I've been swamped this week with finals and stuff, so no films aside from the abominable Cat People remake in film class last night, which I will try and review soon, just to take the piss out of it. (On another note, I'm quite pissed off to learn that Frost/Nixon isn't opening until after Christmas; maybe I can go see Australia again, or subject myself to something like Four Christmases or *shudder* Twilight out of perverse curiosity). Anyway...
This essay is pursuing a quite heated argument we had in film class when we watched Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945). An excellent movie, by the way; Joan Crawford is fantastic, and it's one of the most interesting, well-made melodramas ever made. But there's no way in hell that it's a film noir, and I wish the individuals in our class would have the ability to see beyond syllabus-dictated classifications.
Mildred Pierce and the Noir Question
In my previous essay, I made the argument that posing an opposition between the horror and melodrama genres is futile. The two genres complement each other, and attempting to pose them as opposites is a flawed line of thinking. With film noir, the question grows even more obscure and problematic. As just what film noir is - a genre? A style? A “movement” of films? - is the subject of debate amongst critics and scholars, any comparison of noir to other genres is inherently difficult. And although noir has many distinctive attributes of style, story and characterization, the question of whether they belong solely or distinctively to the genre/movement, or are simply devices commonly employed by them, is another matter entirely. On the basis of the films viewed in class, at least, it is difficult if not impossible to draw a clear line of distinction between the two genres.
This paper will focus primarily on Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce, with reference to several of the other films - mostly the melodramas Blonde Venus, Stella Dallas and All That Heaven Allows, as well the noirs Gilda and Bound - discussed in class. I will attempt to show that many of the arguments used to mark Mildred Pierce as a melodrama are specious, and that many of the attributes used to argue the film as a noir could also be applied to the aforementioned melodramas. In many cases, looking for noir-like attributes in a film claimed to be noir is easy enough; but is this actual analysis, or merely a case of putting the cart before the horse?
The classification of Mildred Pierce as a noir film is, to me, puzzling, and despite critics and classmates arguing so, I remain unconvinced that it is a noir. The film admittedly contains some aspects of the genre, but in terms of plot, story and characters it seems resolutely rooted in melodrama. While the film shares many technical and even narrative attributes, it is a mistake to assume that even if such devices characterize film noir, they are by no means exclusive to the genre, making its classification as a noir at best problematic.
The question of style was raised in class, and many of the readings, to argue that the film deserved a noir classification. It is true that, as Sylvia Harvey notes, noir employs “unbalanced and disturbing frame compositions, strong contrast of light and dark, the prevalence of shadows and areas of dark within the frame” (Harvey 35). Certainly, Mildred Pierce employs such techniques throughout the film. This is most obvious in the opening scene, as she flees the scene of Monte’s murder, dressed in black and obscured by the shadows, and in the framing device at the police station, where Mildred’s face is kept half-hidden in shadow as the audience questions her guilt. One might also assert that the film’s snappy, witty dialogue is an aspect of noir. If one were to assume that such attributes were exclusive to the noir genre, then a strong case could be made that the film should be considered a noir.
However, bypassing helpful outside examples like Brief Encounter, Mildred Pierce’s use of shadows and lighting are to be found in more conventional melodrama as well as noir. Blonde Venus made us of shadow and lighting; one of the most striking examples being the scene where Helen and Ned confront each other about the former’s infidelity. His face is lit in shadow through the scene, suggesting menacing anger, while Helen’s is radiantly lit, suggesting, if not innocence, then sympathy - echoing noir’s delineation of good and evil. Stella Dallas features similar techniques, including Stella and Laurel’s ride on the train, her face in light as she listens to the mockery from the shadows. Perhaps most noticeably, All That Heaven Allows makes extensive use of colors and shadowing to express emotions; indeed, the film’s blaring Technicolor made more overt and obvious displays of emotion than the black-and-white shadows of the above films. It’s true that use of lighting and shadow is commonplace in noir films; but again, asserting its exclusivity to the genre is demonstratively false.
The introduction of a crime plot to the story - Veda’s murder of Monte - is an intriguing complication, but it ultimately provides little weight for the noir argument. The argument that the presence of death signifies noir is specious as well. This does fall into what Harvey calls “attacks on dominant social values through representation of the family” (Harvey 36); but the fact that the story is focused inside the family, rather than showing external factors tearing it apart, is key. This is the theme of innumerable melodramas, including Stella Dallas’s self-destructive behavior driving her husband and daughter away, and Helen’s love triangle and kidnapping of her son in Blonde Venus. No one dies in any of these films, but a quick overview of melodrama films outside of the class’s purview would disabuse one of the notion that death is absent in the genre.
