The Maltese Falcon (Film Noir)

Film Noir is a film movement born in the 1940s and it is similar to American thriller film. At first, people do not call as 'film noir' but crime film. Because of the lifting ban on France movie, the new-looking films start coming in. People treat these new phenomena as a film movement but not as a genre because it can be referred as thriller or gangster movie but also can look as Western movie and melodrama at the same time.

Film Noir starts to notice the visual and the character's design is very different from the past. Noir means black or dark so all of the movies are in black and white. Film Noir has the cinematography similar with German Expressionism (1920s) such as low key lighting, high contrasts, deep shadow and diagonal camera angles. There are certain characteristics can be found in Film Noir, for example, chiaroscuro which means light-dark as a principle of contrasting lighting. The special location and setting of the Film Noir have made it very special as well as low-key lighting, high-contrast visual and the psychology issue happen in the protagonist. The setting in Film Noir often is city-bound with rain-washed street and interiors and always shots by the diagonal camera angles which referred to German Expressionism. The setting of the Film Noir always wants to give the audiences have a sense of danger and mystery. The reason is to create unbalance and not normal atmosphere as the there has a crime happened.

Shadow become a feature which makes Film Noir become famous.

Shadow reflects blurred moral values to create good and bad figure at the same time.

The film's characters are different in the past character's design. In previous, the characters in films are purely good or purely bad. But in Film Noir, the protagonist is not a hero but not completed badly. Just like the reality world, there are not a good guy in this world.

The femme fatale appears in Film Noir as it is about the power relation and sexual identity. The female status in society become more important because the women start to join the work field and start to make money during the war period as the men need to join the army force to defence their country. When the men return from the war, they started being suspicious and questioning about their masculine identity.

Film Noir portraits femme fatale as the central role with active, intelligent powerful to achieve their goal with courage and wisdom. These women able to do something which men usually do such as holding a gun or cigarette. What a man can do, a woman also has the capable to do it. In Film Noir, the murder case is not so important but she will become the male's investigation target. However, in the end of the film, women usually get her punish as the film is struggling of the voices controlling the narrative diegesis.

Because of the war, the status of male and female has a huge evolution. Film Noir can be viewed as the male start to concern about the women power and their economy growing in 1940. The 1950s Film Noir start to concern about the value of family life to make the men gain back their status as well as the national identity. 

Maltese Falcon is about two private detectives, Sam Spade and Miles Archer take over a case reported by Miss Wonderly who claims she wants to find his sister who involves with a man called Floyd Thursby. At the night, Spade receives a call informed that Archer has been killed. In the next morning, Spade goes to find Ms. Wonderly, now calling as Brigid O'Shaughnessy and tells Spade Thursby killed Archer but do not know who killed Thursby. During Spade investigating the murder case, he meets Cairo and talking about 'a black figure of bird'. A big boss, Gutman offers Spade $10,000 for the falcon. In the end, Spade calls the police force to arrest Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer. Although Spade has fallen in love with O'Shaughnessy but he still let the police takes her away since Spade knew that she is the one who killed Archer.

Maltese Falcon is a classic Film Noir as it is black and white, and the story plot begins with the investigation and murder cases. Most of the scenes are in high-contrast lighting and occur a lot of shadows.

The camera angle that shoots on characters' faces usually through the low angle to create their faces become bigger and make the audiences have a sense of threat.

My favourite part in the film is on the characters especially Spade. He is smart to solve any cases but in the same time, he loves money and woman. He has the capability to become the hero but he does not want to be the hero. Spade is the main character with flaws as in the reality world do not have a good people. O'Shaughnessy is a smart girl who knows how to use her beauty and sexuality to complete her goal, makes Spade falls in love with her and make him confuse in the investigation. But in the end, Film Noir's setting has punished her. In the last scene, the steel bars of the lift portrait she is going to jail.

Filmmakers love Film Noir because of the cool visual and the psychology of the character is more realistic. Although Maltese Falcon is a classic Film Noir, but I not in love with the film because the dialog is very hard for me to understand and the speed of their talking is fast. Since it is black and white film, I confused with the time frame in the film because I can't identify the daylight or night time.