Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon – film noir

Film Noir is a style of filmmaking characterized by elements such as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, and frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots.

The Maltese Falcon is a typical film noir set in the 1940s. It crosses all of the typical codes and conventions of film noir, as there is a femme fatale who needs the detectives help, and at the start of the opening sequence the detectives are leering at her and this is a reoccurring theme in a film noir. In all films at this time the mise en scene in this film noir the detectives are typically dressed as they are wearing a trilby hat and an overcoat and in most film noir’s this is what they wore. This is because in a film noir the women are represented as weak and that the men always fall for them and this is shown in the first scene where the detective falls for her and as she is leaving Miles asserts his salivating interest in the striking, rich, and helpless woman who hires them to rescue her sister. Also at the start there is an establishing shot of San Francisco and this is used to show where the film is set in. 

The hard-boiled detective films of the 1940s supplied a surprisingly diverse set of heroes, each offering a variation on the common theme of crime and detection in the dark urban scene and this was shown in The Maltese Falcon where it transforms the traditional detective film where they are finding out who killed the man. Also in the film it introduces the alienated and amoral hero, the femme fatale and the dark disturbed environment. This is shown when the camera editing dissolves to a street corner where the other detective has been shot. The half-smile of recognition on Archer's face as he approaches the camera quickly turns to a look of disbelieving horror as an unseen assailant pulls a gun and shoots him dead at close range. Miles is blown backwards through a fence barrier and he tumbles down a steep hill. In this scene there is a non-diegetic sound of the gunshot and this portrays what happens and in this scene there is restricted narration because as the audience we don’t know who shot the detective and neither does the main detective because he is now being questioned about who killed him. In this film this is a reoccuring concept for the enigma as no one knows who killed the detective.

In this opening sequence there wasn’t a lot of editing as it is an old film noir. The only editing in the scene that was noticeable was at the start and this was when the titles was going up the screen and this helped the audience understand the story line. Another editing technique they used was in between shots as they used a faded editing technique to switch between shots.

Camera shots are important in every film and in this film they used a medium/close up shots when focusing on the woman in the office. They have done this because then the audience can see all of the emotion in the face. Also when they focus on the paper at the end of the opening sequence, they pan up onto the paper and then zoom in to emphasise the news headline. Also they used an over the shoulder shot in the office scene allows the audience an insight into what the character sees from his point in view and by doing this it adds realism to the shot as they see the same view and in this case when the woman is speaking to the detective.  They also included a low angle shot where the detective is looking over at the crime scene where his partner had been killed. This was used as then they could focus on the emotions of the character and also they can see what they are looking at.