Detective And The Bad Guy example essay topic

The Big Sleep" directed by Howard Haus is definitely an example of film noir. Throughout the movie I noticed dark shadowy images where the protagonist and the femme fatale would exchange witty dialogue. The film held all the major aspects of a film noir, except for maybe one. Heavy music floods your ears while dark rainy pictures take over the screen. Whenever Bogart is driving somewhere or searching for something the picture turns significantly darker and adds more shadows.

When Bogart stakes out Geiger's house and hears gun shots, the picture shows him out in front of the house as two cars go quickly bye and swaying trees in the background cast shadows down around him. This house has darkness, death, and mystery surrounding it throughout the film. I also noticed that many of the car scenes are foggy and dark and usually indicate something bad happening. Bogart chases the young murderer down in his car, he knocks out the guy trying to take the girls money, he is beaten, there is a shootout, and of course the stake outs where he finds out who's been lying. Bad things occur around his car. Bogart is the classic protagonist.

He is a private detective and quite the ladies man. His dilemma and threat is the daughter of the man that has hired him to solve his case. He likes her knowing that she is not telling him something. He finds her intriguing.

Bacall plays the femme fatale. She is beautiful, mysterious witty and gets the detective to fall for her. She is a gambler and likes to play dumb. Trouble follows her, or more likely she follows it. I find it strange that she makes problems and yet she is a sucker for the detective. She helps him out.

I don't remember Cat Woman ever helping out Batman, though there was a mutual attraction. She was more likely to kick his butt than help him out. Not likely to occur in "The Big Sleep". Bacall and Bogart were more likely to drive each other crazy with smart-ass comments and witty comebacks. The dialect throughout the film was quick and somewhat humorous.

Often it was so quick you couldn't quite catch what was said. "She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up", said Bogart about the younger, mischievous daughter when he first met her. I found this statement quite funny and could understand exactly what he meant by it. Usually there is no happy ending in film noir, but in this film all was well and done in the end. The femme fatale took sides with the detective and helped him in anyway that she could, even if it meant putting herself at gun point as she did when she untied the detective and the bad guy walked out of the house with her as hostage. Of course nothing happened to her, and she left willingly with the detective who killed the bad guy.

What's strange to me is when they get in the car to leave they suddenly confess their love for each other. Watching a man killed and being held at gun point wouldn't exactly make me confess my love to a man. And how can the detective love her? Where does she stand and how can he trust her? But all is well in the end and they overcome the bad guys together. This would never happen in a movie made today.

The article "Paint it Black: The Family Tree of the Film Noir", by Raymond Durgnat put film noir into eleven different categories; one being Private Eyes and Adventurers. "The Big Sleep", falls under this section. "Down these mean streets must go a man that is not himself mean... ", (Durgnat, pg. 45).

This describes the character Marlow perfectly. He really is just a good man trying to do his job on the streets.