For this week’s ‘Doing Shots’ assignment, I wanted to point out this parallel between scenes: At 59:00 in the movie, Holly shows up drunk at Anna’s apartment and Anna gets out of bed, puts on her robe, and opens the door. Then at 1:10:00 in the movie, the international police show up to arrest Anna from her apartment and Anna again gets out of bed, puts on her robe, and opens the door. I was curious about why the director chose to reiterate Anna’s sequence of actions and what Reed was saying about Anna’s nature through this parallel.
Firstly, I thought of this robe as part of Anna’s ‘armor’ against the international police and Holly. This extends to represent her guarded nature and reservations against Holly’s advances. Secondly, I thought this robe represents Anna’s, as all women in film noir, need to perform to utilize the male characters around her. However, unlike previous femme fatale characters, Anna is removed from these assumptions of manipulation because she is wholly loyal to Harry Lime. In this film, it is impossible for Anna to become the ‘fall guy’ or pinned as the main villain such as in The Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity. Instead, Anna seems to be guilty of being too loyal to Lime and by extension is guilty of his crimes. She is put in contrast against Holly Martins, the all-American western hero archetype when she stays loyal to Lime even after his (second) funeral. In the watcher’s eye, she might become a villain for rejecting Holly’s romantic pursuits. Once again, it is nearly impossible for a female lead in film noir to be anything but a villain, reflecting our own societal expectations of women.
I’d also like to compare Holly and Harry in their relationships with Anna. Harry Lime manipulates Anna by forging her papers for her, using her loyalty and love to protect himself. Lime’s manipulation reinforces his villainy but does not acquit Anna. On the other hand, Holly uses Anna to try to boost his inflated, hero-archetype-obsessed ego. In short, Holly tries to deport Anna in what he thinks is protecting the “damsel in distress”. How then, if Anna is emotionally manipulated by Lime and lawfully manipulated by Martins, does she become a villain? The answer is that she rejects Holly Martins, going against the clean-cut assumptions of an American audience that Holly deserves Anna’s loyalty after killing Lime. But what does it mean for a man to deserve a woman’s loyalty? This notion only reinforces the subtle objectification of women in romantic relationships as objects of sexual desire and conquest.
I realize that I speak less about cinematography/lighting etc. in this week’s Shot, but I feel that this topic is especially important when we notice increasing misogynist views in young men. I refer to what people claim is a current ‘male loneliness epidemic,’ where women are no longer inclined to date men who objectify and sexualize them. In this logic, women are naturally to blame for leaving a generation of men lonely, rather than blaming men with obscene and off-putting views regarding women. While today’s media such as TikTok and Youtube become platforms for outspoken sexists, it is interesting (but not surprising) to see parallels in the film noir genre.