Furthermore, this characterization is tempered by the lack of family in the noirs we see - glaringly inconsistent with the all-important family dynamics of Mildred Pierce. Gilda does not feature any sort of real family, aside from the relationships between Johnny and Gilda and Gilda’s marriage to Ballin - “just the three of us”. But this can hardly be said to constitute a traditional family - both marriages, it is stated, are entered into hastily and without any real love between the spouses. Ballin married Gilda the day after he met her, and Johnny and Gilda remarry at a civil ceremony with no family or friends in attendance. The notion of family is completely absent from Bound, a deliberate subversion of noir; Violet’s relationship with Cesar is a convenient sham, and while Violet and Corky’s plotting destroys it, there wasn’t much to destroy in the first place. The lack of children in both films also sets them apart from Mildred Pierce and the other melodramas; for in a rotten but infertile marriage, who suffers but the spouses? In Mildred Pierce there is a family, and the story affects more than simply Mildred and her partner.
However, the biggest reason why Mildred Pierce should be considered a melodrama is the gender of its central character, and her portrayal by the film. Even if he is emasculated, weak, and what Richard Dyer calls “Either (a) colourless characterisation… or… lacking conspicuously in the virtues of normal men” (Dyer 115), the protagonist of a noir film is almost exclusively a man. Although Gilda claims the title of her film, the protagonist and narrator is clearly Johnny, and Gilda and her actions are seen mostly through his subjective eyes. Bound falls somewhat outside the mould since it deals with an explicitly lesbian couple, but the “butch” Corky is clearly the protagonist while the more feminine Violet serves the femme fatale function. Outside of the class’s curriculum, other noir films, from Double Indemnity to Touch of Evil to Strangers on a Train to The Third Man invariably feature a male protagonist. This is not merely a style point, but a requisite for noir; the woman is always the other, the one with the authoritative mystery, what Dyer calls “the unknowable” (Dyer 116) - never the protagonist, and only rarely a sympathetic character.
On the other hand, the melodramas we watched - Blonde Venus, Stella Dallas, All That Heaven Allows, and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul - all featured female leads, with men either weak and impotent side characters or handsome trophies, “a good-looking set of muscles”. In these films, women are sympathetic, despite their myriad flaws and failings, while men are nonentities, allowed little characterization and importance only as plot objects. One might argue that this is simply the inversion of roles - the weak male is the lead in noir and a side character in melodrama, vice versa with the strong female lead - but doing so merely complicates the question further. On this basis, would one argue that Blonde Venus and Stella Dallas are noir films?
Further, Mildred Pierce disqualifies itself from noir contention with the characterization its female protagonist. Throughout the film, Mildred is a strong, independent woman who lacks the sexuality or duplicity of her noir counterparts. She is not only the protagonist, but a virtuous, hardworking woman who wants only to please her selfish daughter Veda and support herself. Her struggles and obstacles in her quest for self-reliance present what Marcia Landy calls “A constant struggle for gratification and equally constant blockages to its attainment” (Landy 14) - an essential part of melodrama. Although some students argued that Vida is a femme fatale, given the structure of the story, and its use of Mildred as the protagonist, this statement makes little sense; even using the term of fatale more broadly, referring to her simple monetary desires, Veda herself plays little role in instigating the plot, except in an indirect fashion. It may be more fruitful to explore the role of Mildred’s various male associates as analogues of the usual female roles - femme fatale Monte, colorless spouse Bert, slick gal pal Wally - and thus viewing Mildred Pierce as a gender-inverted noir.
However, on the whole, the argument that Mildred Pierce constitutes a film noir seems rather weak and specious. Although it shares many techniques, stylistic touches and story points with noir films, these techniques are employed in melodramas as well, not to mention other films of other genres. The film’s focus on a strong, sympathetic female character, and its plot’s concern with Mildred’s social, personal and economic advancement, mark it as primarily a melodrama.
Works Cited
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder Perf. Brigitte Mira, El Hedi Ben Salem, Barbara Valentin. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1974
All That Heaven Allows. Dir. Douglas Sirk Perf. Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead. Universal Pictures International, 1955.
Blonde Venus. Dir. Joseph Von Sternberg Perf. Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant. Paramount Pictures, 1932
Bound. Dir. The Wachowski Brothers. Perf. Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano. Dino DeLaurentis Company, 1996.
Dyer, Richard. “Resistance Through Cinema: Rita Hayworth and Gilda.” Women in Film Noir, new edition. Ann Kaplan, ed. London: British Film Institute, 1998. 115-122
Gilda. Dir. Charles Vidor Perf. Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. Columbia Pictures, 1946.
Harvey, Sylvia. “Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir”. Women in Film Noir, new edition. Ann Kaplan, ed. London: British Film Institute, 1998. 35-46
Landy, Marcia (also ed.) “Introduction”. Imitations of Life: A Reader on Film and Television Melodrama. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. 13-30
Mildred Pierce. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Perf. Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott. Warner Bros., 1945.
So. I might go see a film this weekend, I want to mock the Cat People remake, and there's one other topic I want to rant on. IF I can find time, you'll have some interesting posts over the next few days. If not, well, keep in mind what blog you're reading.
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