11 December 2001<\/p>\n
It starts with a classic camera pan:\u00a0 the city pans out before us, not daylight, not exactly dark, but half-lit as if at sunset.\u00a0 We are to be present for the very beginning of the story, as it must begin at night.\u00a0 Industrial stacks pour gray smoke into the air, providing a hazy veil under which the metropolis is teeming with sound and motion.\u00a0 Down at street level, a dirty-faced kid rummages in a back-alley trashcan for a bite of a discarded sandwich.\u00a0 Ducking into a warehouse to avoid being spotted by the policemen walking their beat, the orphan boy witnesses a card game in progress between several zoot-suited gangsters, each of whom bears the distorted face of a cartoon character.\u00a0 Although the style is unmistakably noir,<\/em> no trace of the realism which hallmarks classic film noir<\/em> has yet been revealed.\u00a0 The opening cityscape is cartooned, the characters too heavily made-up to be human.\u00a0 This is 1990\u2019s Dick Tracy<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n It has been argued that the term \u201cfilm noir\u201d can only truly be applied to a series of films made during the postwar years 1941-1953, and that no film made outside of that time period can legitimately be labeled as such.\u00a0 While I do not dispute that point entirely \u2013 I do see some usefulness in limiting the category in order to allow for certain cultural and contextual interpretation \u2013 it seems almost as if those who argue against the application of the term to more modern movies are playing a childish game in which they want membership in an exclusive club for their \u201cpet,\u201d or favorite, films.\u00a0 This cliquish attitude denies membership in the category to some recent films which seem to more adequately fit the specifications of film noir<\/em> than their predecessors of the historical noir<\/em> period.<\/p>\n That said, I do not argue for the inclusion of the 1990 film Dick Tracy<\/em> into the genre.\u00a0 Although the film noir<\/em> style is obviously alive and well in Hollywood today, it is apparent to me that a campy film based on a comic strip, in which the actors \u2013 largely big-name and respected celebrities \u2013 are unrecognizable underneath caricature makeup, cannot be equated with the realistic type of film which inspired the phrase film noir<\/em>.\u00a0 There does seem, however, to be a connection between recent movies based on comics and comic books and those based upon the works of mystery novel writers such as Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane.\u00a0 Possibly this connection stems from a parallel between the original writings themselves.<\/p>\n The comic strip Dick Tracy <\/em>debuted in October of 1931, the same year as the original publication of Dashiel Hammett\u2019s The Maltese Falcon<\/em>, upon which the movie of the same name was based.\u00a0 Both works, like others in their genres, featured a tough, ultra-masculine hero who is not confined to the strictly-ethical when in search of justice.\u00a0 Female characters in these works also share traits: clearly there was a growing feeling of distrust toward women during the period. Eventually both the square-jawed \u201ctough\u201d and the femme fatale<\/em> became stock characters in the films based on the writings.<\/p>\n Hammett himself actually wrote a comic strip during that same era, titled X-9<\/em>.\u00a0 Evidently the organized crime activity in the big cities during the period leading up to the repeal of prohibition was such pervasive and interesting news that it made popular subject matter for novels and comic strips alike (Whole Earth pars. 1-2).\u00a0 Although it is debatable whether the earliest film noir<\/em> influenced the trend in comics (Whole Earth par. 3), or whether both media were simply influenced simultaneously by 1930\u2019s society, the similarities are striking.\u00a0 And the crime-novel\/ comic strip connection does not appear to have faded from existence.<\/p>\n Contemporary novelist Max Allen Collins, author of the best-selling Nathan Heller series of detective stories, has also worked in the field of cartooning and graphic novels.\u00a0 A writer for the syndicated Dick Tracy<\/em> comic strip for fifteen years, starting in 1977 at the retirement of series creator Chester Gould, Collins recognizes the connection between crime fiction and comics, saying of his biggest influences in comic writing, \u201cWill Eisner’s Spirit <\/em>and the EC stories of Johnny Craig remain big influences on not only my comics writing, but any of my suspense writing. They are the masters of noir in comics\u2026\u201d (qtd. in Pierce).