The Postman Always Rings Twice as Film Noir Essay

Every time that Bobby would walk by Just Frank on the street, Just Frank would ask if Bobby was "being a man" (Johnson 7). A true man would give up his wants to help someone in need. When Just Frank died trying to save a girl in an ally, he was symbolizing a hero. Just Frank could have had a feeling that Bobby's immaturity would lead him down a path where he would end up having to make some tough choices. Just Frank could have been trying to get Bobby to try to mature so that he could be a hero to Feather, his daughter, who was a result of his poor choices. Bobby never really did know what Just Frank meant when he asked him this, but he eventually understood when he finally matured fully into a man. Bobby finally felt like a man when he took on the challenge of raising his daughter alone. After Bobby finalized his decision, he said ,"I think I see Just Frank standing at the end of the hall" (Johnson 126). By quitting his immature actions, and keeping the baby, Bobby finally felt like he was "being a man" (Johnson 126). Having a vision of Just Frank made Bobby realize why he had always asked him that same question over and over again. He realized that Just Frank knew that Bobby would finally have to grow up so that he could be Feather's hero. When Bobby finally grew up and matured, he felt vastly satisfied with

"That night the jars began to break" (151). The novel Montana 1948, written by Larry Watson is a book about family and tragedy. The Hayden name is popular in Bentrock. David Hayden is a young boy who was taken for an adventure one summer when his sheriff of a dad, Wes, was informed of his brother sexually assaulting his patients. Family is important, but morals are what drive your actions.

Unlike Holden Caulfield, Frank tired in school, had parents that depended on Frank to help with the other children. Frank was expected to grow up faster than most kids by having to take care of his sibling when his parent started to fall apart. Frank many times had to find small jobs to help support his family because his father as we know kept on drinking all the money he made away. Frank has the biggest heart, for an example of why he has the biggest heart is before he had a job he would say how he would get a job and wouldn’t drink it away. Referring he would be different than his father, better father, and really wanted to do as much as he could for the family, think like an adult. He was Striding to be a better person in general. Even

In contemporary film making, “Hollywood-ization” generally refers to the re-creation of a classic work in a form more vulgar and sexually explicit than the original in an effort to boost movie attendance. After all, sex and violence sell. However, from the mid-1930’s to the 1950’s, “Hollywood-ization” referred to the opposite case where controversial books had to be purified to abide by the Production Code of 1934.[1] This occurred to many of James Cain’s novels as they moved from text to the genre of “film noir.” As has been said about Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, “The property, bought several years ago, was kept in the studio’s archives until now

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

The mysterious and calm man of the trio is Frank, a protagonist. He is first introduced sitting in the truck while picking up Tub. Frank is laid-back, yet joins with Kenny to insult Tub. Though later, Frank apologizes to Tub. When Tub tells him his secret, Frank is supportive and buys him four plates of pancakes. Frank believes in letting nature run its course and not fight against it. After losing the deer, Frank calms Kenny saying “Relax […] You can’t hurry nature. If we’re meant to get that deer, we’ll get it. If we’re not, we won’t” (89). Contradictory to his personality is his wedding ring, a gold ring with an “F” in diamonds. When they begin hunting, Kenny hints about a certain babysitter, which aggravates Frank. When he and Tub stop to warm themselves, Frank exposes his secret that he is having an affair with his fifteen-year-old babysitter. He says with amazement that she has opened up new worlds to him, the cause of his hippie personality. Frank commits the crime of lust; however, he takes into consideration of his wife and children if he divorces. Frank is torn between his secret lover and family, but gains a trustworthy friend on his side to help him through it (86-97).

When his father takes him to be an altar boy, he is turned away due to the poverty of his family. This is disturbing to young Frank, and begins thoughts of discontent in his mind. Also, when he goes to look into enrolling in secondary school with his mother at his side, the Christian Brother there slams the door in his face due to his street appearance. Regardless of his high intelligence, he is denied a higher education by the Church based on his economic status. The night before his 16th birthday Frank drinks his first pint and strikes his mother; on attempting to confess to a Jesuit priest, the door is again closed to him: “He says, Go away. You’re drunk. Child like you drunk as a lord ringing for a priest at this hour. Go away or I’ll call the guards…. You’re drunk and you’re not in a proper spirit of repentance (340).” Frank is panicked about the condition of his eternal soul but is forced to remain in a state of sin because of the lack of compassion by this priest. The transformation is complete: Frank is no longer the innocent little child who runs to the Church to unburden his soul, but instead he is a cynical adolescent who has lost his faith in God.

Borde and Chaumeton, two French film scholars who coined the name “film noir”, also offered ideas on what a “classical noir” is. The two write that “the presence of constant crime” is a characteristic of classical noir that is present in and throughout noir films (Borde and Chaumeton 19). Like Schrader, Borde and Chaumeton agree that authority

The Hardboiled Detective genre is one that depicts the previously established concepts of masculinity and femininity within film and flips them on their head. In direct contrast to others, this genre tends to depict women as capable and powerful, and these characteristics normally make the males within the films feel threatened. The pioneer of this genre, The Maltese Falcon, highlights the characterization of the main character, Spade through the femme fatale, Brigid. This continues on within later films of the genre with the 1974 film, Chinatown, as it continues to use the femme fatale, Evelyn, to characterize the main character of Gitties. Within The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown, the female archetypes of the femme fatale, respectively Brigid and Evelyn, help characterize the films’ main characters, respectively Spade and Gitties. Further, these femme fatales last in the public conscious which allows the archetype to become iconic and continue appearing in today’s films.

