Laura (1944) and Blood Simple (1984)
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Laura (1944) and Blood Simple (1984) were made forty years apart and yet derive much of their vitality from similar film conventions. At the same time, the two films are very different in their treatment of the generic conventions. Both could be classified loosely as crime films, with the older being a police-detective story and the newer a more freewheeling and more cynical rehashing of various crime film conventions. Both take their shape from the style known as film noir. This is more a style than a genre in that no one in the 1940s when the style developed was consciously making a film noir. The term was applied long after by French critics who noticed a stylistic shift in American films in that period. The impetus for this approach to telling a story can be seen to have developed from the general social attitudes and psychological intensities of the World War II and post-World War II American social scene. The style would have an influence long after that historical period ended. Indeed, it continues to have an influence today, though the underlying social dynamic that produced it in the first place changed long ago. Yet, there is something in the film noir that appeals to and expresses darker aspects of the human soul and so has a resonance still. Laura was produced as the film noir was developing into a full-blown style, while Blood Simple makes conscious use of certain film noir conventions in order to create a slyly different type of story.
. . .
is does not dissipate the strong sense of psychological torment inherent in the lieutenant's character--he has fallen in love with a dead woman, and now, though he has the chance to meet the real woman and perhaps develop a relationship, he also has to investigate her as a potential suspect.
Laura has a haunting mood enhanced by the well-known musical score, itself based on a haunting melody that does a good job of capturing the combination of the hidden romantic nature of the detective and the angst he experiences in this non-romantic world. The film is modernist in its sensibilities, for it questions the surface truths and implies hidden agendas and deeper meanings in the interactions of its characters. At the same time, the plot of this film is more classical in its structure than would be true for many in the film noir style. Laura does have a number of flashbacks as various characters tell their story, but the main line of the film is more chronological than a film noir such as Out of the Past or even Murder, My Sweet, a classic detective story given added resonance by seeming to be in the past because of the narration. Laura is not so narrated, but it also seems to have a disjointed time sense in the way it begins with
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Blood Simple, II American, Criss Cross, Joel Coen, Murder Sweet, film noir, War II, blood simple, Rock West, Cold War, war ii, world war, noir style, , world war ii, film noir style, World War, blood simple makes, social psychological, police lieutenant, elements film, ii american, elements film noir, society lives, classic film noir,
Approximate Word count = 1725
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
