Featurette 03

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The Raw Deal Lighting of John Alton in HollyvDood Film Noir

By William Frasca
s: Raw Deal, Anthony Mann,John Alton, ligiiting, film noir, gender

H O L L Y W O O D FILM N O I R HAS been a controversial topic of interest in cinema for many decades. Its emphases on expressionist style can sometimes contradict norms of Hollywood films themselves. Some people see film noir as either the antithesis of Hollywood or as its culmination, but it is fair to say that it did push the stylistic trends of filmmaking and cinematography. It's a form of filmmaking which uses the melodramatic events of the story to validate expressive lowkey lighting styles. Filmmakers often return to the style of film noir because its black tones allow for moments of suspense by limiting ught information, calling attention to the perspective of the director as the storyteller. It allows him control of the moment by using the dark to create a sense of mystery.

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Featurette 03
~ ^ An imat^f Irom Raw Detll

The Rav' Dcai Ligiitirig of JoHti Altot it Hollywood Film Noir

The "womun'sface is illuminated, allozving it to b-,' - site of uninhabited emotional expression and the man's face is more siuiv, nigisteringfezver expressive gestures, but the lighting style compensates by symbolizing his emotions.
It can be said that the most indulgent use of this expressionist lighting style is pushed by the alliance of director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton in the film Raw Deal (1948). Patrick Keating describes this as "examples of film moving away from the eenter, which represents classicism, and move slighdy toward mannerism" (Keating 190). Cla.ssical cincmatographers resolve the tension between glamour and expressivity by gradual shifts in tone, while mannerist ciriematographers expose these tensions, revealing that the problem of conflicting conventions cannot always be solved. He describes the work of cinematographer John Alton as the ultimate mannerist and master of film noir lighting. The different forms of gendered figure lighting used on the different characters like the male protagonist, good girl protagonist, the femme fatale and the male villains in Raw Deal, can show Alton's use of hghting to contradict norms in film noir. These contradictions may be a possible way to understand the range of Hollywood conventions it challenged and adhered to. By adopting the gendered expressivity strategy, cinematographers balanced eonfcting demands by glamorizing the female star while creating an expressive arc that mirrored the dramatic arc of the male protagonist. The woman's face is illuminated, allowing it to become the site of uninhabited emotional expression and the man's face is more stoic, registering fewer expressive gestures, but the lighting style compensates by symbolizing his emotions for him (Keating 259). With Alton, this stoic lighting goes beyond the traditional gender expressivity by extending the man's emotions to not only affect bis shadows, but uses the darkness to communicate suspenseful mood lighting for anyone in the scene vidth him. Alton takes advantage of this Hollywood norm by then reversing the gender lighting, allowing the men to reflect the brighter emotional arc of the glamorized females to show a weakness of sensitivity. In the scene when Pat returns to Joe after a fight in which he slaps her, she apologizes and they embrace in a hug. It cuts to a close-up of Joe's faee and he is in beauty hghting with frontal lighting illuminating his face and a backlight highlighting his hair and check. Normally, Pat's glamour shots are reserved for her private emotional moments, but at this moment her love for Joe is what motivates the softer lighting scheme on his face. If the over stylized glamour shots of the femme fatale are a metaphor for deceitfulness, then none of the main characters are innocent, whieh is central to the director's intentions.

Alton takes advantage of this Hollywood no-rm by then reversing the gender lighting, allowing the men to reflect the brighter emotional arc of the glamorized females to shoiv a weakness of sensitivity.
nf:i.C'W An image from Raw led

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Featurette 03
;i.o\v An image from

William Fra.sca
l-/nv An image fnui Raw

As einematographer, John Alton's use of "mystery lighdng" grows out of a longstanding Hollywood convendon of advising the einematographer to use effect hghdng to produce the shadowy style associated with the melodrama. Alton does not present mystery lighdng as an exercise in unmodvated expressionism; instead he uses mystery lighdng through convendonal effeets, cigarette lighters, flashing neon lights, hanging lamps, street lamps, moonlight, ete. to produee an appropriate set of emodonal assoeiadons. John Alton writes, "where there is no light, one eannot see; and when one cannot sec, his imaginadon starts to run wild. He begins to suspect that something is about to happen. In the dark there is mystery." In other words, the lack of detail is precisely the strategy that produces the most mysterious mood. Since we cannot see the space clearly, we begin to suspect the worst. In the fight sequence between Joe and Spider, the scene is so dark we eannot tell who is winning, making this struggle ambiguous, but thrilling since we cannot sec the violence elearly. In a seene were the bulk of the space is represented in whites and grays the fog or smoke performs the same funcdon as the shadow, rendering the space illegible and incidng the viewer's imaginadon (Keadng 260-262). When Joe goes back for Ann, the street isfilledwith grey fog making the image hazy and the next moments suspenseful since we know that there is a henehman with a gun around the corner. Although John Alton taunts the nodon of "chocolate coated cinematography," he respects die Hollywood norm that women should look glamorous at all dme.s, using a high frontal key with a backlight. Following a strategy used by other noir cinematographers, Alton lights the good girl diilcrendy irom the

