Out of the Past: Murder and Shifting Power Dynamics by Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn Gardner

Professor Sinowitz

Noir, Film, and Novel

October 6, 2017 

 Out of the Past: Murder and Shifting Power Dynamics

“You wouldn’t have killed him. You’ve beaten him up and thrown him out.” In the 1947 film, Out of the Past, the cool and calm detective, Jeff Bailey, is put under the control of the beautiful and dangerous Kathie Moffat. At first they seem to be on equal footing and happy. After Jeff declares his love for Kathie by saying, “Baby I don’t care” the power dynamic begins to switch with Kathie starting to take more power. The moment where we see the power dynamic completely switch however is when Kathie shoots Jeff’s partner, Jack Fisher. Although Jeff was fighting the man, it was Kathy who took his life. It also pulls back the final layer of Kathie’s innocent persona and shows how truly manipulative and ruthless she is. The shifting of the power dynamics showed the shift toward genders being equally considered as the more dominate instead of the man being assumed as the more dominate one. The reveal of Kathie’s true intentions show the shift from the coy female characters of the 1930’s to the femme fatal of the 1940’s, showing that women could be as equally power hungry and manipulative as men.   

At the beginning of the scene, Jeff is looking lovingly down at Kathie admiring her beauty. They seem to be at an equal level both standing on the top step of the house with only their height difference making a difference in their levels. Together, they turn to look down upon Fisher whom is standing at the bottom of the steps. This shows their moral dislike of Fisher and his money hungry ways. He then sits down in a chair, which is backlit by the fireplace. This looks to be symbolic of hell and evil. The contrast of Fisher’s dark clothes with the white of the fire makes it seem as if Fisher is the embodiment of evil.  The cuts  are long and slow and calculated. This presents calmness in the film, which allows the mood of the film to show the tenseness that pervaded the room. Then after Fisher insults Kathie, Jeff begins to fight him descending to his level and fighting begins, the cuts become quick cuts alternating between the back of Jeff and Fisher like each cut is a punch thrown. Kathie leans back against the wall of the cabin remaining uninvolved but not uninterested, she seems to actually be happy this fight is going on and schemeing something. Her facial expressions become more sinister and the audience registers that she is going to do something drastic. 

Kathie reveals how truly diabolical she is in this scene. He true nature is slowly revealed through they use of symbolism in many elements of film. The form of this scene allows the watcher to feel as if they are sitting inside the cabin watching the fight unfold. The medium eye level shots of Kathie make it seem as if we are watching her reactions to the fight as we observe it from the other side of the room. As we glance back and forth from the fight to Kathie we see her change in expression from one of innocence to one of pleasure at seeing these two men fight because of her. The low-key lighting casts shadows onto Kathie’s face showing the good and evil reflected on her. The shadows of the room show the good and evil. Kathie always is partially in the darkness until she shoots Fisher. This shows that she always has a darker side and is ready to throw aside any morals to make sure she leaves the situation unscathed. She breaks her cover as the innocent damsel and distress and shows her power. She is fully in the light her true self revealed. She no longer is fake cowering from Jeff she is matching him in power. Kathie’s emergence from the shadows shows the emergence of women from the archetype of the helpless damsels in distress who were pure to the femme fatal by allowing them to show an evil, intelligent side.

In fact, Kathie also had not only showed she was not only capable of being as powerful and devious as a man but able to take control of situation and be more dominate than a man. There is one particular iris shot that perfectly shows how the power dynamic of the couple switches in result of Kathie murdering Fisher.  This shot is very lyricised as we can tell emotions are running very high and this one still frame conveys the moment that Kathie takes control of Jeff’s lapse in emotion to assert power. The shot occurs when Jeff is in the foreground of the shot kneeling over the body of his dead partner and looking up at Kathie in horror as he fully comprehends for the first time what she is capable of doing. The previous shot showed a close up of Jeff’s face as he realizes that Kathie is, in fact, a killer. He had said before that he did not care but he always had that one piece of hope that she wasn’t truly a killer. Now, he cannot pretend and is forced to face a reality. The iris shot is defined with a black border and all throughout this scene the border has been growing slightly thicker. During the low shot the black border that had been present the whole time makes itself very apparent almost as a dark cloud closing in on the scene framing it to looked even darker. The border seems almost sinister like a dark cloud of depression or toxic fog. Like this black border Kathie brings evil, instability and toxicity to Jeff’s life. Every time she appears it throws Jeff’s life off track from the life he has set up. This further shows the power that she holds over him. Kathie stands menacingly over Jeff in the background with gun in hand and backlit, looking not unlike a fallen angel. The way that she looks down upon him shows that she holds a certain disdain for him and her love may not be true at all. The gun in her hand symbolizes that she emasculated him, because she was willing to do what he couldn’t by permanently getting rid of Fisher.  Kathie makes it clear she would not have let the conflict end in any other way than Fisher’s death and she thinks that Jeff is weak for not thinking the same way as her.

Jeff is only able to stand back up after Kathie leaves him. When her influence is gone from his life he lives on the straight and narrow, running his gas station. However, as soon as she returns his life goes off track. Many people would say that Jeff shooting Kathie at the end of the film proves that she does not have complete control over him. I agree with that, I believe that she has significant control over him; however, the peaceful life that he had lead gave him the strength to defy her. During the scene where Fisher was shot dead Jeff did not have those experiences to draw strength from. Kathie was what he had built his life around at the time so to see that destroyed was a harsh blow and he was left in shock. For this moment Kathie could do whatever she wanted to him, she was in complete control. Kathie’s control of Jeff in this woman points toward an overall shift of the power dynamic from men saving women to women taking matters into their own hands.