White Heat
White Heat is a 1949 film noir which is considered to be one of the classic gangster films. IMDb rated the film a 8.2/10 and appears on their list of “Most Popular Film-Noir Feature Films”. Since it was rated so highly, and is considered a classic by many, I thought that this film would be a very good one to research as I felt I could learn a lot of the conventions of the film moment while watching the film. Directed by Raoul Walsh, “White Heat” tells the story of Cody Jarrett, a sadistic leader of a ruthless gang of thieves. Afflicted by terrible headaches and deeply devoted to his "Ma", he is a violent leader. He plans on pulling off the robbery to top all robberies, not realising that his newest henchman is an undercover detective and his right-hand man is trying to have him killed. Below are the notes I have taken on the film:
In this first shot we can see Cody holding a gun in his hand, showing that he has some sort of position of authority, as the gun is a symbol of power. In the film, the camera moves from his head to his hand holding the gun, illustrating that the focus of the audience should now be on the gun. Furthermore, the facial expression on his face in this shot shows that he has no remorse for what he is doing, as the smile he is giving has a very sinister look to it. It should also be noted that Cody is wearing a fedora, a very popular convention used in Film Noir as this was a very common piece of clothing attire for men during the 1940s.
Here we can see Cody’s wife Verna who is shown with lighting that creates a halo effect on her, which presents her to the audience with the image of her glowing. She is supposedly the Femme Fatale of the story, as her motivations include money and power. We can imply that she is not a very pleasant women from this shot through her angered facial expression and her erect body posture. We can also see in this shot that there is an obvious contrast between the foreground and background, as they are light and dark respectively, emphasising to the audience that their attention needs to be on Verna.
I chose to analyse this shot purely for the editing during this scene rather than interesting cinematography. In this scene there are a lot of cuts between shots to emphasise the fast pace that the scene is suppose to be at. We can see in this shot that "Ma" Jarrett is driving and looking into the rear-view mirror. It is compulsory that the next shot in the scene has to be the thing that she is looking at, as it tells the audience what is happening. Most of this scene consists of different shots between "Ma" Jarrett’s and the detective’s cars, showing that there is a conflict between them. The fast and continuous cuts between the two subjects enable the scene to run fluidly and allow the audience to follow what is going on with interest, as very long length shots can sometimes cause a loss of engagement.
The reason I chose to talk about this shot is more about the characterisation than anything. It is known within this film that Cody is very fond of his mother, and they both share a very strong relationship. This is believed to be as a result of Cody’s mother raising him on her own, and both of them being as twisted as each other. This strong bond between them can be seen a lot throughout the film as Cody refers to his mother multiple times within his dialogue, especially towards the end. This emphasises his affection to his mother, and showcases just how much he is dependent on her (his dependency can be highlighted through the reaction he has when he learns of his mother’s death when in prison).
This shot highlights the manipulative behaviour and motivations of the Femme Fatale within the story, Verna. In this mid-two shot, which consists of the two subjects Verna and “Big Ed”, we can see that they are discussing how to get rid of Cody by any means necessary. Big Ed’s motivation is obviously that he wants to end up with Verna (who is Cody’s wife), however, it is plausible that Verna may want something more than that, possibly money or power. Their evil thinking can be conveyed through the lighting of this shot, as it is quite dark compared to most of the film.
This shot takes place when Cody gets a visit from his mother while he is in prison. It shows him grabbing onto the fence, pleading with his mother not to try and kill “Big Ed”. I thought that this was a very interesting shot as the fence shows that Cody is trapped, which is enhanced by the fact that the shadow of the fence appears on his face. What makes the shot more interesting is the fact that it is composed in a way where Cody is positioned slightly more towards the left side as oppose to the middle, which makes the shot look more aesthetically pleasing to the audience’s eye. The lighting from the window on the right creates a contrast between the foreground and background of the shot, with the background being slightly lighter than the foreground, which helps enhance Cody’s facial expression as the light from the window can be seen shining on the right side of his face.
This blurred out shot in the prison was taken to illustrate to the audience Cody’s headaches from his point of view and how they affect him. The effect used to create this shot emphasises his helplessness and pain, and shows how he is not able to think and concentrate properly. It is shown that this headache occurs straight after his mother comes to visit him and tells him of the plans she has in store for “Big Ed”, and fearing of her death, tries to stop her but is unsuccessful. This reiterates the amount of dependency he has on his mother, and shows how much he cares for her. With this shot being slightly being out of focus, we can imply from this that Cody is starting to lose his mind, as he has too much to think about.
This shot was taken from a montage that can be seen commencing towards the end of the film, taking place when the detectives are trying to locate Cody’s gang before they can undertake their heist. I chose to talk about this scene as there are various crossfades used to show a pass in time as well as a lot going on, with all the transitions allowing the scene to move very fluidly. As an editor, this enabled me to see how to position each shot as well as how long each shot should last in order to get the audience interested. Crossfades are probably one of the most common and popular transitions used in films, but if executed incorrectly, can cause a distraction to the audience, hence why I used this as an example to mock when doing my own film as the transitions here are very smooth and fluid, allowing for the narrative to be followed easily.
