This week in Film Study I learned about the noir film and more specifically the Maltese Flacon and how it relates to the genre itself. Personally I thought that the Maltese Falcon was a good movie with enough suspense, drama and even a bit of comedy to keep me on the edge of my seat. Overall, I thought it was a very well made film and exemplified what it meant to be a noir film. For instance, it had many of the archetypes that atypical noir film has like Spade as the flawed protagonist, O’Shuangessey as the femme fatale and more.
Another way that it exemplified that whole noir genre is it story telling and the themes that it had. For instance, the whole scene where Spade is insulting the cops and says to the chief to keep his boyfriend in check was a very risqué one for when the movie came out. At that time, homosexuality was a very taboo topic, almost never talked about and a topic that would have gotten a normal man ejected from the premises on the grounds of disturbing the peace. However this film mentions it in a passing joke but the Production Code wouldn’t have it and had them censor the comment in the 1931 version. Audiences couldn’t see the full unedited version until the 1960s.
The Cinematography of the film also exemplifies it’s induction into the noir genres. It utilized many different camera angles to signify many different plot devices. For instance, in the scene where Gutman is explains the history of the Falcon to Spade, the camera does an amazing thing going from following Spade and Gutman from a room to a pan of the room and finally on Gutman’s face from Spade’s point of view where we, as an audience, can see his huge stomach. This emphasizes Gutman’s supposed power and later this is repeated when Spade is drugged by Gutman. We see Gutman’s huge stomach and power an finally Spade passes out giving us a scene of somewhat weakness on the side of Spade.
The last way that this film earns its spot in the noir category is the lighting of the film. Throughout the film, many of the important characters are never lit properly, that is to say that their faces are lit in such a way that their faces still have shadows in them. Also in some scenes Wilmer, the fall guy who is selected to take the blame for the whole operation and the murders, is lit in such a way that he looks younger, almost childish when he is told he will take the fall. This seems to indicate a sense of lost innocence and just overall sadness because he knows that he has just lost maybe the next 20 years of his life.
So in conclusion, The Maltese Falcon is a noir film in the purest sense. It has all of the elements of a typical noir film like the archetypes or the lighting. However it also has elements like a famous last line like “The stuff that dreams are made out of” which has entered into popular culture and the public consciousness. This film is truly noir material.
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