Male and female gender roles in brick (film noir)

FILM NOIR GCSE COUSEWORK.

Essay question:

Analyse and contrast the construction of male and female gender roles in brick. In your answer you should consider how lighting camera work, editing costume, props, sound and other techniques are used to construct the male and female characteristics. You should refer to film noir character types.

Film noir is very hard to define, however there are many characteristics that all film noir films share; low key lighting and detached shadows; the male protagonist is 'morally ambiguous' and is also known as the anti hero as he challenges the normal Hollywood hero conventions; and the film is set in the suburbs of an American city. e.g. - Los Angeles. The time that film noir was most popular was from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.The term film noir literally means- film Black this refers to the dark mood of the films and also the low key lighting makes it look darker. In the time when most films were black and white. However the are new modern day films (in colour) that carry the film noir conventions, this is called neo-noir.

From the early 1940s to the late 1950s when film noir was most popular during the first world war had just ended. This affected a lot of things as in TV, art, literature and most of all the film industry. After the war people had a much more pessimistic view of life, hence the dark and slightly depressing mood of film noir.

The film noir character types we also very much influenced by the events before film noir. The main character (which was always male) was usually a war-veteran. Typically the Anti- hero is a private investigator(the private eye). He is cynical, pessimistic, smart, loner/ outsider. He is also very morally ambiguous as the whole film is about him investigating a case; that largely involves the femme fatal.

The femme fatal literally means- Deadly women. She is cunning, devious, alluring and very seductive; which was completely different and challenging to the conventional women and the female gender role. She is always very attractive to the anti hero, sometimes with her money or her irresistible looks. She is usually the downfall of the male protagonist. The femme fatal was very much influenced by the war; because when the men came back from fighting the war, the women were looking after things and doing all of the jobs that the men were meant to be doing they gained an independence that they had never had before. The men felt intimidated and so the femme fetal is a product of these male anxiety about what women would become. I think that this portrays women in a very negative way.

However what the femme fatal lacks in innocence the girl next door has in bucket loads. The girl next door is a sweet innocent and kind women with all the qualities of the conventional Hollywood sweetheart. She is a stay at home kind of girl and is basically the complete opposite of the femme fatal. She is meant to be the ideal women and wife. The anti hero usually falls in love with her as well and has to make a choice between her and the femme fatal. There are other characters that play smaller roles including the thugs ...

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Brick is neo-noir film, as it contains a lot of the classic film noir characteristics but is a modern day film.

It starts with Brendan Fyre(male protagonist) looking at the dead body of Emily Kostich, his ex-girlfriend, lying at the bottom of a bridge.

A few days earlier, after attending high school(unnamed). Brendan gets a phone call from Emily, who he hasn't spoken to for 2 months after falling out. She says things that Brendan doesn't understand like brick, tug and pin. Brendan thinks she is asking for his help but after meeting with her she says that she doesn't want his help. Unknown to Brendan that was their last meeting together as soon after he finds Emily's dead body.

Brendan decides to in decides the earth of the girls that he loved, with his only friend brain (a smart, quick tonged guy) by his side. He discovers a complicated and convoluted plot. It brings up many faces form the past like Kara (a glamorous actor); Dode (a druggy) and new like Laura (dangerous and alluring); Tug (a quick tempered drug dealer/ Druggy); The Pin (a notorious drug dealer).And it seems the only way for Brendan to get information is to get on he inside; and dragged back into the world he hated an tried so hard to break free from.

Brick sticks to many of the classical film noir characteristics, like having a male protagonist (Brendan) that is very much anti-hero, however Brendan is a teenager that goes to high school. The fact that all of the characters go to high school which does not stick to film noir. Brendan and all of the characters speak like people did in early 1940s to late 1950s when film noir was most popular. Even though this makes the film more recognizable as film noir, it makes the film low modality. The fact that even though the film has a much needed femme fatal it does not have one it has two.

Brendan is a loner; which is very much how the anti hero should be. He always wears a plain jacket which makes him hunched over. This is like his protection to cover himself and isolate himself from people. There many times in the film that you see Brendan going somewhere just hunched walking by himself. In a way I think that he wears the same plain clothes throughout the whole film and lets the people around him determine the way that he acts. He's like a chameleon; he lets his surroundings determine the way he acts. For example when he is with the pin he acts smart and tries to outwit him and when he is with tug he acts tough. Every time we see him with a different person we see a new aspect of his personality. This fits with the classic male protagonist because that makes him quite ambiguous and unpredictable because it seems like he doesn’t have a fixed personality.

On the contrary, Laura who is very manipulative, makes the people around her change to suit her. She determines the mood of the the people in the room by what she says what she does and even what she wears. She especially manipulates all the men around her;tug, pin and brad. Even though she tries her utmost to manipulate Brendan as well and she almost does, but in the end he does see past her. Kara is like laura in many ways; as she manipulates the people around her to get what she wants.

