Dark Themes in Films
After the world war, American film industry started to produce films with negative themes and in contemporary American culture, the film industry is producing film noir with respect to past myths and ideologies (Belton, 221). I have watched many American films and found that they all portray negative themes and they reflect negative issues which cause disgust despite the American culture define them as entertainment films. For example, Touch of Evil (1958), Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and Double Indemnity (1944) are film which I have recently watched and they represent dark themes and are associated with evil, disillusionment, paranoia, moral corruption among other negative features. For example, the first film opens with a bomb explosion in U.S/Mexico border where occupants are killed. The second also talks about a death at night where a woman runs at night half naked. The last film portrays a negative theme of death where Barbara Stanwyck plans on how to kill her husband Fed MacMurray (Spicer, 1).
During the war period in America, the film industry started to produce noir films which were rooted from sociohistory films and literature such as hard-boiled novels. The literature portrayed a different world and represented a traditional of realism through detective fiction. In addition, German expressionism was associated with French poetic realism it played part in the development of noir film. At this period, American adopted German popular stylistic style which was associated with dark themes of the world (Belton, 221). In contemporary America, the film noir brought a transitional change from pre-industrialization to industrialization. The transformational changed the American identity and this resulted into crisis on issues of national identity. There was a driving power which controlled mobilization and national unity. Since the power in maintain unity was based on groups rather than individual, there was kind of disillusionment which blocked unity and led to postwar (Belton, 223). Thus, film noir is popular in contemporary world and by portraying the negative themes it tends to present the American culture in the society. Its narrative features give a vivid explanation of confrontation as a result of diverse ideas, social and moral problems. Generally, it is not normal for people to watch uncomfortable and horror films but the films touches the lives of American people following the consequences of postwar. After the second war, America was free but it lost its freedom during the postwar as a result of economic and political system. The wealth and power created a materialist society and portrayed widespread crime, global war resentment and Red Scare. The reasons why people like watching film noir it because it portrays the dark themes of the war era and the films touches an important aspect of life (Belton, 228). Note that films are associated with culture and people use the film as a mirror which reflects the dominance culture of American society.
Scary films make people to become desensitized and their behaviors become more aggressive. Film noir diminishes the emotional reactions, people become less sensitive toward violence and there a high probability that such people behaves aggressively as their emotional component is reduced. I used to watch films regularly such as ‘The Big Sleep’ ‘Out of the Past’,’ The Third Man’, ‘Lift to the Scaffold’ and ‘Blood Simple’. These films have really disturbed me since the themes they portray affected me (Spicer, 1). Though they are referred as entertainment films, they are full of violent acts. Particularly the film called ‘The Big Sleep’ is disturbing as it is about murder and betrayal where an investigator is called by General Sternwood and he is told to blackmail Carmen who is the young daughter. To cut the story short, the story affected my emotion as I increased resentment and dared to do anything just to imitate what I watched in the movie.
Work cited
Belton, John. American Cinema/american Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.
Spicer, Andrew. Film Noir. Place of publication not identified: Routledge, 2016. Print.
