Some of our favorite film noir feature a flurry of witticisms, snark, underworld language, and sarcasms. Sometimes, the dialogue is more fun than the plot. There are also many terms that audiences at that time may have understood, but that we may not recognize today
An example of this is a line from Detour, where Haskell, the driver who picks up Al while hitchhiking, tells Al about the 'tomato' he picked up who gave him the visible scars on his hand. When speaking about the incident, Haskell tells Al that he told her to 'take on the Arthur Duffy.'
We can pick up from the context clues that it is some sort of reference that implies that he told her to 'get lost.' But when we looked up who 'Arthur Duffy' was and discovered he was an Olympic track and field athlete from the early 1900s, it made it clear and a bit more colorful.
This brings me to another point. Turning on closed captions helps quite a bit in being able to pick up all of the nuances of the dialogue in film noir. You will be surprised at how much you really miss when you get to see all of the words the characters are saying. It provides a fuller context of the film and adds even more color to these black and white gems.
Many classic films are very dialogue driven. We often speak about the visual style of film noir, but the words expressed by the characters add the details that complete the picture. The Big Sleep is often cited as a film with the most confusing plot, but if you dig deeper into the dialogue, Chandler's story rises to the surface and helps you untangle the complicated knots in this iconic film.
0 comments