Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past is one of the most highly regarded products of classical film noir, a stylistic/thematic movement generally agreed to have spanned from 1941-58. Furthermore, Out of the Past, is a particularly unique brand of film noir; while most of the shots are lit for night, the shadows are not as prominent and/or expressionistic/abstracting as they are in many other famous works of film noir. While there are many scenes that are lit in what would generally be considered to be a more conventional manner, in terms of representing the genre, most of the scenes do not take advantage of the super expressionistic use of shadow that often wholly covers faces and bodies and sometimes, as a result, even distorts their appearance. Instead, Tourneur incorporates such a use of shadow only in scenes where emotions are heightened and it seems that his employment of the lighting technique has the intention of evoking a certain subjective feeling to the viewer of the film. Moreover, instead of overusing the lighting technique as some may argue is characteristic of some of the other more popular products of film noir such as Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil or Anthony Mann’s T-Men, Tourneur tastefully incorporates such as overtly expressionistic and deliberate lighting techniques and seems to save them for the most emotional moments of the film.
Some may argue that Tourneur even uses his film noir-esque style and composition so intuitively that he alludes to larger themes through symbols that may be derived from respective shots and compositions. For example, in the first scene that we see Ann and Jeff together, Tourneur artfully separates the lovers with a thorny shrub of some sort. Furthermore, later on in the scene, one can notice that the shadows of the branches are projected onto Ann’s face. This interesting artful use of lighting and composition is repeated again at the end of the film when Jeff comes back for Ann at the end and the two would-be lovers are sitting in the forest, again, separated by thorny branches with their shadowy reflections resting on their faces. One cannot help but notice how the over-all misé-en-scene of this scene helps to create an atmosphere in which we as viewers suspect our main characters are somehow fettered by the overbearing constraints of fate. This fatalistic atmosphere is actually characteristic of the genre.
Also, in accordance with the general tendencies of the genre, the film is narrated in a novelistic fashion, focusing mainly upon a flashback to drive the plot forward. Paul Schrader, a famous screenwriter and film critic, offers up wonderful insight on film noir’s preoccupation with the past: “… there is a passion for the past and present, but a fear of the future. The noir hero dreads to look ahead, but instead tries to survive by the day, and if unsuccessful at that, he retreats to the past. Thus, film noir’s techniques emphasize loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity; then submerge these self-doubts in mannerism and style.” (Schrader) Furthermore, it is also a film that seems to be constantly on the move, in that the characters are, quite obviously, always on the run, both from each other and from the constraints of mainstream society itself. Another common characteristic of film noir that is represented in Out of the Past is the rejection of the Aristotelian narrative and/or the dependence of the classical, happy, Hollywood ending. Often we begin film noir productions, the characters already seem to be ill fated from the get-go. Despite that, this film is not unique in the sense that it includes not only gangsters and detectives but also the figure of the femme fatale, all elements strikingly ubiquitous in the realm of film noir. However, in terms of the setting, one may say that it is quite representative of the common traits of the genre. Specifically, most of the scenes take place in urban locations, despite a few scenes shot in the country. Be that as it may, the nature scenes that are shot even in the most idyllic places are darkened not only due to the fact that most of the shots are lit for night but also due to the fact that there is a certain darkness pervading from the characters themselves that helps add to the general dark ambiance of what one might say helps to make a good film noir.
The question of why film noir has a French name, despite the fact that it is surely an American phenomenon, is one that has often confused students and film enthusiasts alike. Furthermore, there is no doubt that understanding the answer to that question is an imperative step in being able to properly comprehend film noir as a genre. One has to hearken back all the way to 1941 and remember the state of world affairs; namely, the world is at war and most important to our discussion, American films were no longer being exported to Europe. In 1946, roughly a year after the end of WW2, the first writing appeared in French journals dubbing the wartime cinema of Hollywood as American film noir. Thus, although film noir was an American phenomenon, it was not labeled and categorized until the wartime films of Hollywood reached France in 1946. Surely, this helps to account for the unique diversity of style and themes within the genre. Be that as it may, understanding the reasoning behind the disillusion felt by many Americans of the time period helps one understand many of the darker themes that are commonly associated with the genre; yet, it also helps us understand why cinema was so preoccupied with this notion of the femme-fatale or the black widow and why this figure was so prevalent in the dark tales of film noir cinema.
