Review Of The High Sierra – A Bright Example Of Film Noir
The film noir era began with the dark High Sierra. The story is about a career-criminal released from prison by Big Mac, a crime boss who arranged his release so that he could commit a crime for money. High Sierra’s iconic Western genre for a film of 1941 is key in Hollywood’s progression and development in American cinema for the films succeeding that generation. Undoubtedly uplifting for an American audience post-The Great Depression.
The classic crime drama is highlighted by the star presence of Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. Sometimes the film can be stagey and slow-paced for modern times, and it spends a substantial time on a sympathetic subplot, however, the characters are intriguing and there are several memorable moments. Nonetheless solid Golden Age filmmaking. The music always fits the mood. The mise-en-scène was particularly novel for its time, and it was evident that the cinematography had clarity in its frames and pace. Credit to the screenwriting which was advanced for its time, placing the spectators in a thrilling position.
The cinematography is noteworthy. A memorable scene in High Sierra takes place when Roy Earle is driving towards Camp Shaw high in the mountains of California after being released from prison. The camera pans over the Sierra peaks and pans down to Earle’s car as he pauses at the junction of the road leading to his destination. We see him, the mountains, and a pack of horses led by a couple of ranch cowboys who are moving slowly in the opposite direction, emanating from the world Earle is about to enter. It is all somehow safe and reassuring, and yet in retrospect, the image becomes a fateful and fatal ironic foreshadowing of Earle’s death at the hands of a cowboy who waits on the rocks above him and throws him off with a high-powered rifle and telescopic sight. The innocent picturesqueness, particularly the lighting of the scene perfectly sets the illusory safety of the place to which Earle is retreating; simultaneously this aspect of mortality is omnipresent throughout the film. Walsh invokes this incongruous cowboy image deliberately; Earle, who is himself a mythic presence, is shot by a figure who seems to anachronistically belong in some other corner of history but also, who may inhabit an alternate cinematic genre.
Roy, Earle. A dual name. A dual past. A dual identity. Names are emblematic in High Sierra. The allusive direction of “Goodhue” points towards a region of moral security and ethical value. The Goodhues represent a lost world back home which Roy does not want to lose contact with, yet simultaneously, there is nothing really life-giving he can derive from them beyond a self-indulgent satisfaction in repairing Velma’s foot. One of the most enigmatic and unnoticeable details in the film is the way Velma quickly hides something under the bedcovers when Roy walks into the room and leaves it there so that we never really get a full explanation of what it was, although from what we learn during the course of the scene we can assume that it was a letter from Mr. Preiser. When Roy comes back again, Velma introduces him to her friends and to Mr. Preiser, of whom she says, “He’s my … well, he’s from back home.” The phrase is cruelly juxtaposed ironically: “back home” is the same place that Earle is excluded from forever; it is the root of the same moral good that men like Pa Goodhue represent; it is the farm he remembers, the farm whose image is destroyed by the new owner who only sees Earle as a bank robber released from prison.
The components that make up High Sierra as an iconic Western was pre-eminent for an audience back then and is still worth watching even now. The idea of both the real world and the fantasy world are explored through the character of Earle. In the real world, he is a hardened criminal, killing people as easily as he puts out his cigarettes. In this world he is in control, making decisions, leading his small gang. But he romanticizes himself. He is the knight in shining armor that can help Velma escape her prison of disability. He is a farmer wanting to return to the small-town life, with Velma as his bride. Not really seeing that Marie wants to pursue him. How often do we live in a fantasy world of our own imagination? Like Earle, we can create a world of deception, think imaginatively, making more of who we are than reality reflects. This resonates with audiences. We are naturally inclined to all kinds of fantasies, telling us we are more than we are, that we deserve better than we have. This is dangerous. As dangerous as Earle was in his real persona, believing the concoctions of our own making leads us into trouble and failure. The solution is to look to the truth. Velma willingly offered this to Earle, but he was not prepared to accept it from her. She was competing for his love. Leaving the audience with a tragic ending.
