Laura Discussion Notes
Opening Scene
- Recollection while seeing his collection
- Laura was his 'possession,' something to be obtained
- Clocks were made for each other
- Two males obsessed with Laura, but are opposites - doubles/doppelgangers
Waldo (unreliable narrator) tells his story in flashback, no one can back his story. The character as well as the actor was gay
Narration switches from Waldo to the detective 34 minutes into the film
Unreliable Narration - unreliable characters
Plot driven - who killed Laura?
Detective Falls in Love Scene
- Music score - highs and lows on cue depending on what the detective does
- Detective is 'taking possession' of Laura or Waldo's possessions
- Waldo comes to try to take back his possessions and Detective says no
- Transition of narration
- Detective gets reflected by many surfaces
- After this scene - when the camera zooms into the Detective then Laura enters - it could all be his dream (wish fulfillment
- Game - keeps him calm, keeps throwing it to the side later in film
- Baseball and lots of alcohol - traps him into being controlling of Laura (idea of a classmate)
- If it is a dream - the ultimate abstract realism. Detective is basic his dream girl (ideal) based on another's unreliable view of Laura.
- We only know Laura through others eyes
- Very few details
- Each narration/narrator is jealous of Laura
Noir Elements
- Rain
- Shadowed light
- Ambiguity
- Low key lighting
- Haunting - something bothering him (detective)
- Drinking and Smoking
Originally written (Play write) as a full dream with detective waking up... but he doesn't
There's a tendency to make the 'bad' a dream sequence then the character wake up.
Subjective Narration and Gender Politics
- Male controlled narration
- Laura defined by masculine desires
- Never really addresses Laura's desire
- Male desire around Laura
- Portrait of Laura for the male eye
- Portrait becomes the Detectives fetish, Waldo's anti-fetish
- Detective falls in love with portrait, fascination to be projected
- Novel has four narratives - Laura's narration is missing from the film
Discussion
- Laura is like the falcon in The Maltese Falcon
- Laura is seen as wearing 'slacks'
Women and Film Noir
- Edited by E. Ann Keplan
- Feminist ask the question: Why do we get noir after WWII?
Harvey
- Representation of women and family in pop-entertainment legitimized and neutralized traditional values
- Women in noir reflect larger issues of social change
- Two types of women: femme fetales not possessed by men or boring childbearing sweethearts
- Reflects post WWII social and cultural charges caused by war
- Begins attack on dominant social values and of frustration regarding institution of the female
- Reflect oppressive social position of women
- Reflects fear of women in labor market
- Expression at the level of style supports thematics
- Wounded men (Double Indemnity) suggests impotency of married men
- Decrease in small business ownership; increase in corporate America
- Importance of worker
- A cog in the business machine
- Increased alienation
- Noir structured around destruction or absence of romantic love and family
- Allows for production of seeds of counter-ideologies
Place
- Women in noir demonstrate fear of loss of stability, identity, and security
- Dominant feelings of WWII and post WWII era
- Paranoia, claustrophobia, hopelessness, doom, fate, no clear moral code
- Noir not progressive
- Two types of women: femme fetale vs the virgin/mother
- Noir-made fantasy, Women defend by sex in relation to man
- Liberated Women refused to be defined this way
- Women in noir are active agents, derive power from sexuality
- Supported by visuals (hair, makeup, jewelry, clothing, dominant in frame, phallic symbols - cigarettes/legs/guns)
- Darkness represents dangerous female sex and projection of men's fear
- Sexuality has to be contained
- The original sin is Women's self-interest over devotion to man
Feminist Film Theory
- Feminists asked: Why noir after WWII?
- Men return from war - emasculated
- Women doing men's work while men were gone
- Feminists saw noir as crises of masculinity, crisis in men's sexuality
- Therefore, feminists began to read films psychoanalytically
- Read films as male fantasy
- Psychoanalysis:
- Way of making filmL intentionality of filmmakers
- Not easy to determine
- Way of reading films
- Feminists read film noir as a reflection of unconscious masculine anxiety
Other Discussion
- Laura - trophy (wife) placed on the mantel
- Portrait was actually a photo that was touched up as a painting
- Women cannot be allowed to remain dominant and controlling, they must be smacked down, taken off the chessboard, killed off