16.5 FINAL
Due Monday by 11:59pm Points 100
Available after May 16 at 2pm
Explore:
2) include at least 2 elements of the film that stand
as examples of Bound as a post-modern or neo-noir work.
but also visual,
aural
and tonal elements
that support your discussion
(editing, cinematography, lighting, acting, direction, etc.).
Ida Z.
Cine 23B - Focus on Film Noir
Final Exam
May 23, 2022
Question
1 – Part 1
One example of Bound following classical
noir execution is in the narrative structure and general storyline.
Bound follows a non-linear narrative structure that we see in
other noir films where we start with the anti-hero near the end of the story.
They are in a bad situation and looking back to see how they got there. We see
this with Al Roberts in Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945) sitting in a café
with his large mug of coffee. In Bound, we can see that Corky is severely beaten we don’t know if she is dead. Then there is flashback to the beginning of the story
with no narrator and an omniscient point of view.
The standard noir storyline always has an
anti-hero. In Bound we have Corky, who begins as the loser anti-hero
just having gotten out of jail and now working a blue-collar job.
The anti-hero then meets the femme fatale.
The sexually charged first encounter with long starring at each other and coy
smiles, not looking away happens in Bound. It reminds me of the classic
noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) where Lana
Turner rolls her lipstick right up to John Garfield’s shoes. The camera rolls
right back to where it came from and stops on her gorgeous legs. Then Lana and
John go into a stare off. Lana Turner’s legs also reminded me of how we see
only the bottom half of Violet’s beautiful seductive legs from under the sink.
The standard noir story continues with the
femme fatale seducing the antihero – with ulterior motives for usually a big
money grab freedom from the oppressor. This is done brilliantly in so many
films, but the seduction of Corky by Violet, it reminds me of the beginning of Double
Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) where there is a lot of verbal flirtatious
foreplay.
Violet: You seem uncomfortable. Do I
make you nervous, Corky?
Corky: No.
[drinks from beer bottle]
Violet: Thirsty, maybe?
The noir story ends with the femme fatale
making promises to run away with the anti-hero together after the scheme which
sometimes does or does not happen due to a double cross.
Due to the Hays Code, the femme fatale
always seems to die for her sins of greed and lust. However, Bound is
not bound by the Hays code.
Question 1
In the Wachowski’s Bound (1996) explore 2 aspects of how the film meets
or crosses over into classical Noir execution.
Question 1 – Part 2
Another example of classical noir stylistic execution in Bound was the
creative cinematography and mise-en-scene and how it was done old-school. The
cinematography was done by Bill Pope, pre-Wachowski special effects film era.
The noirs of early days such as Edgar
Ulmer’s Detour had to make original and creative ways to film on the
budgets that were given to them. Which in Detour’s case was shot for
$117,000 in about fourteen days (Christopher Small).
Bound also had a tight-budget (Amy Wootten). “The whole film is shot within a
small handful of interiors, yet Pope and the Wachowskis make excellent use of
their space” (Deep Focus Review).
Shooting in a small handful of interiors is
a cost saving device that was also used in the second half of filming Detour.
It was filmed in a two-room apartment rented by Mrs. Charles Haskell.
I thought of Detour’s mise-en-scene
when I saw the Bound set up of the two side-by-side apartments that were
used for filming most scenes. In both films mostly the living room is used and
this gets to be a small and claustrophobic space. A way to create mood.
In a film, the first few minutes are
usually need to hook an audience. I was certainly hooked within the first five
minutes of Bound when Corky and Violet meet each other in the elevator.
I knew the scene was powerful, even though
there was hardly any dialogue. In studying this electric introduction, I saw
that it was done in only 42 seconds. I studied the cinematography and it was
nothing that couldn’t have been done in the noir days. The picture quality
however was superior.
The scene in the elevator begins with at
2:04 with Corky in the elevator and Corky yelling, “Hold the elevator.” There
is a medium close-up two shot of both women looking at each other as Corky
walks in. The elevator background is bright red contrasting with the black
outfits of the women and punctuated by Violet’s bright red lipstick. Corky’s,
“Thanks” is the only other word said in the scene. The scene is shot in silence
except for the dinging of the elevator as it passes floors.
