Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer 1945

Budget: $20,000 - $100,00

Piano player Al is bitter about having to work in a New York nightclub. After his girlfriend Sue leaves to seek fame in Hollywood, he decides to join her. With little money, he has to hitchhike his way across the country.

In Arizona, bookie Charles Haskell Jr. gives him a ride in his convertible. Haskell dies in his sleep while Al is driving after popping a number of unidentified pills. Unable to rouse Haskell, Al opens the passenger-side door. Haskell falls out and strikes his head on the ground. Al then realizes the bookie is dead. Fearful that the police will believe he killed Haskell, Al dumps the body off the side of the road, takes Haskell's money, clothes and identification, then drives away. After spending the night in a motel, Al picks up another hitchhiker, Vera, at a gas station. By sheer bad luck, it turns out that the femme fatale had also been picked up by Haskell earlier. She scratched him deeply in the arm and got out after he tried to become too friendly. When Al identifies himself as Haskell, she blackmails him by threatening to turn him in.

Vera learns from a newspaper that Haskell's wealthy father is near death and looking for his son. Vera demands that Al impersonate Haskell, but Al refuses. Back in the apartment, Vera gets drunk, and they begin arguing. She threatens to call the police, running into the bedroom with the telephone and locking the door. She falls into a stupor on the bed, with the telephone cord tangled around her neck. Al tries to break the cord. Then, when he breaks down the door, he sees that he has accidentally strangled her. He goes hitchhiking again, but is picked up by the police.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Cinematography:

• Skewed/canted angles

• Deep focus

• Disorientating visual schemes

Lighting:

• Low-Key / High contrast – expressionistic.

• Lighting creates deep ominous shadows and sharp highlights

TECHNICAL CONVENTIONS OF NOIR:a)Expressionist Camerawork and Lighting

• Visually a dark, uneasy, unsettled cinematic world – creates a sense of claustrophobia, entrapment and menace. Characters are trapped in a world of doom.

• Visually a metaphor for the underlying themes of paranoia and anxiety that pervade film noir.

Contribution to meaning:

• Reflects the influence of German émigré directors (such as Ulmer, Wilder) who had been practitioners / students of Expressionist filmmaking in Germany before their escape to America.

• Noir films are visual metaphors used to communicate the ‘darkness’ in American society during the time of World War Two and the devestation caused by the stockmarket crash in 1929, and the ensuing economic depression.

Relationship to Society: Influences

The German Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during World War I. In 1916, the government had banned more foreign films in the nation. The demand from theatres to generate films led film production to rise from 25 films (1914) to 130 films (1918). German Expressionists directors film felt disillusioned with reality and the world around them. As a result they made films that looked warped and distorted and were extremely surreal. German expressionist directors then took their disillusionment one step further by having heavy and stark shadows, depressed/dark stories, and corruptible and untrustworthy characters. As many Germans had felt betrayed by their government when World War I had concluded many German Expressionist directors projected authority figures as villains to convey a sense of how no one could be trusted in the world they were living in.

The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity and betrayal (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films).

German Expressionism was an answer to the grim reality of daily life. But it was not so much a direct relay of life to art. It was a way to represent and bring across the reality few could imagine. Sex, murders, depression, veterans ghoulishly mangled in the war, the loss of innocence and complete rejection of the past were the things the German people dealt with during the post-war years of 1919 – 1929..

GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM: 1920’s

The “German style.” Emphasis on design or mise-en-scène, uncanny atmosphere, and composition (less on story and editing, unlike Hollywood).

“The film image must become graphic art” (Hermann Warm).

Expressionism = Stylization that abstracts and transforms reality.

- photography (unexpected camera angles, little camera movement)- lighting (stark contrasts of light and shadow for various effects)- totally artificial, stylized sets (“paintings come to life”), stripped of all realistic details and psychology—sets that become symbolic diagrams of emotional states- overtly theatrical (anti-naturalist) acting style (actors move in jerky, slow, sinuous patterns) and heavy make-up- integration of all elements of mise-en-scène to create an overall composition

Such Expressionist techniques aim to:- evoke mystery, alienation, disharmony, hallucination, dreams, extreme emotional states, destabilization

EXPRESSIONIST STYLE:

The extreme realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery and light to enhance the mood of a film. This dark, moody school of film making was brought to the United States when the Nazis gained power and a number of German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood. These German directors found U.S. movie studios willing to embrace them, and several German directors and cameramen flourished there, producing a repertoire of Hollywood films that had a profound effect on film as a whole.

