One reason I
like having The Big Sleep in our home library is
the final shot.
The shot begins as Bogart/Philip Marlowe hangs up the phone in Arthur Geiger's (Theodore von Eltz) house, having called the police to help mop up Eddie Mars' (John Ridgely) gang. He moves from the phone towards Bacall/Vivian Rutledge into a medium profile shot of the two stars/characters, oriented more towards Bacall/Vivian than Bogart/Marlowe.
Bogart/Marlowe lays out options for dealing with Vivian's father, General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), and sister, Carmen (Martha Vickers), and Bacall/Vivian says, “You've forgotten one thing. Me.”
The camera moves into a close-up as Bogart/Marlowe responds, “What's wrong with you?”
“Nothing you can't fix,” she says.
Sirens sound, and the two of them
move their heads to face the camera, but averting their eyes, ostensibly looking towards the sound of the oncoming police. In the final moment, they look towards each other, with Bacall/Vivian still oriented towards the camera.
This moment encapsulates some of tensions within the Hollywood studio system. On the one hand, films were largely made with the goals of seamlessness and narrative immersion, persuading the audience to forget that they are watching a movie. On the other hand, the system's lifeblood was its stars, and, indeed,
the history of The Big Sleep is tightly wrapped up in the need to showcase its marquee actors/investments. The final shot is clearly directed at producing a big screen, moving glossy of Bogart and Bacall together, but in order to ensure the “invisibility” of the moment, the two actors studiously look away from the camera. The sirens provide the pretext for this aversion, but it still strikes me as pointed enough to draw attention to itself.
Movie stars no longer being what they once were, it is hard to imagine many films today ending with such an elaborately constructed shot aimed at showcasing/not-showcasing its lead actors. Indeed, it seems likely that any such moment would be done with a literal or figurative nod and a wink to the audience (think of how Angelina Jolie is introduced in
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – 2004; sorry, no DVD to grab from). The irony here is that allowing the actor(s) to look at the camera would produce a more “natural” image, even as it would signpost its existence as a shot in a film, than does Bogart and Bacall's carefully crafted avoidance of the camera (and, therefore, the audience). The latter remains a grand example of a certain, and still largely dominant, style of filmmaking.
Originally posted on:
Short-Circuit Signs