Caesar walks in a brief medium shot and
then an extreme close up of Caesar’s finger pressing the number 10 on the
elevator key pad. Then we get a circular camera view of the close space
starting with a close-up profile of Caesar’s face. This cuts to a medium close up of Corky
behind Caesar. Corky does a cool half glance in Violet’s direction, The camera
then moves to a close-up of Violet who picks up on this subtly and first seems
to look away, but then she takes off her sunglass. She twists her neck back and
stares back doubly hard and seductively. The camera cuts back to Gina with a
slight blink and then a sexy half smile and a drilling stare. Then there is a kind
of acknowledgement of flirtation and Corky twists her head a bit crooked and
stares again. Cut at 2:27 and a slight drum whisk beat begins.
Then there is an amazing overhead shot of
all three of them in the elevator reminiscent of “overhead angles that remind
us of Hitchcock” (Deep Focus Review). We see the whole scene from far atop of
the elevator shaft looking down.
Closing the great opening scene is a
medium close up of the top of Meg Tilley’s head and partial shoulder moving
past Corky smiling, Then, for the finale (with the slow drum beating now) there
is a shot from Corky’s point of view of a medium close up on Violet’s shapely
behind as she walks down the hallway in slow motion (2:02-2:44).
My point in all this detail is that these
type of camera shots have been available to filmmakers since before the noir
days. The tension was all methodically worked out with simple close up and cuts
back and forth. There was a lot of use of close-ups in the film, which brought
one right into the characters face and subtle ques.
Cinematographer Bill Pope did an amazing
job to create such a memorable and powerful introduction using old school
camera techniques and delivering all of that within 42 seconds.
Question 2
In the Wachowski’s Bound (1996) include at least 2 elements of the film
that stand as examples of a post-modern or neo-noir work.
Question 2 – Part 1
One element that screams out
as different is the violence in neo-noir, the forbidden visual of the Hays code
in film. Now in neo-noir, we see an embrace of it, “the Wachowskis use a gamut of filmic
references and resources to tell a kind of cute, certainly romantic love story
through graphic and violent neo-noir conventions” (Deep Focus Review).
Classic noir had to be so
careful and creative in the 1940s to suggest but not show violence. In Detour
(1945) Charles Haskell
is killed with a
slip out of the car and hitting his head on a rock. Vera is strangled with the
pulling of a cord around her neck in a closed room. In Double Indemnity (Billy
Wilder, 1944) during the murder scene, they
shift the focus to the face of Phyllis while Walter strangles her husband. We
hear the gurgling sounds of the strangulation and then just see a resulting
smile on Phyllis’s face.
I found Bound to be a
lot more like the pre-code Gangster genre of the 1930s than film noir. In The
Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931) they show the larger-than-life
gangster lifestyle. The gangsters live well with a sweetie moll. James Cagney’s
gangster companion Gwen lives in a lavish suite. This parallels the gorgeous
penthouse in Bound where the gangster Caesar and Violet live.
The visual gangster killing in
pre-code Hollywood was a bit shocking. Especially in a scene in The Public
Enemy where Tom and Matt are gunned down on the sidewalk street with
machine guns by an opposing gang. It is also something that don’t see again for
decades due to the Hays codes rules on violence. I don’t think they would’ve imagined back
then, the mob scene killing in Bound. There’s was so much blood for one.
Let’s review the Bound
version of a gangster assassination. It starts with Johnnie Marzzone the mob
son’s boss ringing the doorbell of Caesar’s gangster holdup penthouse. Caesar
says, “Hello?” to which Johnnie replies with “open the Fuck up.” The mob boss
Gino, Johnnie his son and Roy, Gino’s bodyguard go up to Caesar and Violet’s
Penthouse apartment.
