Marked Woman (1937) and the Dialectics of Art Deco in the Classical Gangster Genre
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San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Faculty Publications Television, Radio, Film and Theatre 1-1-2012 Marked Woman (1937) and the Dialectics of Art Deco in the Classical Gangster Genre Drew Todd San Jose State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/trft_pub Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, Radio Commons, and the Television Commons Recommended Citation Drew Todd. "Marked Woman (1937) and the Dialectics of Art Deco in the Classical Gangster Genre" Film, Fashion & Consumption (2012): 305-325. https://doi.org/10.1386/ffc.1.3.305_1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Television, Radio, Film and Theatre at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FFC 1 (3) pp. 305–323 Intellect Limited 2012 Film, Fashion & Consumption Volume 1 Number 3 © 2012 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ffc.1.3.305_1 drew Todd San José State University Marked Woman (1937), and the dialectics of Art deco in the classical gangster genre AbsTrAcT Keywords 1. In this article, I analyse the function of Art Deco designs in the 1930s gangster Art Deco 2. genre and, in particular, Warner Brothers’ Marked Woman (Bacon, 1937). Like gangster 3. many gangster films of the period, it associates high-style Art Deco with excess excess 4. and the criminal underworld. My findings, however, reveal a tension between mise-en-scène 5. the film’s moralist stance and its visual excess. Compelling visual signifiers of Marked Woman 6. leisure, style and social mobility, the modern designs are free to circumvent the Warner Bros. 7. film’s critical message and reinforce American capitalist ideologies. My analyses Depression 8. underscore Art Deco as an emblematic style of commercial modernity. Marked 9. Woman and other gangster films not only reflect the latest trends in design, but 10. also negotiate a constellation of values, ideologies and desires at a time of social 11. and economic volatility. 12. 13. 14. In addition to reflecting contemporary tastes, Hollywood’s ubiquitous 15. Art Deco settings of the 1920s and 1930s visually project and reinforce 16. the idea of modernity. The streamlined bodies, clothes and sets cele- 17. brate not only new ideals of good taste, but also modern practices. When 18. one thinks of Hollywood’s love affair with Art Deco, high-style movies 19. come to mind, especially those made by the two most lavish studios in 305 FFC 1.3 _Todd_305-323.indd 305 12/28/12 1:49:33 PM Drew Todd Hollywood at the time, MGM and Paramount. Here I consider a differ- 1. ent construction of modern space and fashion – one considerably less 2. idealizing in reflection of societal cynicism towards both modernism and 3. decadent lifestyles. I analyse Warner Brothers’ Marked Woman (Bacon, 4. 1937) in the context of three overlapping, sometimes countervailing 5. cultural currents: Art Deco fashions and designs, the Great Depression 6. and the classical gangster genre. 7. From the same studio that popularized earlier prototypes of the gangster 8. genre, Marked Woman is unlike the romantic comedies and society melo- 9. dramas popular during Hollywood’s Art Deco era. As in most movies from 10. the period, the fashionable spaces in Marked Woman sustain both pleasures 11. and plenty, but they are also cynically tainted by gangsterism and decadence. 12. As in other Warner productions, its use of Art Deco settings articulates, in 13. particular response to the Great Depression, society’s ambivalence towards 14. modernity and the excesses of opulence. Rather than wealth and sophis- 15. tication, this story deals mainly with dark city streets, overcrowded, bland 16. Victorian apartment buildings and a circle of lower-class working women 17. struggling to make ends meet. Many of the film’s settings epitomize the 18. studio’s distinct house style: in this powerful portrait of underworld corrup- 19. tion and one woman’s defiance against an oppressive system, the drab 20. settings complement the narrative’s austere, moralist tone. Indeed, Charles 21. Eckert describes Marked Woman as aesthetically spare and ‘vintage Warner’s 22. cinéma brut’ ([1974] 1991: 212). 23. In part because the plain, minimalist settings dominate the film, the 24. occasional lively and luxurious Art Deco settings stand out even more. 25. Alternating between nondescript interiors and luxurious locales, between 26. a subdued shooting style and effervescent eruptions of cinematic excess, 27. Marked Woman wrestles with itself and its own marketing. The treatment of 28. the modern spaces – and, indeed, of modernity – is of split minds, on the 29. one hand linking them with decadence, vice and violence, while on the other 30. exploiting their hedonistic, consumerist possibilities. Reflective of the times 31. and the American movie industry, powerful currents of populism and social 32. justice, consumerism and high fashion converge in this unique amalgam of 33. 