[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
RARA-AVIS: _The Maltese Falcon_
Undoubtedly, Huston achieved a tour de force with his word-for-word,
line-by-line, (pace Flitcraft), version of the novel. Here I would pose
a paradox. What is an accepted hardboiled novel becomes in its cinematic
transmogrification a noir film. It is as if the transformation of a
narrative description of a character into a visual portayal of an
performer's interpretation of that description subtly changes its
emphasis from the physical to the psychological. Bridget is, in the
novel, one tough broad, but as played by Mary Astor becomes a much more
vulnerable and ambiguous persona. Perhaps it is that noir is what
hardboiled is on the screen and hardboiled is what noir is on the page;
the medium shapes and colours the message transmitted. Certainly, Bogart
, in _The Maltese Falcon_, _The Big Sleep_, and _Casablanca_, brings a
tortured and more complex texture to the personality of the hardboiled
hero as found in Hammett's two classic novels. How much, of course, of
those characterizations are Bogart playing Bogart or talent bringing out
nuances of personality I leave for others to remark upon.
David Skene-Melvin
-
# RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis"
# to majordomo@icomm.ca
Follow-Ups:
[Archives] | [RARA-AVIS]