——Touch of Evil——

This film is probably one of the most beautifully shot film noirs of all time. The whole thing is like an orgy of wonderful cinematography. Low angle close ups, rich black and white photography, insane tracking shots, perfect compositions, excellent depth of field–Orson Welles uses all of these to construct his surprisingly effective thriller. Don’t get me wrong, this film is a glorified B Movie where the dialog is always two steps behind trying to catch up with the amazing camera work, but Welles’ direction quickly makes you forget about all such things.

After reading all about the opening tracking shot I was intrigued enough to pick up this film, but no matter what you read I don’t think anything could have prepared me for how cool that three and a half minute long shot was. All the camera is doing is following a car down a street, but Welles manipulates this simple premise so much that the whole tone and artistry of the film is revealed to the viewer in one shot. This one shot manages to go from close-ups to long shots and back again with no cutting. The camera swoops behind buildings and into crowds to give you the complete picture of what this rundown town is like. And most interestingly the opening shot, while it kicks off the events of the movie, is actually secondary to the plot of the movie. The movie is not about finding the person who made the car bomb, but about the cover-ups and frame-ups that are revealed from that investigation. Excellent.

This movie must have been extremely influential, because everywhere you turn you can recognize a technique here and there that were used in other later films. For instance, here are two of my favorites:

This suspense thriller feels very Hitchcockian, so much so that at one point I actually thought that Welles was stealing from Psycho. But then I realized Hitchcock was stealing from Touch of Evil. Psycho’s tracking shots, the motel in the middle of nowhere, the weird night clerk of the motel (who you can definitely tell was the basis for Norman Bates), and of course having Janet Leigh as the woman in peril are all very obviously tips of the hat to Touch of Evil. (Psycho came out two years after Touch of Evil.) The directors’ perchance for building up suspense, however, can not be linked to one or the other; I suspect they were both stealing from each other.

Touch of Evil was (I think) the first film to use ambient sounds to make up the soundtrack. Music comes from car radios, pianos, and jukeboxes instead of from some studio source apart from the film world, and when, say, a car drives away the music disappears with it. This obviously was some of the inspiration for George Lucas’ American Graffiti, where the entire premise of the movie was based around a song for each section of the picture, and each song coming from some natural source.

I love the creepy atmosphere of this film. The frequent night shots, the stark shadows, the excellent use of sound, and even the wind blowing in the background helps to elevate the mood of this film to something rarely experienced outside of real life. It’s an eerie mystery where you don’t know who to trust, and the suspense stays all the way to the finish. Although the script could have used a little work, this is still a simply amazing picture, especially when considering that Welles didn’t even want to make it.

(A)