those two words. These films started being made in a 1940’s, Post WWII paranoia, with the threat of nuclear missiles looming over the heads of all United States citizens, Hollywood included. This paranoia led to disillusioned attitudes and existential feelings, which in turn were reflected in Film Noirs through things such as characters, with the two most prominent types being hardened male protagonists and femme fatales. Also, the “Darkness” of Film Noirs was not just a metaphor for the content of the film, but also a fairly literal description of the visual style was like. Taking influence from

She makes up an entire story just so she can track down another person, Floyd Thursby, who is also looking for the bird (The Maltese Falcon). So Spades partner, Miles Archer, takes the responsibility of tailing Thursby. Unfortunately, Thursby and Archer are both later found dead. So the police soon start questioning Spade on suspicion he had something to do with it and at the same time Spade is questioning Miss Wonderly, whose real name is actually Brigid O’Shaughnessy. After he gets what he hopes is the total truth, another man named Joel Cairo comes out and asks Spade to find the bird for $10,000 and after that an even more serious man named Casper Gutman offers Spade more than everyone else to get the bird. Spade is the only one that knows where it is and is still being questioned by the police. When the morning finally comes when Spades secretary picks up the falcon from the train station Gutman above all is excited. He starts scratching away at the enamel which should have gold underneath but he soon enough realizes that there is nothing but lead underneath it. Disappointed he offers everyone to go out and get it back from the Russian Constantinople who switched the real one. Cairo accepts the offer and they leave. Immediately Spade phones the police and gives them all the names of the murderers and everyone involved. They catch them all and Spade then turns in Brigid even though they had become so close.

Readers who have never picked up on the Dashiell Hammett detective novel The Maltese Falcon 1930 or seen the classic 1941 film adaptation, which follows the novel almost verbatim, can feel a strong sense of familiarity, faced for the first time in history. In this book, Hammett invented the hard-boiled private eye genre, introducing many of the elements that readers have come to expect from detective stories: mysterious, attractive woman whose love can be a trap , search for exotic icon that people are willing to kill the detective, who plays both sides of the law, to find the truth , but it is ultimately driven by a strong moral code , and shootings and beatings enough for readers to share the feeling of danger Detective . For decades , countless writers have copied the themes and motifs Hammett may rarely come anywhere near him almost perfect blend of cynicism and excitement.

Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon is one of the most influence fiction novels to the current literature world and also the current society. The novel was published in 1930s when the society was experiencing the depressing period, which people used this book as an escape for the reality; the story was designed to happen in San Francisco where the city was used to be considered as a popular and mystery urban city. This book became huge hit to the society based on its mystery detective plots and the attractive characters, which set up the ideal of certain characters and also the hard-boiled style.

Spade is unaware of the falcon until Brigid’s former partner, Joel Cairo, arrives and offers to pay Spade for it, so he starts searching. Though Spade searches endlessly, the statue’s location is a mystery

In film noir, the principal characters are almost always male, whereas females are still central to film noir storylines and plots. Women in film noir are generally either the social ideal - dutiful, reliable, and trustworthy or they happen to be a trap, a dangerous associate who conceals murder with her attractiveness. These stereotypes of dangerous women in film weren’t anything new, although the classic femme fatale took risk, crime and danger to completely new heights. There are essentially three main, each different and unique female character archetypes, as each serves a different purpose to develop and unravel the plot and to set the mood and tone of each film. They are the “Femme Fatale”, the “Good Woman”, and the “Marrying Type”.

Dashiell Hammett is well known for his writing of the Maltese Falcon, with his original fiction character Sam Spade. Many people would think all authors brainstorm their stories, but this case is different. Dashiell Hammett’s life experiences, mainly as a Pinkerton detective, have influenced his inspiration for writing fiction detective stories. His father, an alcoholic and a womanizer, worked as a watchman, a salesman, and many other short-end jobs. At age 14, Hammett dropped out of Baltimore's Polytechnic High School to help support his family because of their current situation. He took up odd jobs that were not well paying. They all needed help with the house and financial costs. He worked as a messenger for the B&O railroad, which was the first and oldest common carrier railroad in the United States. While on the job, he began to have a taste for gambling and alcohol. Later, he established a job as a clerk with the Pinkerton National Detective

Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon, is a hard-boiled detective novel; a subset of the mystery genre. Before the appearance of this sub-genre, mystery novels were mainly dominated by unrealistic cases and detectives like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. As Malmgren states, “The murders in these stories are implausibly motivated, the plots completely artificial, and the characters pathetically two-dimensional, puppets and cardboard lovers, and paper mache villains and detectives of exquisite and impossible gentility.” (Malmgren, 371) On the other hand, Hammett tried to write realistic mystery fiction – the “hard-boiled” genre. In the Maltese Falcon, Hammett uses language, symbolism, and characterization to bring the story closer to

Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon, is a hard-boiled detective novel; a subset of the mystery genre. Before the appearance of this sub-genre, mystery novels were mainly dominated by unrealistic cases and detectives like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. As Malmgren states, “The murders in these stories are implausibly motivated, the plots completely artificial, and the characters pathetically two-dimensional, puppets and cardboard lovers, and paper mache villains and detectives of exquisite and impossible gentility.” (Malmgren, 371) On the other hand, Hammett tried to write realistic mystery fiction – the “hard-boiled” genre. In the Maltese Falcon, Hammett uses language, symbolism, and characterization to bring the story closer to

Film Noir is a term used to describe a collection of films ranging from John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon in 1941 to Orsen Welles’s Touch of Evil in 1958 (Naremore 14). There is much argument whether film noir is to be classified as a genre, style, or period; however, there is little disagreement when it comes to the characteristics of film noir. Many are adapted from hard-boiled detective novels and share similar visual and narrative traits (Naremore 14). One of the most popular film noirs is Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, which tells the story of Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a woman who purchases a life insurance policy for her husband from insurance salesman, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), with the intent of murdering him to collect the claim. After seducing Neff to help her, the two carry out an elaborate plan to stage her husband’s murder as a train accident, evoking the double indemnity clause in the insurance claim allowing them to collect double the money. The plan succeeds but Neff’s boss, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), manages to figure out the murder with the only wrong detail being the man who assisted Phyllis. Neff also begins to grow suspicious of Phyllis after her step daughter Lola (Jean Heather), with whom he spends a great deal of time after the murder, reveals to him that she believes Phyllis killed her mother. The pressure caused by their crime getting figured out, along with the reveal that Phyllis was just using Neff, leads to the two

"Dashiell Hammett though a name not so famous like most detective writers of the 19th century did a great job with this novel. From the third person narrative in which the novel was written to the fine blend of suspense, realism and combo of themes, this novel remains ageless and would continue to inspire readers and writers alike. Dashiell unlike most fictional writers doesn't just write out of imagination because he's been in the field and knows the risk, suspense and sufferings a detective is subjected too.