The ability of the woman to step out of the domestic realm during and after the Second World War really provided an unpleasant culture shock for a lot of the American male population. Men feared that women, now given these new freedoms, would leave their homes and children behind and go off and indulge in their greatest hedonistic whims and desires. Perhaps then, these femme fatales are the embodiment of this fear, created – of course – by male screenwriters and authors, who, sensing this masculine cultural malaise incorporate it into their stories and films. Generally, many critics and scholars feel that American screenwriters may have felt some connection to the great disillusionment felt at the early part of the 20th century after the First World War, made famous by such writers as Hemingway and Faulkner in their great ex-patriot novels. Film critic, James Nemore, writes in his essay on film noir, namely, on the feelings of great French director and film critic André Bazin regarding film noir: “The importance of existentialism to the period has long been recognized; what needs to be emphasized is that French existentialism was intertwined with a residual surrealism, which was crucial for the reception of any art described as noir.” (Nemore) Perhaps this surrealism that Bazin speaks of lies in the expressionist use of lighting so commonly used in the composition of a conventional film noir motion picture. The notion that we are all disillusioned, ill-fated beings, walking through an urban hell in an almost perpetual night is quite a deep, dark, surreal notion.
Perhaps the most striking achievement of Tourneur and his cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca, both of whom had picked up a lot of their talents from working famous Val Lewton B-movie horror unit, was to turn the most serene, pleasurable and peaceful settings into ones that become ominous, dark, shady and perhaps even down right vice-inducing. For example, the film opens up in a remote mountain town with Jeff laying outside with Ann in a beautiful natural setting yet, the lighting is done as if the scene were to be shot at night so we don’t really get the full effect of the brightness of the day. Instead, the chiaroscuro of the scene has an almost overcast, grayed over feeling that gives a sort of ominous tone to the composition. The overall lighting combined within the debatable symbols one may interpret based upon the shadows of thorny branches being projected on the faces of the lovers produces an overall misé en scene that leaves the viewer with a feeling that some one of more of these characters have somehow been ill fated. This of course is characteristic of film noir, to make every scene, even those at night appear dark and overcast; furthermore, it is also characteristic of film noir to have characters who cannot escape their fate. Some critics argue that the generally darker composition of shots in film noir results in a heightened feeling of fatalism both being projected from the characters and being induced in the viewers themselves as they attempt to relate to the characters on screen.
The ending of the film is while, strikingly uncharacteristic of the larger amount of Hollywood product of the 20th century up to this point its history, it is actually quite representative of the style of film noir type of dénouements. Rejecting the sort of logic from Aristotelian poetics, film noir resists falling back on the happy ending. Thus, further relating the film noir to the form of the novel, particularly that of the existential modern/post-modern 19-20th century novel, and allowing film to become more of an free flowing art form than simply and constrained and regulated form of entertainment. In the end of the film, it isn’t quite clear who has crossed whom and moreover, it isn’t even quite clear who is being criticized and who is being lauded, if anyone at all. Perhaps this is reflective on post-WW2 society in America where cultural boundaries and identities are becoming more and more skewed, with the culture changing and women taking more of an independent role in society, the culture is no longer what men have known it to be before the war. Thus, the villains and the heroes in society are not so well-distinguished as they might have been in the past… as Paul Schrader so wonderfully puts it on his tell-all, be-all essay on film noir and the changes in American culture both during and after WW2: “… one finds the upward mobile forces of the thirties have halted; frontierism has turned to paranoia and claustrophia. The small-time gangster has now made it big and sits in the mayor’s chair, the private eye has quit the police force in disgust, and the young heroine, sick of going along for the ride, is taking others for a ride.” (Schrader) Thus, perhaps film noir was the best possible artistic medium that could have ever come along to allow the filmmakers of America represent their own culture and its rapidly changing identity during the 1940s and 50s.

Bibliography

1. Schrader, Paul. “Notes on Film Noir.” Notes on Film Noir (Paul Schrader, 1971). Film Comment. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://i.mtime.com/Noir/blog/1433838/>.
2. Scruggs, Charles. ""The Power of Blackness": Film Noir and Its Critics." American Literary History 4 Nov. 2004: 675-87. Project Muse. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/alh/summary/v016/16.4scruggs.html>.
3. Nemore, James. “American Film Noir: The History of an Idea.” Film Quarterly Winter 1995-6: 12-28. JSTOR. Web. 24 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1213310>.
4. Palmer, R. Barton. “The Divided Self and the Dark City: Film Noir and Liminality.” Symploke 1-2 15 (2007): 66-79. Project Muse. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sym/summary/v015/15.1-2.palmer.html>.