This is it, the classic of classics, one of the defining films of the noir genre, Out of the Past brought Robert Mitchum to fame and brought about the noir genre, dark thrillers where people smoked ridiculous amounts of cigarettes and the femme fatale characters started to come to fruition. Out of the Past doesn’t disappoint as a classic, and reeks wonderfully of dark atmosphere, complicated plot and cynicism.
The film has the archetypal protagonist, a tough talking who is in trouble of some sorts, as well as the two love interests, the nice blonde girl and the femme fatale. Although I haven’t seen any films with Robert Mitchum before, his fame preceded him and I knew quite a bit about him before I saw this. He is, of course, perfect for the role, and helps create the atmosphere of the film. But my favourite character, though, is the villain, played by Kirk Douglas. He is perfect as the sly gentleman like villain who seems as if he will stop at nothing, and while he doesn’t really do much himself, one can always feel his pressing invisible presence, and creates a great role of paranoia and fear. The gritty cinematography is iconic, and it creates a very dense atmosphere that shows the viewer the situation that the character is in. While the protagonist is no saint, he is still very much a character one can identify with, or rather, warm to. This is one of my favourite aspects of the noir genre, because the heroes are usually anti-heroes, and therefore creates an interesting conflict into the persona of the character, very different from the normal Hollywood film of the time. These films explore more deeply the darker side of human nature, and in many ways are more interesting for their somewhat different character development, which rockets their characters through some though struggles.
The ending of the film is also great, and the whole film truly spends a lot of time exploring Mitchum’s character. The ending brings it all together and consolidates his character within a frame, giving us the whole picture of what he and the film were about. I usually find noir films very satisfying to watch, and this was no different. I do love the noir genre, and it therefore becomes quite hard to criticize it. Because Out of the Past is the archetype for noir film, it is really hard to criticize it without criticizing the noir genre. In this way, one could say that Out of the Past is the perfect noir, for better or worse. I might be quite biased here, because of my interest in the noir genre; I also love the look 40’s, which creates a certain nostalgic feeling in me. Not that I ever lived in the 40’s, but I still yearn to, everything about that era is amazing. Well, except the war an all that... Anyway, I’ve seen quite a few noir films, but I think this might be the most impressive of them all, because of the great atmosphere, the plot, and of course the great performances from Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. The mix of the innocent town setting and the dark cityscape is also very intriguing, and creates some very nice contrasts, which has big significance on the characters psyche.
If you want to get into noir, this is perhaps the essential place to start. Everything about this film screams style and class, and it is an archetype for what the noir genre would become known for, particularly the femme fatale character is great, and adds a lot of conflicting emotions in the protagonist. Also see it for Kirk Douglas’ performance.
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