The setting then shifts to Washington, D.C., where a younger Louise is in love with an unmarried construction engineer, David (Van Heflin). David, however, finds Louise overbearing and does not return her love, which only makes her want David even more, to the point of obsession. An obsession or a quest (e.g., Sam Spade's quest for the Maltese falcon; the young reporter's quest to find "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane, is also a frequent film noir element, although in general, within film noir films, the main character's quest is more mysterious than Louise's overt, obsessive quest for David's love.
Film noir often also contains plot coincidences, or odd confluences of events (e.g., Kane just happens to meet Susan Alexander on a dreary night when his marriage has just come apart). Such a coincidence within Possessed takes place when David happens to turn up at the home of Louise's employer, a wealthy oil man, Dean Graham (played by Raymond Massey). Inside the Graham household, Dean's wife, Pauline, is an invalid, as well as being mentally disturbed. She erroneously believes that her caretaker, Louise, is having an affair with Dean (which is not true then, although Dean and Louise later marry). So convinced is Pauline, however, Dean is cheating on her with Louise, that she commits suicide, drowning herself in a lake.
Water, e.g., lakes, swimming pools, puddles, reservoirs, steamy showers, etc., especially when tied to mysterious or ominous circumstances or events, is another common element often used within film noir. Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), a later film...
In this area, meanings with their endless referrals evolve. These include meanings form discourses, as well as cultural systems of knowledge which structure beliefs, feelings, and values, i.e., ideologies. Language, in turn, produces these temporal "products." During the next section of this thesis, the researcher relates a number of products (terminology) the film/TV industry produced, in answer to the question: What components contribute to the linguistic aspect of a sublanguage
Silent Film And How Critical Reception Shifts Over Time The objective of this study is to examine the film Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari or 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and to examine silent film and how critical reception shifts over time. The film Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari or 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" echoed the German psychological warfare that had been waged against the people by Hitler and throughout the
From this came our insistence on the drama of the doorstep" (cited by Hardy 14-15). Grierson also notes that the early documentary filmmakers were concerned about the way the world was going and wanted to use all the tools at hand to push the public towards greater civic participation. With the success of Drifters, Grierson was able to further his ideas, but rather than directing other films, he devoted his time
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The 1990s also saw innovative interpretation of law enforcement's role in the perpetuation of organized crime. One of the most notable examples is L.A. Confidential (1997), in which corruption has reached so deep into the Los Angeles police department that two seemingly unrelated criminal investigations both lead to the police chief. The genre also proved its adaptability and continued appeal with Heat (1995) and Carlito's Way (1993); both films starred
Cold War and Film Generally speaking, the Cold War has been depicted as an era of spy games and paranoia in popular films from the 1960s to the present day, but the reality of the era was much more complex. The Cold War was a period of military and political tension from 1947 to 1991, or from the end of WW2 to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which
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