Written for various prompts in and out of my Cinema classes at John Brown this past semester, these reviews/analyses seemed to warrant inclusion here.
I need to watch “Touch of Evil” again. I found myself completely unprepared for, and confused, by Orson Welles’ directing style, and consequently drew a blank on much of the first twenty minutes.
Once my wits were about me, though, I did indeed notice more of cinematographer Russell Metty’s style, and Welles’ careful framing of each individual character. This is a very deliberately shot film, and I took a surprisingly deep satisfaction in admiring the constant compositional balance, even in the face of some really bizarre camera angles.
Interesting, isn’t it, how more unorthodox methods of framing like the “Dutch tilt” are more frequently used as the mental state of the villainous Hank Quinlan becomes progressively more precarious? This gives the final, climactic scene a disturbingly dream-like (nightmarish, if you will) quality, and serves to suggest Quinlan’s drunken state of rage.
Ironically, it also increased my sympathy for Quinlan in his final moments. His (and our) sense of reality is by that point so corrupted that his death seems like more of an act of mercy than retribution. Notice, also, how his character’s “native” camera angle changes suddenly and drastically. Before, shots of Quinlan had been predominantly low-angle, emphasizing his bullish stubbornness and headstrong determination to solve things his way. This made the shot of Quinlan under the mounted bull-head at Tana’s place even more surreal, and unexpectedly hilarious. After he is shot, however, we look down on Hank from the “high road” that his partner finally chose to take by taking action against him. The huge man that seemed to radiate so much physical threat before now seems powerless and pathetic. Welles also tosses in, for good measure, Menzies’ dead hand, its index finger oddly and tellingly outstretched towards Quinlan as it drips lifeblood onto his own hand. This, of course, proves too much for poor Hank. Who knows what this guy was like before he lost his way.
As for Miguel Vargas (I didn’t buy Charlton Heston as a Mexican, by the way), he always seems to be located at the vertices of lines of linear perspective, placed carefully atop the vanishing points at the ends of corridors or objects. He is perpetually moving towards them, striving towards a goal, or away from them, as if determined to escape some impending fate. Sounds fitting for him, if you ask me.
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