Character Summary: Frank TJ Mackey is a misogynistic motivational speaker for men who are having trouble picking up women. In the beginning of the movie, he is hosting a seminar at a hotel. During the seminar’s lunch break, Frank is interviewed by a female reporter. While with the interviewer, Frank behaves bizarrely; he changes in front of the reporter and barks like a dog. During the interview, Frank makes up multiple lies about his personal life, but the reporter does not believe any of it. She has done her research and knows that Frank’s father, Earl, is dying of cancer, and she also knows that Frank had to take care of his dying mom when Earl left. Frank becomes angry at the reporter and yells in her face before she pushes him away. He

Frank drunkenly dashes out of the bar and into a wooden building. In his exhausted stupor, Frank collapses against a pile of wood as he tries to recuperate both his mental and physical composure. Free of the conspirators in the bar and of Joe’s pursuit, Frank acquiesced a rare moment of introspection when finally alone and away from his assailants. But as he regains composure, his surroundings consume him. The wood building brings Frank back into his prison cabin from the war, and Frank’s mental bulwark fails to shield him from the the humiliation from the bar as the past infuses with the present. The seedy lawyer’s words seep into his mind as a disjointed auditory flashback is heard, condemning Frank to be the coward who informed on his men. But as the flashbacks intensify, Frank is doomed to relive the slaughter of his men.

The majority of this essay has focused primarily on Frank’s ideas alone, and how they reflect cynical philosophy, but when it comes to Freudian guilt, Underwood’s personal life comes into play, through his politically advantageous affair with Washington Herald Reporter, Zoe Barns. Many compare Frank and his wife Claire to that of a modern Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but Claire is much darker in a mature way, Claire knows about Frank’s relation’s with Zoe Barnes, and she is completely okay with them giving that they advance Frank’s sinister agenda. So the arrangement begins, Frank feeds Zoe insider information, which upon her publishing, helps Franks public image, and sometimes, destroys the image of his enemies. One of those enemies is Secretary of State Michael Kern. The entire show begins with Frank being promised to the position of Secretary of State by President Walker, however, Frank is unjustly cheated out his position by the new administration, electing Kurn the job instead. Of course, this does not sit well with Frank, and upon meeting Barnes around this same time, Underwood opportunistically capitalizes on sabotaging Kern by leaking an old news article to Zoe, supervised by Kern, where one of his writers in staff made anti sematic remarks. Although Kern didn’t even make, let alone approve of this remarks, the media outcry forced him to step down from his position of Sectary of State, but at this point, Frank already had his bigger plans in mind.

He know understand the troubles he had put on his family and the results of it, such as his constant need to point out Margot as his “adopted daughter” and the result of her feeling secluded from the family. Knowing this, he feels guilt and wishes to actually make things

A key characteristic of Film Noir is the femme fatale. The femme fatale are the female protagonists in films of Film Noir which support the male protagonists, as well as being the centre of the plot. There are two archetypes of femme fatales - they were either loving, trustworthy and innocent or they were either devious and dangerous. Femme fatales are generally characterized as irresistible and mortal to the male protagonist and without their spouses, homes or any affairs, she would be nothing. In order to show that she is powerful and independent, she would threaten the male protagonist. Apart from their sexy and beautiful appearances, film historian Janey Place describes the femme fatale as being “comfortable in the world of cheap dives, shadowy doorways, and mysterious settings.” This describes how manipulative and ruthless femme fatales are and would do anything in order to possess great wealth. The characteristics of the “innocent” femme fatale in “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) is recognized when Bridget begs Spade to help her. The appeal to his manhood, the projection of innocence and her feminine wiles: “Be generous, Mr. Spade. You're brave. You're strong. You can spare me some of that courage and strength surely. Help me, Mr. Spade. I need help so badly. I've no right to ask you, I know I haven't, but I do ask you. Help me”. We can see the sympathy evoked from the femme fatale as they are typically victims in abusive relationships. Moreover, the characteristics of the “manipulative and ruthless” femme fatale in “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) is recognized in the final image of the elevator door closing on the guilty party like jail bars, the shadow forming a “falcon foot” around a single eye and Spade’s famous line: “If you’re a good girl, you’ll be out in 20 years, I’ll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I’ll always remember you,” This explains the threatening actions from the femme fatale to prove that she’s independent and strong, which is reflected in the American society as women in the 1940s lacked connections with their home and family, as well as making an attempt in threatening the patriarchal society as a destructive force.

He quickly begins a journey of trying to "prove himself" and successfully wins the courtyard run. He is passionate, but also haunted in a way. He is not quite able to find joy. At one point in the movie he says to his best friend Aubrey Montague "You, Aubrey are my most complete man. You're brave, compassionate, kind: a content man.