Robert Aldrich :: essays papers

Robert Aldrich Robert Aldrich Robert Aldrich was born into an extremely wealthy family. He became an confederate director in Hollywood, working in the 1945 - 1952 period with many directors. A notably high percentage of these were in the extreme left jean Renoir, Lewis Milestone, Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Charles Chaplin. pamper Me noisome Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is Aldrichs most remarkable pip. Aldrich began enjoin in 1953, and by then, the film noir cycle had run its course as a Hollywood phenomenon, peaking in the years 1942 - 1951. However, film noirs were still beingness made steadily through the 1950s, and many of these works were classics of the cycle. on that point is a remarkably detailed visual analysis of the film in Kiss Me Deadly Evidence of a Style by Alain Silver, in dart Noir Reader (1996), edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini. The remarks below ar simply intended to point out a few more things about this film, one of the most complex and creative o f on the whole film noirs. 3D Camera Technique The staging in Kiss Me Deadly shows a three dimensional quality. Partly this is due to depth of field. some scenes keep in focus far into the rear of the scene. This is a technique associated in Hollywood with Orson Welles. Aldrich is often con spotred to be a Welles disciple. There are other techniques that aid in the films 3D quality 1) The masking of an irregular wall along one side of the fortuity. When Mike Hammers political machine pulls up to a gas put up near the beginning of the film, we bet the entire front of the gas station along the right side of the shot. The gas station facade is by no means unstable it contains many projections. All of these are fully lit up. The gas station is shot as if it were an elaborate piece of sculpture, like one of Louise Nevelsons friezes. As the camera moves past it, it emphasizes the stations complex 3D qualities. The projections on the station all are rectilinear they are box l ike, with flat, perpendicular walls. A shot with even greater depth of field shows Mike Hammer bang on a door in the Angels Flight neighborhood. Behind him we seem first a long narrow alleyway, then a considerable depth of field showing a Los Angeles city scape.