Essay about Traits of Marlow in the Big Sleep

This essay will identify the importance of the elements of Film Noir between the movies Maltese Falcon, Chinatown, and L.A. Confidential. This will also discuss if Chinatown and L.A. Confidential remain true to the classical form or if they are in the baroque level of genre. This essay will also identify these discussions using examples for each film.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (n.d) defines noir as “crime fiction featuring hard-boiled[,] cynical characters and bleak[,] sleazy settings.” However, it could be suggested that “claustrophobic” would be a better descriptor, in place of “sleazy.” The term noir, as it relates to fiction, comes from “film noir,” which means “black cinema,” and was a term coined in France by French critic Nino Frank (Schurr, A., Crump, A., Rozeman, M., & Paste staff, 2015). The dark term was coined partially in reference to a particular subset of Hollywood films that were permeated with previously unseen levels of cynicism or disillusionment, this cynicism is generally attributed to the 1940s post-war dynamics (Hoerneman, n.d.). Film

Film noir is a famous era of filmmaking that defined the cinematic experience in Hollywood for a whole decade. No film can correctly represent such a influential cinematic era like Gun Crazy directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Gun Crazy is a unique expression of film noir of the 1950s that utilizes many cinematic elements in unparalleled ways to tell its story in a distinct fashion. Lewis uses cinematic techniques such as lighting, composition, editing, music, and mise-en-scene of the opening sequence to establish the tone and character motivations of the story.

I naturally feel at kin with the French journalistic styled terminology called; ' film noir, ' - I adhere to spicing up ordinary narratives, especially remakes of a theatre production - 'Gaslight ' originally was a screen play. Any attempt to

Marlowe to grow into a role model, because when the characters were first made, they were not

In The Big Sleep, Chandler portrays Marlowe as the knight in shining armor. This establishes a motif of the stained glass window in General Stern wood’s home in the first chapter of the novel and is an appropriate motif in dictating Marlowe’s knightly role in the novel. The stained glass that is reflected in the novel places Marlowe in the position of the knight as it shows a knight who strives to reach a woman to set her free. The fact that he stares at the glass makes him develop the need to offer assistance. This motif is suitable because it sets the stage for what is to take place in the aftermath when Marlowe rescues Carmen. Secondly, Chandler tries to connect Marlowe with the knightly personality from the beginning of the novel that he intended to name his detective the modern knight and a brave man fighting for General Sternwood. He takes the role of the servant to Sternwood’s lord and therefore, in the knightly terms, it is sufficient to say that Marlowe is striving to find justice. Moreover, he is dedicated to rendering his services in the line of duty with much loyalty and honor despite the sexual and financial temptations that come his way. Like the ancient knights, Marlowe has deeply invested in his personal code of chivalry that contain among others, the need to overcome the sexual temptation of whatever magnitude that comes his way. Lastly, as a representation of the modern-day knight, Marlowe comes out in the novel as a tough detective and a brave individual

This interesting turn of events shows the novels overall restatement of the standard paradigm of sexual relations, with men dominating the women. In her final attempt to make the calls, Vivian offers Marlowe the option of being set free in exchange for not prying any longer. Marlowe, however, exerts his own power and rejects her proposal completely. After kissing, he begins to exert complete dominance of Vivian, reinforcing male superiority. Yet even as this power shift takes place, Marlow shows full dependence on Vivian.

This act was very courageous, as Marlowe had no idea what he was getting into. He decided that it was

audience) that he will wait in a café until he finds her. The café he

After World War II, the American motion picture studios began releasing films shot in black and white, with a high contrast style known as Film Noir. Though the roots of this style of film was greatly influenced by the German Expressionist movement in film during the late 1910-early 1920’s, and films that resembled this style were made prior to the war, including the early films by Fritz Lang, a German director who fled Germany prior to the war to work in America, this film style would become prevalent during the post WWII era. Besides the shadowed lighting style and the psychologically expressive mise-en-scène, the film noir plot-lines often surrounded crime dramas and were greatly influenced by the pulp fiction novels of the period by authors like Dashiell Hammett and

Film Noir was extremely trendy during the 1940’s. People were captivated by the way it expresses a mood of disillusionment and indistinctness between good and evil. Film Noir have key elements; crime, mystery, an anti-hero, femme fatale, and chiaroscuro lighting and camera angles. The Maltese Falcon is an example of film noir because of the usage of camera angles, lighting and ominous settings, as well as sinister characters as Samuel Spade, the anti-hero on a quest for meaning, who encounters the death of his partner but does not show any signs of remorse but instead for his greed for riches.

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

By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.

During the Renaissance era, Christopher Marlowe impacted and inspired many of his fellow playwrights during his short life. With the success of his plays and poems, some including Tamburlaine the Great and Hero and Leander, came the praise for Marlowe’s contemporaries. According to Peter Farey, there were notably few contemporary dramatists whom had anything negative to say about Marlowe, although he received much criticism regarding his personal life. His relatively clean reputation diminished after his first arrest in 1593 and rumors of suspected corruption. It is believed by a copious amount of scholars that Marlowe was a considerably controversial individual in the eyes of spectators during the 16th century. After all, many harbored a

The novel “The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler was published in 1939 during the heart of the Great Depression. The novel is written in a very sinister, dark and kind of a gangster tone and carries much of the cynicism of 1930s America. The Big Sleep is a story of intrigue, corruption, delinquency and obliquity with a rather complex plot which can be very confusing. The main character in “the Big Sleep” is the private detective Philip Marlow who is very masculine man with values and a good moral. His strong moral is often evidenced throughout the novel. Marlowe is the only one in this complex world who cannot be corrupted because the other characters are all described as sleazy,