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1958 Film Touch Of Evil

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1. This image is from the 1958 film “Touch of Evil.” This film is generally hailed as a classic, a stark story of corruption in a small Mexican border town. During this scene Detective Hank Quinlan, played by Orson Welles, has just shot his partner Pete Menzies. Menzies had conspired with Vargas in order to get Quinlan to confess to murder. “Touch of Evil” is the perfect example of film noir. Film noir emerged in the 1940’s and was generally used in crime films. It translates loosely to “black film.” These films have a tendency to emphasize shadows and darkness. This allows the audience to see the character’s shady morals. Detective Quinlan, who is about as corrupt as they come, is stereotypical film noir. This element sets a dark, ambiguous mood …show more content…

This is a technique that uses a large depth of field. This allows for the audience to gain a sense of the actor’s surroundings and see the bigger picture. The opening scene in the film infamous, and has served as the inspiration for many later films. A crane shot is used, showing the chaos below. This shot allows for the audience to witness all of the events unfolding below. Viewers feel uneasy, worrying about when the bomb that was planted will explode. It’s an effective choice and keeps the viewers confused for the first couple of minutes. The entire film is a bit hazy and confusing, viewers constantly wondering whether the scenes are occurring in Mexico or the United States. It is very fitting, as many of the characters are morally hazy, not good or bad, but somewhere in between. The mise-en-scene of the film is also very impressive. It shows us run down motels and bars, and each feels unique and accurate. The film is meticulous and leaves no details out. The scene where Detective Quinlan dies is particularly potent as he is surrounded by garbage. It is an interesting choice to make a pool of wastewater the site of his

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THE GODFATHER AND MICHAEL CORLEONE’S RISE TO POWER Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, and Casablanca are some of the most well-known and popular films of all time, with each of these making an appearance on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest movies of all time (AFI’s, 2023). Another one of these popular movies, and one I hear about often, is The Godfather. Now that I have seen this crime film and studied its cinematography, I can understand why it is so renowned. There are a variety of film choices that are meticulous and thorough. These details highlight the messages that the film is trying to convey, especially the messages surrounding the main character, Michael Corleone.

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The director conveys good vs evil through the use of mise-en-scene. The scene begins with a long shot in low key lighting of the Commissioner walking into interrogate the Joker, after Commissioner sits down the scene gets shot with side lighting slowly zooming into his face close up. After Commissioner leaves in changes to high key lighting with a low angle shot of batman slamming Jokers head on the table with diegetic sounds of a bang and the Joker saying “Never start with the head the victim gets all fuzzy, he can’t feel the next.” When Batman grabs Joker and shoves him against the wall there is a diegetic sound of a bang with a two-shot side on close up, then going to a close up with more diegetic sounds of bangs and then glass shattering. After glass has shattered it changes to a low angle shot of Batman’s face and a high angle shot of Jokers face with nondiegetic sound of intense

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This creates a contrast with the darker and lighter parts of the scene, and creates the subject of the scene to be hidden in the shadows. This lighting technique is perfect for a gangster film such as the Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola’s has made apt use of lighting in this scene. In this scene, almost all the frames are low lit, especially the scenes where Don Corleone’s eyes are darkened.

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Another work of Orson Welles in the film noir is Touch of Evil that presents archetypal elements such as burnout characters, dark environments, seedy scenes, strong shadows, tragic endings, extreme camera angles, disproportional settings and props, and more. All of those elements serve one and only purpose, a bitterness of life that unworthy of celebration. These elements work together to portray the imagery of unsavory facts in one person’s life. Touch of Evil’s archetypal character of Hank Quinlan, a corrupt police officer who illustrates a perfect stereotype of noir. He dresses like a drunk, as he was, before he converted from booze to candy bars according to Tana, the fortune teller, in one of the scenes when Quinlan pays a visit to Tana’s

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For example, during the book burning scene, a variety of high to mid-low shots are used to position the audience in the crowd or as one of the speakers up front. In addition, the way the objects in the scene are positioned and the frame are composed creates an intimidating effect. All the large Nazi flags are positioned symmetrically around the town square, yet the camera is framed slightly off centre, making the whole shot feel off and like something is wrong [Fig. 5]. This certainly shows that Percival utilizes Percival employs cinematic techniques such as camera angles and the framing of the shots used to communicate and allow the audience to explore the power of the human spirit when dealing with adversity in his film The Book

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