The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir directed by John Huston in his directorial debut. Huston's screenplay was based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett.  Starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his femme fatale client. The story follows a San Francisco private detective and his dealings with three eccentric criminals, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette.

Film Noir is a type of film which often contains of private detectives, criminals, and femme fatale characters. It features a world of criminals, of darkness and violence with characters’ central motives are usually greed, lust and ambition, drench in fear which shows that there is no pure good people in the world. This type of film approach was from a period of political instability which was 1941 – 1958, the time of WWII and the Cold War in United States. This was a time of women joined the workforce during the war while men fought in the war. Women expanded their knowledge beyond domestic spheres while the men returned from war suspicious and paranoid of the women’s roles in the work force.

The Mise-en-shot of Film Noir features oblique vertical and horizontal lines, dark visual with lots of shadows and high-contrast lighting (low key) which was influenced and inspired by the German Expressionism. The Mise-en-scene of the style of the film usually have locations such as alleyways, cramped corridors and often show the scene was at night. Setting is city-bound, comprising of rain washed roads and dimly-lit interiors.

The character of Film Noir features the man are usually well-dressed in suits and ties who are Detectives, polices, criminal, government agents etc. The woman who is central to the intrigue, making her the object of the male’s investigation. Ultimately, it is her sexuality that is under investigation which threatens the male quest to resolve mystery. By being a strong, active, sexually expressive female, film noir tends to keep the woman contained. Through the film, there’s always a struggle of voices controlling the narrative digenesis, where ultimately, the control of the storytelling ends up controlling the image of the woman. But the closure of the film usually ends at a price for any of the characters and guilt is not so easily ascribed to just one character.

Sam Spade a private detective gets more than he bargained for when he takes a case brought to him by a beautiful but secretive woman Miss Wonderly. As soon as Miss Wonderly shows up, trouble follows as Sam's partner(Miles Archer) is murdered and Sam is accosted by a man (Peter Lorre) demanding he locate a valuable statuette. Sam, entangled in a dangerous web of crime and intrigue, soon realizes he must find the one thing they all seem to want the bejeweled Maltese falcon.

The Maltese Falcon is a Noir Film as it featuring Sam Spade, a private detective which is an intelligent and cunning man. Example, the scene where Cairo threatening Sam by pointing gun toward him but Sam fight back to Cairo, Cairo fainted by Sam’s punch. This has showed us that Sam was tough enough to fight back even though he is being threatened by gun. After that when Cairo was fainted, Spade took the money from Cairos’ wallet, this has represent the element of film noir which is nobody is pure good, even though outside he looks like a good guy but there is still contains of evil within everyone even the good guy.

In this film we can also easily identify the elements of Femme fatale in it. In this case which was Miss Wonderly.  Example, Miss Wonderly had betrayed Sam by not telling the truth. In order to accomplish her goal, she always acted like a weak women and seeking for help saying that she was dizzy to gain trust from others by the seductive body and actions. Besides, Miss Wonderly we also can see that Sam’s secretary Effie Perine is a very obedient and hard work lady who always follow Sam’s order even though it is wrong. Lastly, the elements can be identified throughout the film is the visuals. The film shows mostly high contrast and low key light, showing that the characters that may look good on the outside has a very evil side as well. The film also uses the effect of lines that causes distortion to the scene to make it seems like everything is distorted and out of place. This makes the audience feel like there is always something not right as if it is a warning that something bad is going to happen. Besides that, low angle shots are used to show the characters. Example the scene, where Sam Spade finds the criminal known as Humphrey Bogart. The low angle shot gives the impression that Humphrey is a very rich and powerful or very evil powerful man.

In conclusion, Film Noir is all about blurred morals, this is why they are categorized under Dark Films. There are not one good character in the film, even the detective is bad. The detective, Sam Spade is the main character with flaws, he is the protagonist and an anti-hero of the film.