1. Gabrielle (Rie) Kamie 1M150194-6
Out of the Past
Gabrielle (Rie) Kamie 1M

2. Contents About “Out of the Past”
About Paul Schroder’s “Notes on Film Noir”
About Shannon Scott’s “Actively Retroactive: On the Couch with Film Noir: Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer”

3. About “Out of the Past”

4. Information Director: Jacques Tourneur
Writer: Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes)
Producer: Warren Duff, Robert Sparks (executive)
Music Composer: Roy Webb
Cinematographer: Nicholas Musuraca
Art Director: Albert S. D'Agostino, Jack Okey
Set Decoration: Darrell Silvera, John McCarthy Jr.
Editor: Samuel E. Beetley
Released: 1947
Budget: N/A (A-film budget)
Gross: $90,000
Production Co.: RKO Radio Pictures
Distributors: RKO Radio Pictures, Sascha Filmverleih
Runtime: 97 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Negative Format: 35mm
Jacques Tourneur
-Cat People (1942 fantasy thriller)
-I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
---likes suspense with a bit of fantasy

5. Robert Mitchum Jane Greer Kirk Douglas
as Jeff Bailey/Markham
as Kathie Moffat
as Whit Sterling
ROBERT MITCHUM
-The Night of the Hunter
JANE GREER
-The Big Steal (also with Robert Mitchum)
KIRK DOUGLAS
-Spartacus

6. Information
Based on the screenwriter’s (Daniel Mainwaring) 1946 novel “Build My Gallows High”
RKO, the film’s production company, initially rejected the pitch for violating the Production Code
Despite focusing on B-films, RKO gave “Out of the Past” an A-film budget
In 1991, the Library of Congress included the film to its United States National Film Registry
The film is Robert Mitchum’s first role in an A-film
The crew initially wanted Humphrey Bogart (“The Big Sleep”) as Jeff but they knew it wasn’t possible, so they went to John Garfield (“The Postman Always Rings Twice”), but was declined. They then went to RKO’s Dick Powell, but also to no avail. They finally went to the upcoming RKO actor Robert Mitchum, who agreed to take the role.

7. 1. Cinematography
During close up shots of Jeff and Kathie, only Kathie’s face is lit and can be properly seen
→ Indicating how Kathie “runs the show” and Jeff’s life has been compromised by her
→ Emphasizing Jane Greer’s beauty
Incorporation of high-key lighting
→ Contrasting the sunny skies of California with the gloomy streets of San Francisco
Strong shadows
Very symbolic

9. 2. Screenwriting Hard-boiled Fiction Dialogue
→ Protagonist: a (retired) private detective
→ Conventional structure…?
Dialogue
→ The witty remarks exchanged between the characters: they always mean something
→ “I sell gasoline, I make a small profit. With that I buy groceries. The grocer makes a profit. We call
it earning a living. You may have heard of it somewhere.”

10. 3. Two love interests Kathie -Doesn’t like being controlled by men
-Smokes and engages in violence
-Scenes (except during her entrance) use low-key lighting
Ann
-Listens to men
-Damsel in distress
-Scenes use high-key lighting

11. II. About Paul Schroder’s “Notes on Film Noir”

12. 1. The Formation of “Film Noir”
4 factors
War and post-war disillusionment
Post-war realism
The german influence
The hard-boiled tradition
3 phases
Private Eye and Lone Wolf Phase
Post-war Realistic Phase
Psychotic acton and suicidal impulse
phase

13. 2. Film Noir is Not a Genre? -”Noir” as Tone and Mood
“noir” merely means “dark”
-A specific period from the forties to fifties
i.e. german expressionism or french new wave

14. 3. What Comprises Film Noir?
-Style
Scenes are lit for night, oblique and vertical lines, actors and settings are often given equal lighting emphasis, compositional tension, attachment to water, romantic narration, complex chronological order
-Themes
A passion for the past and present, but also a fear of the future, emphasis of loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity

15. III. About Shannon Scott’s
“Actively Retroactive: On the Couch with Film Noir: Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer”

16. 1. Symbolic -Film Noir as a retroactive critical category
Initially thought of as a subcategory of the detective genre
-“Nachträglichkeit” (Afterwardsness)
A concept by Sigmund Freud, describing a “mode of belated understanding or retroactive attribution of sexual or traumatic meaning to earlier events”
-”Point de capiton”
Jacques Lacan’s theory of the relation between past, present and future, the anticipation of meaning and its subsequent, retroactive determination.

17. 2. Real -Real is… -”Woman” is nonexistent -”Noir” is nonexistent
“that which resists symbolisation absolutely. (i.e. a traumatic event). The cause of the repetition of the signifying chain, the repeated attempt to signify the impossible, giving rise to failure.”
-”Woman” is nonexistent
“The set of woman is, I would say, an open set; or to put it another way, woman, in relation to the Symbolic order, is constituted as an open set. “
-”Noir” is nonexistent
Many influential noir filmmakers, including Fritz Lang, revealed their lack of understanding of the term. It was only in retrospect they realized the attributes of their films was considered “noir”.

18. 3. Imaginary
-”[T]he realm of the falsifying ego, which is formed by a productive méconnaissance, the choice of identification with the complete and coherent mirror image over the dissatisfactory experience of the corps morcelé”
-”The field of representations that a subject lives as his/her identity across self-images, alienated because structured by an (invisible) symbolic, and determined by the (inaccessible) presence of the significant other(s)”.
The set of Man takes on a similar illusion of wholeness in order for it to function. =Closure

19. References
Jewell, R. (2016). Slow Fade to Black: The Decline of RKO Radio Pictures. Oakland, California: University of California Press. Retrieved on October 24, 2017 from
Schrader, P. (1972). Notes on Film Noir. Film Noir Reader.
Scott, S. (2017). Actively Retroactive: On the Couch with Film Noir: Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer. Retrieved on October 23, 2017 from
Tyrer, B. (2016). Out of the Past: Lancan and Film Noir. DOI: / _1