While studying film noir, we watched Out of the Past a film directed by Jacques Tourneur. The film is about a man named Jeff Bailey who gets himself in a real bad situation. He is assigned to help Whitt Sterling (Kirk Douglas) find his girlfriend Kathie (Jane Greer). What Jeff finds out while he is on the case is that Kathie is a fox. Jeff ends up falling head over heels for Kathie. But, when Kathie ends up killing a man, Jeff wants out. Jeff learns quickly that he cannot escape Whitt.
What made this film the least bit successful was the presence of film noir. Jane was designated to play the role of femme fatal. What characterizes a woman as a femme fatal is her strength, her sex appeal and her devilish ways. Jane really brings out these elements in her character Kathie. Another element of film noir is the usage of low key lighting. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is a high contrast between dark and light. This lighting was used in often in the film to convey mystery and darkness. When Kathie and Jeff are sneaking around in Mexico low key lighting was used to show the hush, hush of their relationship.
This movie was a two out of five. Even though I liked the way the director used the elements of film noir, I didn’t like anything else. Part of the reason why I didn’t appreciate this movie to the fullest is because it’s out of date. I feel that people back when the movie was made were in to the hype of this new genre of film, but now people aren’t into this type of film.
What made this film the least bit successful was the presence of film noir. Jane was designated to play the role of femme fatal. What characterizes a woman as a femme fatal is her strength, her sex appeal and her devilish ways. Jane really brings out these elements in her character Kathie. Another element of film noir is the usage of low key lighting. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is a high contrast between dark and light. This lighting was used in often in the film to convey mystery and darkness. When Kathie and Jeff are sneaking around in Mexico low key lighting was used to show the hush, hush of their relationship.
This movie was a two out of five. Even though I liked the way the director used the elements of film noir, I didn’t like anything else. Part of the reason why I didn’t appreciate this movie to the fullest is because it’s out of date. I feel that people back when the movie was made were in to the hype of this new genre of film, but now people aren’t into this type of film.
1 comment:
i agree with the movie being out of date personally i didn't like the movie and to be honest it was boring. the editing and the cinematography were the only things that were interesting about this movie. Nice Post!
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