By the end of the visit,
Caesar has gunned down the whole head of his own mafia gang. First, he kills
the mob boss Gino, in a fabulous shooting scene. “Do you point the gun at me?” “We are family Cesare, give it to me.” An
extreme close up of the mob boss’ hand on the barrel of the gun. An extreme
close-up of him smiling, and then cut back to an extreme close-up of Caser with
crazy eyes. We hear the bang sound of a gun and see Gino in a slow motion fall
backwards, like Scotty in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
This is followed by a quick kill of the
minor character the bodyguard in one shot. A note on the sound effects. The gun
shots are very sharp and make a great visual and audio kick to the scenes.
Caesar then shoots Johnnie so many times
that he keeps clicking the gun but it has run out of bullets. Caesar is in
momentary shock at what he has done. There is a huge, very red pool of blood
gathering around Johnnie’s corpse of course because he was shot so many times.
Caesar kicks the corpse around a few times
and yells at it and then starts to feel better. He tells Violet they’ll go find
the money and everything will be fine.
Then they hear a police siren.
Roger Ebert had a perfect phrase for this
type of Wachowski neo-noir violence. He called it. “Blood-soaked slapstick.”
Question 2
In the Wachowski’s Bound (1996) include at least 2 elements of the film
that stand as examples of a post-modern or neo-noir work.
Question 2 – Part 2
The second element I will review
is sex and the female in neo-noir.
“The Wachowski's wanted to play with
stereotypes (genre, gender, etc.) and make an entertaining film that contained
sex and violence because those are the kind of films they like to watch” (Johnston,
16.3). They played with gender and sex in Bound by having the anti-hero
and the femme-fatale as lesbians.
There
are basically two sex scenes in Bound. The first is when Violet states
her intentions after a long amount of teasing that she wants to seduce Corky.
She is a very good seductress and the build-up is probably longer than the
intimacy but it is excellent repartee. In the medium close ups, the women look
sexy and beautiful. Their hook-up on the sofa is subtle and more focused on
touch and kiss and soft speaking to each other.
It was certainly not like one in those old horror films in the woods
where the high school kids are in the cabin hooking up and it’s all boobs and
the nudity of the woman which the boys are enjoying.
This
sexual choreography was intentional and directed by sexpert Susie Bright. It was done with the intention “to choreograph the lesbian sex scenes
and shun triggers of male-gaze focused softcore lesbianism” (Johnston, 16.3).
I
was interested in the “bury your gays” trope which I understand is represented
by a grave stone to represent the
deaths of LGBT characters happening more often than to their heterosexual
counterparts. The gay characters are unfortunately seen as more expendable.
In an
unfortunate comparison to the femme fatale of noir, LGBT sexuality was (is?)
perceived as negative and depraved (tvtropes). In classical noir, the femme
fatale always dies for her sins of lust and greed. This was required in a Hays
code film. It was their job was to give the right standard of morals to the
U.S. public. Women with sexual needs and desires was not one of them.
In neo-noir we are not seeing the femme fatale
be killed off in the films anymore. In Bound we are not seeing the LGBT
leads or the femme fatale killed off in the film, in fact they succeed with a
vengeance.
Corky, previously the loser anti-hero who went
to jail for five years, isn’t double crossed. Violet does double cross the
person she said she would double cross and then runs away with Corky. We certainly don’t see happy endings in
classic noir, but this neo-noir ending was great and made up for that.
Sources
Deep Focus Review. “Bound review by Brian
Eggert, February 11, 2015” – Link: https://deepfocusreview.com/reviews/bound/
Johnston, Denah. “The
Wachowski’s first feature film.” Cine 23B - Focus on Film Noir; Module 16.3,
2022,
Small, Christopher. "The Thumb-Route: Dispatches
from Poverty Row" – Link:
https://filmmakermagazine.com/107286-the-thumb-route-dispatches-from-poverty-row/#.YotMqajMKUl
tvtropes. “Bury Your
Gays” – Link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays
Wootten, Amy.
"Hidden Gem: Bound," The Edge – Link: https://www.theedgesusu.co.uk/film/2016/03/01/hidden-gem-bound-1996/
Comments
Post a Comment