For a brief video introduction to this episode of Sunday Evening Aesthetics, click here:
Gun Crazy. 1949. One of the strangest and most slippery films noir. Bart and Laurie on the run. Robbing people. Having fun. Sure, the filmmakers have to punish them in the end—as Jim Kitses points out in his excellent BFI book on the film, the Production Code approval process foreclosed on all sorts of choices the film might have made. But those choices are still there, heavily coded, elusive.
Sylvia Harvey has suggested that while film noir almost always punishes its transgressive characters (especially the women), in many cases the narrative resolution that the film offers (the death or punishment of the bad characters) is outstripped by the images we are left with of their exciting bad behavior. Yes, Bart and Laurie die in the end for defying so many social codes. But their death does not erase our images of them successfully defying the law and having fun outside the system of dominant norms.
So many scenes in the film are double-coded—operating on two (or more) levels at once. One of the best examples occurs near the end, when Bart and Laurie—on the run from the Law—return to Bart’s sister’s (Ruby’s) home. Ruby—the good mother with children—is seen through a window. She is a snapshot of a woman functioning within the Law of Family. We cut to Laurie’s expression as she watches Ruby through the window, and in just a few seconds, her facial expression changes from one of blank defiance to one of—what? Introspection? Weariness? Sadness? Regret? Does Laurie both hate and desire the domestic life behind the window?
It’s tempting to read the film as a savage critique of a capitalist system that rewards those who accumulate material abundance the “proper” way, but punishes those who try to accumulate it incorrectly. The fur coats, the jewels, the good food—all these commodities are there for the taking, provided you follow the correct channels. Bart and Laurie aren’t punished for wanting so many things that they don’t need, but for not following the Rules for acquiring them. Dalton Trumbo--one of the Hollywood Ten--worked on the Gun Crazy script. In the film, we are practically given intertitles that announce the deeper narrative logic at work....Bart and Laurie, hunched beneath the Economic Sign:
A window into another world: Bart's sister with her "cute kids."
Laurie (and Bart) gaze into the window. The look in Laurie's eyes shifts from a sort of defiance . . .
. . . to one of contemplation, and perhaps sadness, as she has chosen against the domestic world behind the window . . . her eyes now lowered slightly . . .
Of course, it is our eyes that are lowered slightly, as we realize that it is really us who are seated on the outside, looking at the screen, into a dark world that beckons us . . .
Great post Nick,
That one look into the window of domestic life shows how and why a film like Natural Born Killers doesn't really work- we don't have access to the hidden thoughts of the killers.
For some reason it makes me think of Norman Bates after he has sent the car down the hill into the swamp. He is chewing the candy corn, watching the car sink and then stop. No matter how creepy his actions up until then, we identify with that look of concern. Will he get caught? Will we get caught?
Also, great intro vlog.
If you add this to your mov link : rel="enclosure
and then go to feeburner.com and get an rss feed, we can all subscribe to your vlog. freevlog.org has more info.
next steps.
slowly slowly.
Posted by: Will Luers | June 12, 2005 at 09:24 PM