End of an Era: Touch of Evil

Film noir, as Paul Schrader defines, is a specific period of film history in Hollywood, around the forties and early fifties that depicts dark city streets, fraud police, crime and corruption (p. 582).  Although film noir is seen as Hollywood’s most creative era, it has also been the most neglected period. Schrader argues this neglection is due to the imperceptiveness and slowness of American critics to understand the visual structure and style of film noir (p. 590).  However, film noir created an environment for artists to work with “previously forbidden themes” (p.590) and  brought the “best in everyone: director, cameramen, screenwriters...” (p. 589). In his article titled “Notes on Film Noir”, Schrader talks about four different factors that influenced film noir era; war and postwar disillusionment, post war realism, the German expatriates, the hard-boiled school of writer (p. 583-584). In this essay, I will analyse “Touch of Evil” by Orson Welles in terms of its thematic and stylistic touch, taking Schrader’s arguments into consideration. 

Touch of Evil is a 1958 American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles. This film is one of the last examples of film noir and included in the final phase of film noir, “post war street film” (p. 589).  Touch of Evil is loosely based on a hard-boiled novel called “Badge of Evil” by Whit Masterson. This film depicts the dark and complicated relationship of a Mexican (Miquel Vargas) and American (Hank Quinlan) investigators and their battle for dominance in a little border town.  Touch of Evil brought important noir themes and created a visual style ahead of its time. 

The opening scene of the film is incredible and iconic, it is a fascinating single, uninterrupted shot that lasts nearly four minutes. In this scene, sound accompanies the audience while traveling along the vibrant nightlife of streets; music spills out from the clubs and radios from passing cars. From the first scene, Welles shows us that he will present a stylistically unique film. The majority of scenes are shot mostly at night like other film noir examples (p. 585).  In fact, the shooting of the first scene lasted until the first lights of the day because the custom officers could not remember his line exactly (Anthony, 2018). 

In film noir, the characters are “likely to be standing in shadow” (p. 586) and often the villains are hidden in the dark, and both the main characters and audience cannot identify them. For example, the young man who tried to throw acid to Vargas’s face, was waiting for him in the dark and we couldn't see his face for a long time. Also, the person who is stalking Sussie from the opposite building is just a dark silhouette. Usage of shadow adds a mystery to the film, and creates tension in the audience. 

Welles created an extremely detailed mise-en-scene for this film. Oblique lines were also used very often in this film, usually through utility poles. Schrader states that “oblique lines tend to splinter a screen and make it restless and unstable” (p. 586). This dark and restless environment makes the audience feel hopelessness.

Another factor that created restlessness in the film is the use of cameras. Welles generally prefered low angle shots, and these shots make the subject look strong and powerful. however, this shot was used so much, I think it loses its psychological effect towards the end of the movie. Even in some scenes, I felt like this angle is used to emphasize the obesity of Hank Quinlan. 

The thematic structure of the film is unfortunately not impressive as its stylistic structure. Frankly, I believe Touch of Evil does not reflect the film noir themes that Schrader mentions in his article. Shrader states that the heroes of film noir generally “dread to look ahead but instead try to survive by the day” (p. 587), but I did not see this pessimism and despair in Vargas. He is idealistic enough to catch the Quinlan who create fake evidence and blame innocent people. On the other hand, this idealistic character does not have any heroic action. He does not help when his wife is obviously in danger or continues to just carry the bugging device when Grandi is shot by Quinlan. 

This film also does not feature the femme fatale character we often see in film noir. In fact, Welles does not demonstrate any interest in female characters in the film. For example, Sussie is kidnapped like an object, threatened to rape and exposed to drug charges but at the end of the film all these events are suddenly forgotten. 

Touch of Evil by Welles, offers the audience a fascinating visual style and a study of conflicts between good and evil,  loyalty and betrayal, and duty and responsibilities. 

Bibliography

Schadeer, P. Notes on Film Noir. Film Theory and Criticism, by L.Braudy & M. Cohen. 2009, 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 581-591.