\u00a0 (Collins does acknowledge that Gould himself did not write particularly \u201cnoir,\u201d only \u201cquirky\u201d (Pierce)).\u00a0 Incidentally, while working on the Dick Tracy<\/em> strip, Collins also worked for a time on a new version of the comic book and strip Batman<\/em>, another comic which spawned a movie with noticeable film noir <\/em>stylings.<\/p>\n So, just what is the connection between comics, crime novels, and film noir<\/em>?\u00a0 Collins gives one answer:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026one aspect is the manner in which comics fall between film and prose: film is an exterior medium — shows us the story from the outside — and prose is\u00a0an\u00a0interior medium — tells us the story from inside. Comics is the only form that can gracefully give us both the interior and exterior of a story.\u00a0 As Eisner has pointed out, the manner in which images can be frozen, in effect…the emphasis and rhythm that is possible, a manipulation of image…makes comics a storytelling medium without peer… (qtd. in Coville)<\/p>\n So Collins would have us view comics as a sort of bridge between the interior perspective of prose and the exterior one of film.\u00a0 Although I disagree with his interpretation of the media, Collins may have a point about the comic being a combination of prose and film aspects.\u00a0 The movie Dick Tracy<\/em> seems to act like a comic strip as well as a film, using a certain rhythm mixed with long scenic shots to \u201cfreeze\u201d certain images, focusing on them for their distinctive tone, which is often starkly noir<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The characteristic camera angles and lighting effects commonly noted from the film noir<\/em> period are abundant in this film.\u00a0 Shots of the (unnamed) city from a high angle, shots of the city from a low angle — with the buildings slightly skewed to lean toward each other at the skyline \u2013 and lots of tight, almost claustrophobic interior shots lend some of the dark aspect.\u00a0 And although this work is in color, the use of color is so strictly limited (black, red, yellow, and blue, with occasional green or gray) that it actually appears as flat on screen as its noir<\/em>forefathers, with their dark darks and stark lights.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dick Tracy <\/em>is, of course, a period piece.\u00a0 Although the strip is actually still in production and some writers have tried to update the story lines in order to modernize the comic (Pierce), the movie is set squarely \u201cin the day.\u201d\u00a0 The men wear hats, the women wear skirts, and the cars are huge.\u00a0 References to alcohol and gambling prohibition are plentiful as the police try time and again to raid Big Boy\u2019s (Al Pacino) nightclub.\u00a0 The hero\u2019s hat is as much a prop as a wardrobe piece; what film noir would be complete without the quintessential image of the detective donning his hat just as he turns a chiseled profile toward the door?\u00a0<\/p>\n Other characters have their classic moments, as well.\u00a0 Our heroine, Tess Trueheart (Glenne Headley), makes a beautiful gesture of sacrifice to the man she loves, telling him to \u201cGo\u2026go on\u201d to his primary love, detective work, as he receives a call on his wristwatch\/radio.\u00a0 Breathless Mahoney, the femme fatale, stands face to face with Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) on a waterfront platform in the classic shot which allows the view of just her face over his shoulder, then alternately his over hers.\u00a0 They stand in the yellow circle cast by an overhead streetlamp, and the sounds of water hitting dock pilings, and boat bells and foghorns, underlie the throaty dialog.\u00a0 88 Keys, the love-struck piano player, is perfect in his innocent \u201cwannabe\u201d role as messenger and pawn of the evil NoFace.\u00a0 This is camp, no doubt about it, but it is done with such openness and finesse that it cannot be called parody or mocking.\u00a0 It is instead a tribute to film noir<\/em>, a good-natured nod to an enduring connection between comics and crime novels and their relationships to movies.<\/p>\n One of the most intriguing noir<\/em> aspects of Dick Tracy<\/em> is the femme fatale<\/em>, Breathless Mahoney, played beautifully by Madonna.\u00a0 Oozing sexuality, in contrast with the more refined Tess Trueheart, this character saunters in and out of scenes, with no apparent effect, for the vast majority of the movie.\u00a0 Two-thirds of the way through the film, when Breathless stands kissing Tracy in his apartment as a stunned Tess Trueheart happens in, we are left wondering whether Breathless has any real importance at all, besides window dressing.