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Eighties' Film Noir: an Analysis of the Use of The" Double" In" Miami Vice's

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Eighties' Film Noir: an Analysis of the Use of The DOCUMENT RESUME ED 286 226 CS 505 692 AUTHOR Matviko, John W. TITLE Eighties' Film Noir: An Analysis of the Use of the "Double" in "Miami Vice's" Second and Third Seasons. PUB DATE 20 May 87 NOTE 29p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Communication Association (78th, Syracuse, NY, May 18-21, 1987). Appended figures will not reproduce clearly. PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143) -- Speeches /Conference Papers (150) Viewpoints (120) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Comparative Analysis; Content Analysis; *Film Criticism; Film Study; *Mass Media; *Popular Culture; Programing (Broadcast); Television Research; Visual Literacy IDENTIFIERS Film Genres; Film History; Filmic Styles; *Film Noir; *Television Criticism ABSTRACT A comparison of ;.he current television series "Miami Vice" with the "film noir" genre of American movies from the forties and fifties reveals many similar elements, such as visual style, mood, theme, and sensibility. "Miami Vice" is set in a large city whose art deco architecture provides an ironic contrast to noir's pessimistic themes. Film noir's techniques emphasize loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities and insecurity, and then submerge these self-doubts in mannerism and style. Two selected episodes of "Miami Vice" deal specifically with the criminal "double," a motif often used in later "film noir." One critic has suggested that the core dilemma of the TV show is whether or not the police officers will surrender themselves to the world of vice. In one episode in which the character of Crockett is tracking a cat burglar, the story makes extensive use of doubles linking the detective with both a burglar and a psychotic policeman who is also pursuing the burglar. The climax brings the noir, double, and Jungian psychology themes together. A camera shot frames Crockett with his double, and in the next scene a stark close-up of the criminal's face becomes Crockett's face as the criminal looks away. When the burglar hurls something forward, breaking a mirror, Crockett awakens from what seems to be a dream. The popular television series, "Miami Vice," appears to be continuing the "film noir" tradition into the eighties. References and 18 figures (frames from the television series illustrating the points discussed) are attached. (NKA) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************t**************** U S DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTErl (ERIC) This document haS been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it 0 Minor char ges have bean made to mprove CNJ reproduction quality (\J Points of new or opinions stated in this docu ment do not necessarily represent Oicial Ihrp OERI position or policy Co Eighties' Film Noir:An Analysis of the Use of the "Double" in Miami Vice's Second and Third Seasons John W. Matviko West Liberty State College Eastern Communication Association Convention Syracuse, New York May 20, 1987 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL LIAS BEEN GRANTED BY John W. Matviko TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER ;EPIC) 2 2 Abstract Critics and scholars have approached Miami Vice as a contemporary example of film noir. The show's themes, characters, style, and texture suggest a television equivalent to the dark American crime films of the forties and fifties. Through analysis of the visual and verbal text, this paper investigates the use of the"A0,40" - a character's reverse image, often mirroring his evil side in Miami Vice's second and third season. Eighties/ Film Noir: An Analysis of the Use of the "Double" in Miami Vice's Second and ThirdSeasons What is film noir ? Critics have found the term elusive. Most agree that it has a certain kind of narrativestructure. What complicates the definition is that it must also includemore subjective elements such as visual style, mood, theme, and sensibliity. Two films may be similarly plotted, only one may be noir. For this reason, more recent writers such as Schrader (1977), Place (1978), Silver and Ward (1979),and Tuska (1984) do not consider film noir asa genre. Place and Tuska argue that it is a movement. "A movement among individual filmmakers,"according to Tuska, "which involved similar techniquesto make anti-generic statements." (p.152) Stylistically, film noir makesuse of a number of patterns; night scenes, oblique lines, bizarre camera angles, compositionaltension, and extensive use of shadows. (Schrader,p. 283) Thematically, noir suggests the unheroic nature of human beings, thepervasiveness of evil and corruption, paranoia and claustrophobia. The noir hero is trapped in all of this, alienated yet still trying to get meaning froma senseless world. (Place, p.41) The French coined the term "film noir" andwere the first to write about it. Observing American films for the first time after WorldWar II, French critics found them to be darker, bleaker,and more cynical than the pre-war films. Particularly dark were the crime melodramas. (Schrader,p. 278) 4 Instead of the larger-than-life gangster fightingto survive in a capitalist jungle, we had the ordinary detective/cop/insuranceagent attempting to make some sense out ofa dark and corrupt world. The thirties' crime films with theiremphasis on hard work and determination reaffirmed the s,,stem; the noir firms of the fortiesand fifties would raise questions not only about thesystem but also about the larger society. Noir's film rootsare usually traced back to the German and Eastern European directors and cinematographers, trainee.at Germany's UFA Studio during the twenties and thirties, who eventuallyfled to America and brought with them the controlled lighting andother artificial studio techniques characteristic of German Expressionism.