1930s Hollywood. Rich, powerful gangsters may be brought to justice by the 34. very working-class women they exploit, but Marked Woman also participates 35. in, and indeed endorses, the commercial contexts of spectacle, the star system, 36. modish fashions and a consumer economy. 37. For many moviegoers who were struggling to realize the American 38. Dream, the Hollywood gangster became a sympathetic figure. His desire 39. for wealth, power and fun – none of which seems feasible when toiling 40. for meagre pay in a factory – makes the movie mobster almost as much a 41. victim of capitalist ideologies (and shortcomings) as he is a vicious crimi- 42. nal. He may be murderous and immoral, but he is also iconic and well 43. suited to the spectacle of the big screen: the gangster knows (or learns 44. in the course of the film) how to look good, enjoy himself, get rich and 45. spend money. The designs and fashions make this eminently clear, index- 46. ing his social mobility and wealth. In this sense, the modern high-style 47. settings have a life of their own. Uncontained by the narrative or its moral, 48. they work visually against generic conventions that typically encourage the 49. censure of modernity’s excesses. Their effect on audiences and even char- 50. acters within the film is connotative: rather than make us think, they often 51. make us feel. 52. 306 FFC 1.3 _Todd_305-323.indd 306 12/28/12 1:49:34 PM Marked Woman (1937) … 1. 1. Theorizing excess, commodificATion And enTerTAinmenT 2. 2. Borrowing from Roland Barthes and Russian Formalism, Kristin Thompson 3. 3. theorizes the narrative’s inability to manage what she terms ‘cinematic excess’. 4. 4. Thompson writes, ‘Outside any such [narrative] structures lie those aspects of 5. 5. the work which are not contained by its unifying forces – the “excess”’ ([1986] 6. 6. 1999: 487). She challenges purely formalistic approaches to understand- 7. 7. ing cinema, reminding us that the film experience entails more than merely 8. 8. following the narrative’s chain of cause and effect. For the critic, Thompson 9. 9. points out, this means having to account for those qualities in cinema that 10. 10. are often overlooked because they may not seem to affect the narrative or to 11. 11. fit into a ‘tight analysis’ ([1986] 1999: 489). In Marked Woman and other clas- 12. 12. sic Warner Bros. gangster dramas, the playful scenes of modern glamour and 13. 13. style in otherwise austere, ‘proletarian’ productions about urban underworlds 14. 14. exemplify ‘cinematic excess’. 15. 15. The dichotomy between the moral (narrative) and spectacle (excess) in 16. 16. Marked Woman is also evident extra-cinematically, in Hollywood studio public- 17. 17. ity and industry censorship practices. The studio’s marketing of Marked Woman, 18. 18. for instance, emphasized modern fashions, cosmetics and consumption, thus 19. 19. decontextualizing the star from the film’s narrative and therefore its social 20. 20. critique. Similarly, in the case of several fallen-woman films from the same 21. 21. period, publicity stills advertise glamour and thereby isolate the star from the 22. 22. story. Here the image works against the interests of censorship, which sought 23. 23. to tame the excesses of modernity (Jacobs 1991: 63–64). Lea Jacobs writes, 24. 24. 25. 25. Censorship […] confronted powerful countervailing forces. The morally 26. 26. didactic tone approved by industry censors, and more generally, the 27. 27. overall tone of nineteenth-century genre conventions, were consist- 28. 28. ently at odds with what I have described as a preoccupation with class 29. 29. rise, defined in terms of opportunities for consumption and celebrated 30. 30. through display. 31. 31. (1991: 63) 32. 32. 33. 33. 34. 34. Jacobs might as well be writing about the gangster genre, in which the pockets 35. 35. of modern glamour are meaningful at the level of marketing and consumer 36. 36. practices, meant to compete for the viewers’ attentions and desires. As C. S. 37. 37. Tashiro attests, ‘such magnifications are frequently based on visual fascina- 38. 38. tion apart from narrative. As the filmmakers pause to linger over an object, to 39. 39. revel in its surfaces, they put a temporary roadblock in the narrative’s forward 40. 40. journey’ (1998: 21, original emphasis). Most gangsters may be punished in the 41. 41. end, but meantime their decadent lifestyles, on visual display throughout the 42. 42. film, leave powerful impressions. 43. 43. Marked Woman may sparingly employ ‘excessive’, non-representational 44. 44. cinematic techniques, but when it does these fashionable spectacles portray 45. 45. gangster-run debauchery and lively performance, opulence and leisure and 46.