American Noir: Crime in Literature and Film from 1934-1950

 American Noir: Crime in Literature and Film from 1934-1950

 

 

MIDTERM EXAMINATION

 

PASSAGE IDENTIFICATION AND EXPLICATION (50 points): Choose TWO of the following passages.  For each passage compose a short essay in which you (1)identify the novel and the speaker; (2) identify the scene / situation; (3)contextualize the passage within the plot;(4) provide a close-reading analysis of the passage on its own terms, paying attention to diction, figurative language, imagery, characterization—and whatever else you find relevant to your reading of the passage; (5)analyze how it relates to the themes of the novel as a whole.

 

NB: Do NOT pick two passages from the same novel.

 

• It struck me that these two were clinging together, not so much out of love as in desperation. But I couldn’t trust my own judgment. Personal feelings were involved. I had got beyond the point where I cared to look at faces. Fact was all that I wanted now. It had to be black and white, direct question, simple answer.

 

• “Oh yes we are.” I cracked up a little, then, myself, and put my head on her shoulder. ‘That’s just where we are. We can kid ourselves all we want to, and laugh about the money, and whoop about what a swell guy the devil is to be in bed with, but that’s just where we are. I was going off with that woman … We were going to Nicaragua to catch cats. And why I didn’t go away, I knew I had to come back. We’re chained to each other … We thought we were on top of a mountain. That wasn’t it. It’s on top of us, and that’s where it’s been ever since that night.”

 

• There are more millionairesin this country than in any other … and at the same time more robbers and killers. Therein lay significance. Extremes in riches make extremes in crime. As long as a Social System permitted the acquisition of extreme riches, there would be equalizing crime and the Government and all law-enforcement organizations might as well fold their hands and accept it.

The Rich … can’t drive their big automobiles and flaunt bediamonded wives and expect every man just to look on admiringly. The sheep will do it and the sheep will even laud it and support it, but at the same time these sheep will feel something that they do not understand and demonstrate it and that is known as so-called glorification of the big criminal.

 

 

• I had been wickedly amused and proud that my charms had roused passion in this curiously unimpassioned creature. What a siren I had thought myself … to have won the love of a man born without capacity for loving! … I had smugly enjoyed my position as companion and protégée of a distinguished man. The solid quality of our friendship had been, from my side founded on respect for his learning and joy in the gay acrobatics of his mind. He had always insisted on gestures of courtship; wooing had gone on for seven years with flattery and flowers, expensive gifts and oaths of undying affection. The lover role had been too unwavering for honesty, but [he] would never relax it, never for a moment let either of us forget that he wore trousers and I skirts.

 

• This might not really be happening, him lying here in this place and getting ready to get up. This was just his Spirit? His Real Self was back up that the road. No, that was his Spirit too. His Real Self had got the Chair. I’m like a cat with nine lives. That’s it. One of them in the Chair and one of them back yonder. Seven left.

 

• “There’s one way.”

“Did you say you weren’t really a hell cat?”

“I said it, and I mean it. I’m not what you think I am … I want to work and be    something, that’s all. But you can’t do it without love. Do you that … Anyway, a woman can’t. Well, I’ve made one mistake. And I’ve got to be a hell cat, just once, to fix it. But I’m not really a hellcat…”

“They hang you for that.”

“Not if you do it right. You’re smart, Frank. I never fooled you for a minute. You’ll think of a way. Plenty of them have. Don’t worry. I’m not the first woman that had to turn hell cat to get out of a mess.”

“He never did anything to me. He’s all right.”

“The hell he’s all right. He stinks, I tell you. He’s greasy and he stinks. And do you think I’m going to let you wear a smock, with Service Auto Parks printed on the back, Thank U Call Again, while he has four suits and a dozen silk shirts? Isn’t that business half mine? Don’t I cook? Don’t I cook good? Don’t you want your part?

“You talk like it was all right.”

“Who’s going to know if it’s all right or not, but you and me?”

“You and me.”

“That’s it … That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Not you and me and the road, or             anything else, but you and me.”

“You must be a hell cat, though. You couldn’t make me feel this way if you weren’t.”

“That’s what we’re going to do. Kiss me … On the mouth.”

“I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.”

 

 

 

 

CINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE (50 points): Choose TWO of the following scenes.First, write a detailed analysis of the sequence—using the terms from the FILM THEORY (A PRIMER) presentation—describing the mise en scène, individual shotsand the cameramovement,while indicating where each cut occurs.Second, indicate how the scene fits into the film’s plot. Third, analyze how the scene relates to the themes of the film as a whole.

 

• Out of the Past (1947): Whit’s Apartment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dcIVxOVxTs
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946): He’s Hooked http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/432725/Postman-Always-Rings-Twice-The-Movie-Clip-He-s-Hooked.html
• They Live by Night (1948): Getting Hitched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS-jEuab_Hww
• Laura (1944): Opening Scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThmrifWeItw