The detective story : The Big sleep Flashcards
Presentation The Big Sleep
1946, Howard Hawks, black & white movie
Who is Howard Hawks ?
also made Scarface
Based on which novel
It’s based on a novel by Raymond Chandler : The big Sleep, 1939
Famous names of this film
Screenplay by William Faulkner (Nobel Prize 1949)
→ ++ talents : Hawkes, Chandler, Faulkner
The detective in 1929
In 1929 : the detective is totally different from the British detective !
Which movie created the new detective ?
The Maltese Falcon, 1929 created a new detective
What is the new detective ?
Emergence of the modern detective :
Sherlock & dupin are ++ intelligent
American detective can be intelligent but he is an action man.
In traditional detective story : there is a murder ⇒ social order is destroyed. Detective arrive, solve the mystery & then go back to natural order.
BUT in Le noir you never go back to the original order because Chandler & Hammett believe that the world is corrupt, there is no moral, you need action men to change the moral but it’s not going ot change the world that is going to remain the same → They created a new type of story.
The Maltese Falcon, 1929
The Maltese Falcon, 1929 created a new detective.
Behaviourist way of writing. A man is worth his action, Hemingway type of writing : what is important = what you do.
// pulp : describe people from the outside.
M le maudit
M le maudit : assassin, tue les enfants dans allemagne pré-nazi. Importance du procès de cet assassin en série qui tue des enfants. Cf comment réalisateur tue un acteur : dans Jackie Brown, tarantino détruit l’acteur : après il n’aura plus aucun rôle.
What can you say about “Dark Passage” ?
Dark passage, David Goodis
++ art of photography & art of filming, black and white, using lines. Scene in san Francisco
Bogart again
In the film you cannot see the main actor: you have to wait until his surgery.
Intro Big Sleep
We’re interested in the structure of society, that everything is black & that people don’t have moral at all.
Suspension of disbelief = you have to accept the conventions
Here, references to detective story :
The character is looking for a good mystery and the librarian suggest The big Sleep which is the film we’re watching.
1st person narration : you cannot trust him, not very reliable = sth new
It’s an action film = gun & love story
People make the link between Bogart and Bacall, who were lovers irl.
Singing scene
Use of music & the 2 women
Stereotypical antagonism btw blonde girl(= femme fatale) overlooking the brown-haired girl
Looks at her and sing : “She is a sob sob sister ♫” = she is likely to cry & she is prostitute likely to take the man
And her tears flowed like wine
Song composed by Stan Reaton, then ella Fitzgerald
Song by afro american women used in a bar with prostitute = means sth
She was friend with Marilyn Monroe
Bookstore scene
A SEDUCTION SCENE : detective looking for a rare book. He would like to know about the book that nobody apparently know about. “Nobody would. There isn’t one”
DOUBLE-ENTENDRE : You could try me
→ You can test me
→ You can try me as a women : there is a cut at this moment : “looks like we’re closed for the rest of the afternoon” = implicit.
All dialogue is slowded with double dialogue.,Detective is not only the person who decides but also the person under the influence of women whether she is blond or brown-haired = femme fatale : the man is going to down fall because of the women.
Men-Women relationship ++ important
When she describes : she looks at him : here the women examines the body of the man through eye-contact : she says he is a little to soft so the man rentre son ventre
“The world is a world of make belief” = illusion
You look better without glasses : she doesn’t need glasses but she is faking it because working in a bookstore
Glasses off → “Helloo” = a new woman