(Cook, 1981, p. 405) Noir's literary rootscame from the hard-boiled detective writers of the twenties, thirties, and forties. For Daly, Hammett, Chandler, Cain, McCoy, and O'Hara, crime was "a pervasive socialforce which permeated the urban environment and virtually all of its inhabitants."(Schatz, 1981, p. 125) Double Indemnity (1944) is often citedas the first fully realized noir film. (Some critics argue for earlier films: Tuska cites Stranger on the Train (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), andI Wake a Screaming (1942). Schatz would include Murder Sweet (1944). Almost all note the importance of The Maltese Falcon (1941)in noir's development.) The success of Double Indemnity and MurderMy Sweet brought imitators and by the late forties, cynicism anda sense of doom could be found in almost all films regardless of theirgenre. (Cook, p. 406) Additionally, American film developed a psychological edge. Freudian theory and jargon had become a part of the culture the films reflected this acceptance: What is remarkable about the 1940s movies is how much they shifted the focus of screen drama from an outer to an inner world. In Depression movies, horrible threats came from alien sources, from vampires and monsters and giant jungle beasts; by the 1940s, horror lay close to home, in the veiled malevolence of trusted intimates, in one's own innermost thoughts. (Sklar, 1975, p. 255) The early fifties would take this one step further with the psychotic and psychopath becoming the central figure. "The noir hero," according to Schrader, "seemingly under the weight of ten years of despair started to go bananas." (p. 286) The mid-fifties produced very few film noirs. Television (Schrader, p. 287), technical innovations such as color, wide screen, and stereophonic sound (Clarens, 1980, p. 230), and the witchhunts (Cook, p. 407) all contributed to noir's decline. Television would make the detective/cop show a staple of prime time but noir elements would seldom be a part of these melodramas. Television's lighting needs along with the medium's difficulty with moral ambiguity, combined with the sponsor's control of content, would make film noir's bleak vision an unlikely candidate for commercial television. While noir elements could be found in occasional films, the sixties produced very few film noirs. (Silver and Ward, for example, list eleven films for the 1960's. Their list for just one year, 1951, contains 31 films.. (p. 235-336)) The early seventies saw a renewed critical and film interest in noir: Dirty Harry (1971), The French Connection (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973), and Chinatown (1974) were particularly noteworthy. The renewed 6 6 interest in film noir seemed to culminate with Taxi Driver (1976). Paul Schrader, who earlier in the decade had helpedto rekindle the critical interest in noir, wrote the screenplay.The character of Trails Bickel further illustrates Schrader's earlier point aboutthe final phase of noir when the hero "goes bananas."Kolker (1980) notes the connection: He is the climactic noir figure, much more isolated andvery much madder than his forebears. No cause is given for him, no understanding allowed; he stands formed by his own loneliness and trapped byhis own isolation, his actions and reactions explicable only through those actions and reactions. (p. 227) The eighties would see occasional interest in noir with remakes (The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1981), copies (Body Heat, 1981), courtroom dramas (The Verdict, 1982), traditional detectives (Tightrope, 1984), and even spoofs (Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, 1982), but it would be television, ironically, that would push noir in new directions. The police or private detective melodrama has long been a prime-time television fixture. Dragnet and the early detective shows established a format that would -hange very little over the years. Crime was solvable usually within one episode. By the show's end, the criminal was safely behind bars and order had been restored. Joe Friday and his detective cowiLerparts were dedicated, honest, and hard-working. They played by rules they seldom doubted and usually got their man alive. The nightly news, with its stories of riots, disrespect for the law, and rising crime rates might provide some dissonance, but by eleven PM order would once more be re-established.
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