I think that this has very much to do with the time that is was made; Back then women couldn't do anything for themselves because of their gender roles. They had no power in society/government/business; they were told that the way they should behave is to stay at home and be a good wife. I think that many women accepted this for a long time. However after the war (as I said before) they had this new found independence. They waned more from life and wanted to be their own person as they had done during the war; but the gender roles were still there. So they had to manipulate the men into doing what they wanted because that was the only way to get it. However these femme fatal's are a very exaggerated versions of the truth. They fears of how women would become if they had this independence. So this reflects male anxieties of the directors.

In my opinion, I think that film noir portrays females in a negative way because there are only two types of women femme fatal and girl next door, Kara, Laura and Emily. Kara and Laura are the typical femme fatal’s but Laura is not the normal girl next door. She is innocent like the girl next door because taking the drugs was an accident but she still does many bad things that are not at all like the femme fetal. So we have these three extremes and no part’s in the middle. In contrast, there are many different types of men.

The Pin is the notorious bad guy, he is crippled because on of his legs is shorter than the other. I think that this adds to the whole weirdness. He is the Boss of all the things that are happening. He tries very hard to always appear really powerful and strong; but underneath the facade there all is not as it seems. In one of the scenes were he is trying to impress Brendan and takes him somewhere to talk we think that it is going to be some big impressive place. In truth it’s his mum’s kitchen where she is asking Brendan if he wants apple of orange juice. This is meant to be a joke, but they are also trying to show that the Pin is not all that he is cracked up to be. It seems that every time in the film he builds himself up to someone we are all scared something happens to make us not take him seriously. He also can not control Tug which he is meant to be in charge of.

Tug is an out of control, listen to none, smash everything up kind of guy and is the perfect sidekick' for The Pin; The Pin is the Brains and Tug is the Brawn. However sometimes you don't know who is more in control The Pin or tug. And at the end Tug loses his temper going into a rage and kills The Pin. It seems that the only person that can control him is laura (as she can control everyone- except Brendan)

Overall, I feel that the male gender roles in brick are much more varied hat the female gender roles as they have a wide variety of different male characters and those varied characters have varied personalties, because we get to see their positive, negative and mutual sides. However for the women in brick it is the opposite as we only see the negative femme fatal and the girl net door; which is not a wide range compared to the males in brick. Its just good and bad, black or white, but no grey areas.

We can see this demonstrated in some specific scenes. Like at the start of the film when Brendan first talks to Laura. When he first sets eyes on her in the party scene he is singing a song while playing the piano. There is a part in the song where she says “we we rule the world the sun and I”. I think that this sums up Laura's motives perfectly- to rule the world; or to rule everything around her. As mentioned before she always dominates the room she is in by influencing the people she I around. So, the fist time that she see's Brendan she thinks that he can be a new subject to her, or another person that she can control.

She is wearing a red dress. The connotations of red are fire, love and danger; which are all things that she represents. It a Chinese red dress, which makes it exotic and makes her stand out from everyone at the party. It also has a slit down the side which makes it seductive. In contrast she has a deep pink flower I her hair which represents a whole new side of her, soft and gentle, a side which we don't get to see a lot of.

Later on when she goes to approach Brendan upstairs, he is drinking and she looks at his through a distorted glass through a door. This means that when Brendan looks at her she is also distorted and unclear. When they are talking later there is a shot of her looking left towards Brendan with a fire behind her. I think that this shows the fire within her heart and her fiery personality.

I think that she is clearly attracted to Brendan and is always trying to subtly get him to fall for her but he is not falling for it, he seems like the only person who see's through her.

On the contrary to Laura's fiery personality is Emily's timed and shy one. In the whole film she is the only one in the whole film which Brendan has really ever trusted or opened up too. We see this in the flash back scene; where Emily tells Brendan that she is leaving him and he can not believe it . That is one of the only times in the whole film where he is not wearing his Jacket or hunched over, also his hair has been pulled back from his face; his t-shirt is pristine white and he looks relaxed. We never see him look like this with anyone else in the whole film. Not with Kara, Laura, the Pin or even his friend Brain.

Though even though Emily is meant to be the most innocent out of all the girls, she is still not that innocent. In the end we find out the she has been involved in drugs, slept with Brendan (while they were in a relationship); Dode (after dumping Brendan) and Tug (while she was with Dode). Which takes me back to my point before, that the women in this film are portrayed in a negative light. I think that Emily is not the typical innocent teenager but a lot of modern day teenagers can relate to her, because at the end of the day she just got caught up in the wrong crowd. Which makes that part high modality. However, I don't think that she would be classed as typical film noir character.

In conclusion I think that there is a large contrast between the male and female gender roles in Brick. Even though it does engage very well with the film noir character types Brick does differ to it slightly. I think that because it is low modality it makes it engage with film noir; like the way the use old fashion phones and talk the way that people spoke in traditional film noir.

Although I do think that it does portray women in a negative light, I can see where these ideas originated from.