Equilibrium

SemiNoir is a continuing series of short academic essays dealing with film noirs watched and reviewed in the seminar 'Film Noir and American Culture' at the University of Tuebingen.

Jaques Tourneur's film is by far the 'darkest' and most violent noir so far. There is a lot of killing, fighting and, of course, dying – even if it is only a small frame we get to see the dead body in. Keeping this in mind, it is no surprise that Out of the Past also has a lot of comic relief. Just take a look at the very first minutes of the movie, which take place in a diner in the middle of nowhere. The waitress is a woman who is talking and talking and talking to their guests. This dialogue between the waitress and the cop is already a comic relief if you take into condideration that the opening of the movie is pretty dark: Stephanos (Paul Valentine) yells at the Kid (Dickie Moore), teases him and calls him "Def and dumb!" This is some kind of shocking to the recipient (since one should feel sympathy for this poor boy), however, the sides are clear after this opening scene. In the course of the movie there can be found more of comic relief, tons of it. Almost every scene which features a cool one-liner by Jeff (Robert Mitchum) can be considered a comic relief. As I already mentiones: this is sometimes urgently necessary, because of the violence portrayed in Out of the Past. However, at one point, the recipient gets that indifferent that he even considers a knock out of a 'not so much guilty' person a comic relief – remarkable! But on the other hand: is this not just our generation. Our generation which is used to a lot of violence on and off screen? Did the original audience in 1947 laugh when the man got knocked out by one single cool hit by Jeff?

Whatever it is, one thing is for sure: Out of the Past was even idiosyncratic in a lot of ways for today's Hollywood thrillers and crime films. Just think of how Jeff and Kathie (Jane Greer) set their 'hunters' on the wrong track – today this is a common feature of a thriller if he does not want to give away his premise right from the beginning. In addition, until the very end of the movie you do not know to whom Kathie's real loyalty belongs to. Now take a look at the films which are considered the best thrillers of all time – what would, for example, The Usual Suspects be without its plottwists. Or what about Se7en? Furthermore, the scene with the cabin in the forest features a lot of horror film elements. Tourneur previously did some horror films, yes, and you can see that even in Out of the Past. It is night, the forest is dark and suddenly an unknown person appears which does not seem to be friendly. The only lighting comes from his car's head lights and the cabin … Some scenes later, Jeff and his ex-partner Fisher (Steve Brodie) have a fight, which is not only raw but very violent (consider the sound effects!). Kathie stands aside the two male, fearing the end of the fight. The two big shadows of the men are shown on the curtain, where the camer focusses on for a few seconds – it is pure horror and also a common motif for today's horror/backwood slasher films.

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