Notes on "Out of the Past" (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

This was one of my response paper for the film noir class. I made some editing to the original paper and wanted to share it because it contains interesting thoughts about the urban-rural divide in the sense of classical film noir.

In this paper, I am going to write about the article named “Out of the Past: Passive Masculinities and Active Femininities” from the book “Dames in the Driver’s Seat”. In her article, Jans B. Wager analyzes the classical film noir, Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) in order to understand the masculine and feminine roles of the characters. According to Wager, feminine characters are representations of their locations. Ann who is the femme attrappe of the film, is a girl from Bridgeport and just like the rural life of the place, she is an innocent, modest female. However, the main femme fatale, Kathie is a representation of the city. The evilness of the urban city seems like transferring all the features to Kathie’s character. As a character, Kathie is more complicated and unexpected, even scary; yet more alluring as a female than the femme attrappe. Wager writes about this division as a “journey between two controversy worlds”. Also, Jeff’s tides as a character between two women are supporting this division between two controversy worlds. I think in the film, Jeff never gives us a hint about which woman he really loves till his death; but the audience secretly understand that he is still in love with Kathie; because he welcomes his death to escape from that feeling. I guess, the relationship between Jeff and Kathie is close to the relationship between modern human and the urban space. The structure of a love-hate relationship of an urban living occurs symbolically in the relationship of the film’s femme fatale and homme fatale. It is a relationship that will end in death, in any cases. But still, the relationship tempts itself whenever the individual goes to the country side. From this point, it is not surprising that generally, working class of the cities are dreaming to go back to their hometowns and the white collar petit bourgeois is also dreaming to move to the country side. There are similarities between the life consuming experiences of the urban living and the portrait of urban space in the film. The urban city in the film portrayed as a dark, uncanny place with its labyrinth like buildings, untrustworthy streets and dangerous mood. Even, all the cities represented as lookalikes in the story. In a way, it doesn’t matter which city are we in. The urban spaces are dark in all examples. The city portrayed as uncanny because despite its darkness, it is also alluring. The characteristics of a femme fatale is also similar to the uncanny feeling of the city. I can say that the dual controversy of the city and the femme fatale, contains an uncanny feeling. However, country side (Bridgeport) contains a natural, a bit romantic landscape feeling, which is illusionary. The morality that the film attached to the countryside, with all the naivety, is a mythic feeling comes from a yearning to the past. The locations in Mexico, however is different from both the countryside and the cities of US. I think, the portraying of Acapulco functions as an amusement park for white Americans for the film. We never really understand if there is a living city or a studio setting. The film superficially, placed Mexico into its narrative and didn’t think the further of it. However, the countryside and the cities of the U.S. are functioning as characters themselves. On the other hand, Acapulco is characterless, seems like it is just a place for the plot. I think, this originates from Hollywood’s point of view to the foreign places and it contains a certain colonial consideration originates from the wannabe super power of the oncoming ideas of the cold war U.S. It is surprising that the director is an immigrant but I guess, the symbolic power of the Hollywood studio system exceeds the role of the director. In a sense, the urban cities of the film, is a representation of present, it is dark and hopeless after the war economy. Countryside is a yearning for the past, it is a song for the good old days, which is delusional. The Acapulco is the wannabe dream for the future, the American dream for de-spiritualization of the other world and the fantasy of turning other worlds into a trading ground for American capital.