In knew I would enjoy studying film noir. Out of the Past was an excellent place to start, considering how full it is of classic noir elements. What I didn't expect was that I would get so wrapped up in the characters and the story that I would forget the aforementioned film noir elements and grab onto a tiny bit of hope. I cannot deny it: I completely expected Jeff to somehow turn in Kathie, save the day, and survive to leave his dark life behind and run off with Ann to live happily ever after. For anyone who has seen the film, this is not how it ends by any means. In short, everyone dies. It was not only surprising to me that Jeff was unable to worm his way out of death, but also that the film wrapped itself up so successfully without any main characters. Every character of note except for "The Kid" met an untimely demise. Jeff's partner was shot by Kathie. Joe was hooked off the cliff by the Kid. Whit was shot (a second time) and killed by Kathie. Jeff was shot by Kathie. And finally, Kathie was shot by some creeper in a hood hiding behind a tree. This is a ridiculous amount of main character death to experience in one film. But I guess I should expect it, considering we're dealing with film noir. Logically, seeing as I've been fooled once, I should expect a bleak outcome from Kiss Me Deadly (which we are currently watching). We'll see which wins: my logical reasoning, or my ever optimistic hope.
1 comment:
kate- much agreement from me, I stupidly held on to that hope. I guess we shouldn't've been dissappointed by the death of everyone if we had just been logical, but I too want to just hold on to that little bit of hope that maybe-just maybe the ending will change :) after all, every time someone watches Titanic you know that they hope it won't sink... just once, maybe it won't! hey- if we bring quantum mechanics and electron movement into the equation... there's still a chance!
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