femme fatale. The good gid receives a simple key, with a glowing eye light. The femme fatale is presented with a more unusual arrangement, featuring a erisscross pattern on the side of her face from her veil or extreme close-up glamour shots with heavy diffusion. The effect is glamorous with all the connotadons of falseness that "glamour" implies (Keating 262-26.3). Alton also contradicts this Hollywood norm and allows the femme fatale to be lit in mystery lighdng that violates beauty lighdng. When Pat is in her ear at die prison waiting for Joe to escape, tliere is a moment when anodier car's headlights lights up her face in all possible tonalides, pushing the limits of the image to create the most suspenseful moment. There is a point in this shol when her face is bodi overexposed and underexposed, pushing the limits of what is acceptable fbr lighdng females. In the seene when Ann shoots Spider after she sees the gun on the ground, Alton's shift from glamour lighdng, similar to the femme fatale's extreme elose-ups, is then eut baek to the wide shot whieh is much darker than the beauty shot of Ann. Here is an example of Alton violadng the norm of smooth lighdng transidons, in which he shifts lighdng from the good girl to femme fatale lighdng beeause she is performing the cold act of murder. There is nodiing unusual about a film switehing from expressive effect lighdng to glamorous figure lighdng when a woman appears onscreen. The unusual thing is that Alton makes no effort to produce a smoodi transidon. A more classical einematographer would shift from a moderately expressive style to a moderately glamorous style, attempdng to get the benefits of both strategies widiout calling undue attendon to the shifl. Alton is never moderate because his style is so intetisely expressive diat the rare glamorous moments stand out as aberradons (Keating 263).

Noir villains are eentral ingredients in the bleak world of Mann's films. Typically, low wide-angle shots provide the visual eorreladve for these psychodc villains. The main villain in Raw Deal, Raymond Burr, is frequendy shot from the waist up, his bulk totally filling the frame, ominously looming over the acdon. In the scene when Rick throws the bowl of fire at the girl we get an unusual reaedon shot of Riek in a close-up with glamour light eonvcndons, most similar to Pat's glamorized femme fatale moments. There is a backlight highlighdng his hair and frontal light that seems difiused, and the background is out of focus. This goes against the norms of criminal lighdng, and the wideangle medium close-ups that made him seem more frightening, and associate this beauty lighdng technique as a means to demonize certain qualides of a character. Raw Deal is the ideal example of the stylistic limits possible in film noir in Hollywood. Raw Deal not only adhered to the eonvcndons of film noir, but it then broke those rules by reversing the gender lighdng. This Hollywood lighdng strategy acts as a tool for auteur direetors and cinematographers who understand the eonventions associated with it; they then can decide to deviate away or towards it as they see fit. I believe that it is this unique ability to artistically convey suspense that makes the film noir style so compelling to certain filmmakers who are interested in the potendal of cinema as an art form. Since "B" film noirs arc just as complex as any other Hollywood film of the dme, I believe that this focus on expressionist lighdng can be the one consistent element that all film noirs rely on to stand out and aesthedeally contrast with the Hollywood "A" pictures they were screened with. This then makes film noir not

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Featurette 03 a genre of HoUywood, but a lighting style of art filmmaking within the Hollywood system.
/END/

T h e Ravv,.<.:al lighting ot John Alton in Hi;>llyvv()ocl Film Noir

Piaex.. Jancy. aitd IXAVCH Pefcrsim. "Siirnc Visual Motifs of FUIT! Noir." Mtm J\''m Header. New York: Limelight Editions, 1979. 6.' 7G. Print.

Works Cited
Alton,Johl). FainliiiiilthLighi. Berkeley: University Cijiiforriia PTSS, !I9.5. Print. Keating, Patrick. Hollytmoii IJgktijigJmni Ifie Sihtl Era II} Fihn.h~tiiy. New Vork: (.oluibia University Press, ?0{0. Prirtt. / Ken; Paul. '"Out of What Fast? Notes on the B I'ilm .Moir." Film .i\hir Rc(uln. New York: LivTicIigb! KditloDs. 1979. 107 128. Priut.

Smith. Robert. "Maim in hc Dark: T h e FinisNinr oi .Anthony .Mann." P'ilm JStrir i^a/Lf: New Vork: IJmdiiht Mitios. 979. 189 202. Prim. /

di)f.;ctor and actor as well as fihn critic. This year he has found success wurkin;; in the NC film industry at EUE/Serccrj (jeiris Studios, as well being east as a stand-in !)n Marvel's iron Man HI aruJ as a featun^d {;xtra in NBC's Rfoohtiim. William idso directed iiussie video.s vvii lire Arri Alcxa, digital i'umera. for two u})-iUid-coiiiiog southern hip-hop artists this summer, arid continues to develop new ajid exeiting projects.

Aathor Biography Wiiliani Frasca is a rece film studies gi'aduate fi'oxn tlie University of North Carolina Wilmington. He hius worked as a projcctioiiist ibr lAiiriinH rheatcr atid IVAS helped lo coordinate .several lilrn festivals ad screenings. I le is an a.spiring young iilrn

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