Another friend of mine, different than the one at the beginning of this review, pointed out recently that, for all its good writing and great acting, Bogart especially, “The Maltese Falcon’s” direction is not particularly groundbreaking. To its credit, “Falcon’s” claustrophobic use of back-lots and set-boundedness is not as obvious as “The Big Sleep.” “The Maltese Falcon” vs. “Chinatown” debate over which is the best noir, and which has the best closing line, is no closer to being ended, but there’s little argument that Polanski’s film is considerably more “director-ly.” In his defense, director John Huston is about as good as he needs to be, without an unnecessary flourish or camera movement. A man as trim and efficient as Spade wouldn’t fit in a movie that isn’t equal to his trimness and efficiency. This is a close-in movie, about a man of intense focus, who doesn’t waste a word or a motion.
(There’s an essay in comparing the tight noirs of the 1940s and ‘50s to the looser “modern” noirs of Michael Mann, who made “Heat,” “Collateral,” and “Manhunter.” Instead of shrinking the world to match (or trap) his protagonist, the way his predecessors do, Mann emphasizes the world’s indifference by shrinking the hero instead, in large, muted, and uncaring environments. To quote Shrader again: “there is nothing the protagonists can do; the city will outlast and negate their best efforts.” On the subject of efficiency: before becoming the master of inhumanly slow color epics, a young Stanley Kubrick expanded Huston’s efficiency into downright terseness in his black-and-white noirs of the 1950s. The combined runtime of “Killer’s Kiss” and “The Killing” is probably about the same as “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The latter film features Sterling Hayden spitting through his dialogue like a machine gun, in scenes that aren’t a second longer than they need to be.)
Finished Wednesday, March 30th, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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