\u00a0 Tess\u2019s separation from Dick Tracy never seems destined to last, so we are relatively unconcerned that Breathless has engineered the encounter in order to imperil the love-therefore-salvation angle.\u00a0 It begins to look as if Breathless Mahoney is just another shiny distraction.<\/p>\n Yet, true to the noir <\/em>vision of woman as dark temptress, \u201camoral destroyer of male strength\u201d (Cowie 123), the anti-heroine finally emerges as a very important figure.\u00a0 Although unable to tempt Tracy into infidelity, Breathless is at last revealed to be the evil NoFace, the criminal mastermind who framed Dick Tracy and kidnapped Tess Trueheart in order to gain control of the racketeering business in the city.\u00a0 In a setting reminiscent of Hitchcock, Edgar Allen Poe, and the creators of \u201cRocky and Bullwinkle,\u201d Big Boy has tied Tess to the huge cogwheel of a drawbridge works.\u00a0 In bold blocks of gray, black, and red, the scene plays out with Big Boy shooting NoFace, and then falling to his death over the railing of the bridge.\u00a0 Tracy, together with the requisite Kid, saves Tess, and then unmasks the dying NoFace to find that \u201che\u201d is none other than the sexy songstress herself.\u00a0 Breathless dies, of course, and the camera rises upward to linger over the image of Dick Tracy standing over her lifeless body, giant cogwheels casting giant black shadows on concrete walls and four squares of light framed by a black window shadow on the ground beneath his feet.\u00a0 Surely the movie should end there; it is a stunning image.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there must be redemption for the hero, in the form of a marriage proposal and hints of future family life with the Kid and Tess.\u00a0 The effect is lost in the aftermath.<\/p>\n Dick Tracy<\/em> is a visually cool movie with less plot than style, a fact that marks it as influenced by the film noir<\/em>style (Schrader 225). Although it is campy, modern, shot in color, and even musical \u2013 all things film noir<\/em> is reputed not to be — it also incorporates many specific elements which were inherent in the film noir<\/em>offerings of the 1940\u2019s and \u201850\u2019s.\u00a0 This list includes a macho male lead who becomes involved (through no fault of his own) with a dangerous woman who (it is eventually revealed) frames him for a murder he did not commit.\u00a0 This woman has a more traditionally feminine counterpart, with whom the hero eventually resolves his crisis of identity and is \u201cintegrated into the cultural order through marriage\u201d (Krutnik 87).\u00a0 There are stark shadows, black silhouettes, spinning headlines (yes, my personal favorite) and machine-gunners riding down the street in long hulky cars.\u00a0 But it is the overall feel of this movie that marks it as a respectful admirer of the film noir<\/em> of the past.\u00a0 Dick Tracy<\/em> is darkly scenic and comically flat, a holdover from its comic strip days.\u00a0 It is, overall, an entertaining strip of a movie with a gritty texture but no rough edges.<\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Coville, Jamie.\u00a0 \u201cAn Interview With Max Allen Collins.\u201d\u00a0 Collector Times.com.\u00a0 <\/em>6.9\u00a0(Oct. 2001).\u00a0 10 December 2001.\u00a0 Web.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Cowie, Elizabeth.\u00a0 \u201cFilm Noir and Women.\u201d\u00a0 Shades of Noir.<\/em>\u00a0 Ed. Copjec, Joan.\u00a0 London:\u00a0Verso, 1993.\u00a0 121-65. Print.<\/p>\n Dick Tracy<\/em>.\u00a0 Dir. Warren Beatty.\u00a0 Perf.\u00a0 Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino, and Glenne Headley.\u00a0 Buena Vista, 1990.\u00a0 DVD.<\/p>\n Krutnik, Frank.\u00a0 In a Lonely Street:\u00a0 Film Noir, Genre, and Masculinity<\/em>.\u00a0 London:\u00a0 Rutledge, 1996.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Pierce, J. Kingston.\u00a0 \u201cKillers, Coverups, and Max Allen Collins.\u201d\u00a0 January Magazine<\/em>.\u00a0 (Sept. 1999).\u00a0 10 Dec. 2001.\u00a0 Web.<\/p>\n Schrader, Paul.\u00a0 \u201cNotes on Film Noir.\u201d\u00a0 Film Genre Reader II<\/em>.\u00a0 Ed. Barry Keith Grant.\u00a0 Austin:\u00a0U of Texas P, 1997.\u00a0 213-26. Print.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cTwo Prehistories.\u201d\u00a0 Whole Earth<\/em>.\u00a0 (Spring 1998):\u00a0 25+.\u00a0 Ebscohost.\u00a0\u00a05 Dec. 2001.\u00a0 Web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 11 December 2001 It starts with a classic camera pan:\u00a0 the city pans out before us, not daylight, not exactly dark, but half-lit as if at sunset.\u00a0 We are to be present for the very beginning of the story, as … Continue reading