Look... Don't Touch!

About six months ago I presented a film series which I called Genre Fluid.

Sometimes "noir" comes from the Kitchen Sink.

I argued at the time that we can very easily fall into a trap when trying to label things. Does it really matter whether a film fits the dictionary definition of a "Western" or a "Rom-Com" (said I, at the time) and anyway who gets to decide what those definitions are in the first place?

If a film is of merit (said I, at the time, said I) it should stand on its own. Why should we waste time and energy trying to stuff it into a box marked Sci-Fi or Chick-Flick; especially if it doesn't fit exactly? Are we so obsessed with with putting labels on everything that we can't enjoy something for what it is unless we can establish what it isn't?

In a nutshell: Not everything is about pronouns.

All of this is what I said six months ago.

I then of course proceeded to devote a whole new series of films to exploring (and perhaps... defining?) Film Noir; so maybe you shouldn't be listening to a word I'm saying.

In my defence I would argue (and have argued) that Noir isn't a genre; it was more the product of a very specific set of factors which happened to intersect at a specific moment in history: the displaced European film-makers working in (and making their mark on) the Hollywood system; the very puritanical censorship codes that dictated how certain stories could be told; the demographic shifts that took place at the end of the Second World War and so on. 

Defining noir is difficult because noir isn't an it at all. No film-makers of the era would have recognised the term if you had thrown it at them (and by the way, stop throwing things) and audiences of the time would not have thought about "noir" the way they thought about, say, Westerns or Screwball Comedies or Musicals.

A film can't be a Western, a Screwball Comedy and a Musical at the same ti... Oh.

If you like, we can now sit down and have a good, juicy debate about how to define the word genre, but that might just be more "meta" than the world can bear right now.

Instead, let's talk about a pair of films that jointly (I think) explore the boundaries of noir.

The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street are often discussed as a bit of a duet, and with some justification. They were released in 1944 and 1945 respectively, and have a number of elements in common.

• Both films were directed by Fritz Lang, with cinematography by Milton Krasner. 

• Both films star Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. 

• Both films tell stories that revolve around a portrait of Joan Bennett.

Full disclosure at this point: I had seriously considered screening both films as part of this series (and many other "noir" festivals have done exactly that) but on reflection I have decided to abstain from one of them for a very simple reason.

I don't think Scarlet Street is a good example of noir.

[Pause while a thousand film scholars quietly explode]

I should stress that this is just my own opinion, and many film buffs would violently disagree with me (which they are of course permitted to do, so please don't hit me with your internets). Scarlet Street is considered by many to be very epitome of noir, and it is certainly one of the darkest, nastiest and most unrelentingly grim examples of cinema from that period.

It also features many of the tropes one tends to associate with noir: a sultry Femme Fatale; a male protagonist who is lured away into transgression; inevitable punishment for the wrong-doers by the end (although not quite what the censors were happy with in this case) and, last but not least: Dan Duryea.

If it's Dan Duryea, it must be noir.

In Scarlet Street, Edward G. Robinson plays Christopher "Chris" Cross, a lowly cashier (unhappily married) who likes to paint in his free time. One night he sees a young woman getting attacked on a street corner and gallantly comes to her rescue, not comprehending that the woman is a hooker and the attacker is her boyfriend/pimp (they don't call them that in a 1945 movie, but it's made quite clear).

 

Thus begins Chris's toxic infatuation with Kitty March (Joan Bennett) who proceeds to milk him for all he's worth. He buys her new clothes, rents her a new apartment and of course embezzles money from his employer (and from his wife) to support her, completely unaware that she is still involved with her deadbeat boyfriend, Johnny (Dan Duryea). 

But it's only when Kitty and Johnny begin selling Chris's paintings (passing them off as her work) that the film takes a turn for the extraordinarily dark.

Before the film is over, Chris has murdered Kitty and the police have arrested Johnny for the murder (then convicted and executed him). 

Kitty has been (posthumously) lauded as an artist of uncommon genius and vision.

As for Chris...

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the film I am not going to show.

Scarlet Street may very well be "Dark Cinema" but (in my opinion) it crosses a line into cruel and sadistic. It is also (I feel) an extremely misogynistic film, and has always left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

The film I will be showing (you were beginning to wonder, weren't you?) is the companion film of the pair, Woman in the Window.

The two films do share many thematic elements.

Woman in the Window also centres around a portrait of Joan Bennett (albeit in a very different style) and Edward G. Robinson is once again fascinated by her.

Like so many other noirs, the hitherto upright characters find themselves on the wrong end of the law, with all of the complications that must inevitably ensue.

Well that's never good.

And of course Dan Duryea is there to make everything even worse.

At least he isn't a pimp this time...

There are many elements to admire in Woman in the Window: the performances of the lead actors, the relentless, inevitable plot, the stark cinematography.

But the one element that tends to dominate everyone's discussion afterwards is the ending, which divided audiences even in 1944 (and is still dividing people to this day).

The ending of Scarlet Street was also extremely controversial by the way, and that film was banned outright in New York, Milwaukee and Atlanta, amongst other locales. The censorship board in Atlanta described the film as "licentious, profane, obscure and contrary to the good order of the community."

(On reflection, that was probably a fairly accurate description of Atlanta itself in 1945, but that's another story.)

In any event, we will be screening The Woman in the Window (and not Scarlet Street) at 7.30 on Thursday, the 3rd of April at the Victoria Park Baptist Church. 

Where all will hopefully become clear!