Maltese Falcon

Maltese falcon is a traditional film noir from 1941, the film noir that was directed by John Huston, the film was based off of the novel with the name, which was written by Dashiell Hammett. The story involves a femme fatale that is looking for her ‘sister’ whom has supposedly gone missing in San Francisco, it consists of looking for a man called Thursby, in the process we discover that the detective’s assistant has been shot and he doesn’t seem effected which leads to other detectives becoming suspicious of his behaviour.

The beginning of the film consists of the femme fatale entering the detective’s office and then we start to hear her story. The audience is exposed to a medium close up of the femme fatale’s face while she discusses her situation with the detective, this shot tells us a lot about the type of person the detective is dealing with. Her facial expression is consistent throughout the shot with it presenting distress and sadness as she has her head slightly lowered and a very negative expression. The femme fatal also makes the fact that she is unable to make direct eye contact with these detectives particularly obvious to the audience as she s constantly looking to her right away from the detectives completely, this gives the audience a suggestion that she is lying as it is typical of a person to look away from the person they’re lying to. The idea of her lying is backed up with her high speed speech as she rushes to get words out to the detectives, the audience could see this as she wants to get the words out quickly due to nervousness of the lying and being afraid of being caught or they could view it as she is speaking fast due to her sadness and doesn’t want to cry in the detectives’ presence. The effect this has on the audience is that they want to, at this point, find out what happens to her sister or to see if she is lying this is part of the enigma that is created to attracted the audience, they want to find out what happens within this spider and fly narrative.

The film used mise en scene effectively to create the effect of the film noir, one aspect of mise en scene that they use effectively is the use of props. This is presented through the uses of the smoke from the cigarettes that the detectives are smoking. The smoke helps create the mysterious effect that is presented throughout the film, the smoke adds to the tense atmosphere as it slowly drifts across the screen, the low key lighting helps present the smoke as it is presented as a light in the dark, it helps portray the typical film noir environment. By doing this it also helps the audience establish the genre of the film. The use of the falcon at the beginning of the film, hints at the title and it also suggests the American theme that the film has, it makes the audience become established with the film. Later on into the opening sequence there is a scene where there is no movement but the curtain swaying in the wind, this creates tension as we expect something to follow up this slow movement, instead we are greeted by the detective answering the phone. The swaying curtain could suggest danger as it is the only movement in the scene at that point, we expect to see a shadow or something else to confirm the danger but we don’t the effect this has on the audience is the creation of tension and stress within the audience as they anticipate to see what happens.

Maltese Falcon also uses their representation of characters effectively as the representation of men and women, although it is stereotypical of a film noir they use it to their advantage to create suspicion within the audience. This is because the representation of the femme fatale is a young possibly 25 to 30 year old lady of suggested high class, who is presented as a victim and a distressed and vulnerable woman. The woman is referred to and hinted at as beautiful as the assistant detective continues to be suggestive with his comments, which also makes the woman come across as being objectified, which was still apparent in society at that time. The man on the other hand is made to be presented as a possible 30 to 40 year old gentleman of possible working class, however is strong and dominant due to his high level of intellect. He uses his stereotypical accent to his advantage as his strong working class American accent which empowers his statements. The effect that these representations have on the audience can be negative and positive in the sense that the positive attitude can come from the idea that society isn’t like that anymore women aren’t seen as such a victim as much and the power of men isn’t over women anymore. However the negative attitudes would be that in some cases people are still treated in that way and it represents woman being treated in a dominant way as ok to society.

Another aspect that Maltese Falcon uses to portray the idea of film noir is the sound. The sound at the beginning of the sequence is traditional of the film noir genre, written by Adolph Deutsch, it consists of strings, xylophone and trumpet. The use of these instruments means that the audience is introduced with an upbeat and positive sound, the sound also creates a positive representation of the city as the music is played over establishing shots of San Francisco. The strings within the music and the heavy trumpet playing occasionally suggests to the audience that there is also danger in the city and that the city isn’t as easy as it may seem to be. The sound is continuous throughout the film, it is consistent and continues to be effective throughout with the slight pitch changes when danger is apparent or when something bad happens to any character.

The audience that the film is aimed at primarily is 45 to 50 years of age that are typically parents and have a close connection to the war and the way it effected people during so. The secondary audience I would say the film is for is 20 to 30 years old, this is because they may have been brought up on movies such as Maltese Falcon and Chinatown and they may become interested in the genre of film. This may be caused by them studying films as they may become more interested in the making of the film and the use of codes and conventions, such as the film being in black and white and the low key lighting and the use of things such as smoke to create the environment that the director wants in these types of films.