The definition of the film noir genre has been debated for a rather long time. Depicting the atmosphere of distrust, disappointment and cynicism characteristic for American society after the Great Depression and during the World War II, the majority of noir films share similar pessimistic mood and existentialist tone. “What makes film a film noir is a particular mood, tone or sensibility, a particular outlook on life” (Conard 17). As compared to the classical noir film The Maltese Falcon, The Departed has particular differences in the style of narration and visual effects, but can be regarded as a noir film considering its general mood of alienation and existential tone.
The noir film genre can be defined as a mixture of German expressionism stylistic elements and American hard-boiled crime fiction style. “Noir is often characterized in terms of its bleakly existential tone, cynically pessimistic mood, stylistic elements inherited from German expressionism (low-key lighting, deep focus, subjective camera shots, canted angles) and stories and narrative patterns adapted from American hard-boiled fiction” (Conard 24). The dominating pessimistic mood of noir films is rooted in Nietzsche’s assertion that God is dead and the principle of loss of permanence in the world as the direct consequence of this assumption. Regarding the tone of The Maltese Falcon, the plot lines of searches for the Maltese statuette and several murders related to it can be regarded as existential. The outset is simple: the charming young woman comes to private detective agency and asks to find her sister. Later it turns out that it is only an excuse and she actually needs to track her ex-partner. He has left her and took away a statuette of the Maltese falcon. The plot isn’t just about who will get the falcon, but it is about who is smart enough to get it (The Maltese Falcon). Making his film The Departed a true story of violence of representatives of civil forces during the war on terror and the Irish and Italian immigrants who are alienated in a new country, Scorsese chooses the existential tone for his film. The first sentence of the film: “It puts hate into your heart” puts a setting for the rest of the plot, representing one of the key motifs of the picture, hatred between the representatives of various social and ethnic groups who kill each other, justifying their actions with certain circumstances and good reasons (The Departed). Along with the theme of investigation of murders, the films The Maltese Falcon and The Departed have common mood of pessimistic alienation of the main protagonist which is justified by the junction of events in their life, inducing them to lie, betray, commit crimes and disguise their self identity.
Along with the individual preferences of the film directors, the differences in the visual effects and narrative styles of the two detective stories can be explained by the time lag between the years when the movies were shot. Thus, the twisting parallel plot of The Departed, representing the events in lives of Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan is far more complicated than the 1941 picture but it comes up to the expectations of the contemporary sophisticated film viewers. At the same time, the visual effects of dark rooms and badly lit cities are common for both pictures and are used for the purpose of producing the desired effect of disguising the truth during the development of the plot lines on the audience. These features are characteristic of German expressionism which was put into the foundation of the film noir genre. In both movies, the spectators are misguided till the end of the film and the truth is not unveiled till the end of the story. It is only in several last episodes that spectators learn the truth that it was Brigid who killed Archer in one picture and Costigan is given a Medal of Merit only after being killed in another one. The theme of love affair is interconnected with the main motif of investigation, and interferes the reasoning of the main characters for making their moral choices. Thus in the film The Maltese Falcon, Bridgit is in love with Sam but he has to turn her to the police for killing his partner because his moral duty prevails over his personal feelings. In The Departed Costigan has been in love with Madolyn Madden before Sulllivan arrives and this circumstance has a significant impact on the development of the events in the movie, producing the impression that the lives of all the characters are interconnected disregarding the parallel design of the plot. Thus, though the visual effects of the film The Departed implement the achievements of contemporary cinematography, as in most films noir, the primary principle of creating the atmosphere of depressing hopelessness is preserved.
Though, the picture The Departed differs from the classical example of a film noir film The Maltese Falcon in its narrative style and particular visual effects, it can be regarded as a film noir, considering the dominating cynically pessimistic mood of the film and its main plot lines.
Bibliography
Conard, Mark and Robert Porfirio. (eds.) The Philosophy of Film Noir. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. 2007. Print.
The Departed. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin et al. Warner Bros., 2006. Film.
The Maltese Falcon. Dir. John Huston. Perf. Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, And Sydney Greenstreet. Warner Bros., 1941. Film.