Two genres that were especially influenced by Expressionism are horror film and film noir. German filmmakers such as Karl Freund (the cinematographer for Dracula in 1931) set the style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with their dark and artistically designed sets, providing a model for later generations of horror films. Directors such as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, introduced the Expressionist style to crime dramas of the 1940s, expanding Expressionism's influence on modern film making.

INFLUENCE ON FILM NOIR:

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE STOCK MARKET CRASH 1929

How is this event reflected in Al’s voiceover narration in ‘Detour’?

“Even after hawking everything I only had enough money to eat. Money. You know what that is. It’s the stuff you never have enough of. Little green things with George Washington’s picture that men slave for, commit crimes for, die for. It’s the stuff that has caused more trouble in the world than anything else we ever invented, simply because there’s too little of it. At least I had too little of it. So it was me for the thumb”

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INFLUENCE

Expressionistic lighting is used on Al’s face as he begins his interior monologue. The dark surrounding and spotlight on his eyes acts as a focal point for audiences as he reveals the source of his despair.

It is a visual metaphor for his darkened, melancholy state of mind and reflects his woeful fate.

Triangular shot composition is used in this scene. The cluttered mis-en-scene of the diner is also a reflection of the entrapment Al feels

DINER SCENE:

Vera’s murder scene:

• Like the Diner scene, the expressionistic cinematography and lighting is used to visual communicate Al’s confused and tortured state of mind. His accidental murder of Vera has destroyed all hope of a life with Sue. He is also now guilty of murder rather than simply identity theft and is distraught at this thought of the crime he has committed.

• The low-key lighting also creates canted shadows on the walls of the apartment as Vera attempts to run into her bedroom. Further reflecting the impending danger and establishing a sense of unease in the viewer. These are also evident on the walls of the bedroom as we see Vera’s dead body.

• The shifts in focus as Al looks from Vera to her possessions (perfume, shoes) and eventually the telephone cord reflect the emotional turmoil he is experiencing.

• Deep shadows are shown on the face of Al as he flees the apartment reflecting his internal moral struggle.

Vera’s Murder Scene

At the least, the Noir protagonist is morally ambiguous / flawed : willing to commit crime (adultery & murder) for their own gain

They were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.

Often ‘haunted by the past’ – either explicitly stated or implied.

Film Noir Stock Characters:The flawed hero / anti-hero = Al

• In a world confronted by the horrors of World War II, the atrocities of the Holocaust and the vanguard of psychology/psychiatry the flawed male protagonist in Noir is a character study of the human mind and human spirit – the essential evil that potentially exists in all of us.

• Often times the psychologically damaged Noir protagonist is equated to the psychologically damaged veterans returning from the war – they had witnessed first-hand unimaginable atrocities.

• Rather than being the ‘all-American guy’ who upholds traditional societal values, the Noir protagonist metaphorically represents the threat to good wholesome society that the ‘man alone’ produces.

Relationship to Society: Influences:

At the heart of Film Noir is the flawed male who is the embodiment of fatalism and doom which define the genre.

Some protagonists are ‘everyday Joes’ who seem to be pulled into a web of destruction, others can’t help but contribute to their own demise.

Contribution to meaning:

Al is the lovelorn loner who makes one bad decision after another: he digs himself a hole too big to extract himself from before he even realises.

Fate has picked him to be the ‘fall guy’ and he reluctantly accepts his fate once he has lost everything: his lover (Sue), his identity/ies (Al Roberts), and his innocence (murdering Vera)

Evidence from Detour:

The independent, strong-willed, sexually empowered, duplicitous woman who compels the protagonist to commit a crime with/for her.

Femme Fatale

The quintessentially evil Noir woman – she occupies the hub of the narrative and represents the worst type of female imaginable (at that time)

The femme fatale drives the narrative, but in the end she is always punished (usually by death) for her transgressions of societal ‘laws’.

Contribution to meaning:

During the war/Post-war years, the femme fatale represented the ultimate threat to ‘civil’ society – the independent woman who has no interest in family, homemaking or, wifely duties. Thus, the femme fatale is always punished.

Noir is essentially a misogynistic genre: the demise of the femme fatale becomes a strong message to women to avoid modelling themselves on the femme fatale.

Relationship to Society: Influences:

• Write down how the character of Vera fulfils this role.

• Support your ideas with specific evidence from the film

• Remember the film is also on Youtube for your viewing pleasure!

Evidence from Detour: