Underlying Tensions Within The Big HeatEssay Preview: Underlying Tensions Within The Big HeatReport this essay“A tension between placid surface and hidden corruption structures The Big Heat, and the drama deals with a struggle between those forces which try to keep the lid on and those which want to force the hidden violence out into the open” (Tom Gunning). Discuss this claim in relation to the film.
Somebodys going to pay because he forgot to kill me, this was the tagline featured on the poster for Fritz Langs dark film noir classic The Big Heat which establishes the films undercurrents of violence and revenge. The plot places the films lone uncompromising homicide detective Dave Bannion, played by Glen Ford, in direct opposition to a society corrupt at almost every level, ranging from the mob to the police department itself. The films themes of corruption, violence, vengeance and individual struggle are seamlessly expressed through Langs use of economical storytelling, expressionistic lighting, unrelenting performances, costumes and use of set and dйcor.
The Big Heat takes its place amongst a plethora of contemporary films dealing in similar concepts of widespread social corruption, focusing especially on the prevalence of organized crime in America, from the smallest of towns to the greatest metropoliss. Notable films include The Enforcer from 1951, Robert Wises The Captive City (1952), Phil Karlsons Kansas City Confidential and The Phenix City (1952 and 1955 respectively), Joseph
Lewis The Big Combo (1955) and Samuel Fullers Underworld U.S.A. of 1961. The Big Heat from 1953 emerges as the darkest of these films. The historical context the film was produced in is hinted at within the film itself when crime boss Lagana alludes to actual life Mobster Lucky Luciano, fearing his clash with Bannion might lead him toward “the same ditch with the Lucky Lucianos”.
In discussing surfaces in The Big Heat it is important to emphasize the films literal fascination with surfaces, human faces, lighting, locations, etc. Perhaps the scene that the film is best known for is where gangster moll Debby Marsh, played by Gloria Graham, has a pot of boiling hot coffee splashed across her face by the sadistic thug Vince Stone, played by Lee Marvin. The result is that Debbys face is terribly disfigured, a literal destruction of a surface. However, the act actually transforms Debby from a simple bimbo into the films heroine. Her previous character relied on good looks to charm her way into money, her main occupation being shopping. These good looks were merely a surface and deceiving, her inside actually vacant and manipulative. With the destruction of those good looks she is forced to reevaluate herself as a person, which leads her eventually to confront the evil forces she once consorted with.
Vince Stone on the other hand, played by the rather dashing Lee Marvin, is preoccupied with destroying surfaces. The darkness within him boils outward with destructive zeal, first he not only murders Tom Duncans ex-mistress Lucy Chapman after she approaches Bannion, but brutally tortures her by burning her with cigarette buttes. Burning turns out to be Stones favorite form of destruction, he burns a womans hand at a bar with his cigarette and of course, splashes hot coffee on the face Debby. In the end, the situation is equalized when Debby splashes Stones face with hot coffee, thereby forcibly manifesting his inner brutality and ugliness to the surface.
Other surfaces prove to be equally deceptive. Bertha Duncan for example, wife of deceased police sergeant Tom Duncan, is the films desexualized femme fatale. She holds her dead husband in a state of callous disregard and seems only interested in money, wealth and greed. As Lucy Chapman, Tom Duncans mistress, states, “The only difference between me and Bertha Duncan is that I work at being a B-girl and she has a wedding ring and a marriage certificate”. Bertha is visually attached to Lucys murder as after Bannion leaves the Duncan household from his questioning session the scene ends with Bertha looking through the curtains of the window and from there the image dissolves into a detailed report of Lucys murder being printed for both the audience and Bannion to see.
A trend in Film Noir throughout the 50s was to bring it out of the dark alleyways and hidden parts of massive cities it occupied in the 1940s and place it menacingly closer to respectable life . Criminals and corruption is not simply posed in opposition to the law but rather as part and parcel. Lagana controls elections and has the highest echelons of the law enforcement leadership cadre under his pay roll. The costumes worn by the criminals in The Big Heat are generally nice suits of good quality, not shabby trench coats and what not. Lagana is not simply some mindless killer on the loose, neither is his influence restricted to solely the underworld, but rather he controls elections, lives in a luxurious house surrounded by civic authorities of all kinds whom he wines and dines. His home is opulent, seemingly respectable but it really is only his wealth and not his moral character which provides him with such a home. The same goes for Vince Stone, who lives in relative luxury but is indeed a sadistic murderer and criminal. The setting of Stones worst crime makes it even more gruesome, for when he attacks Debby with scalding hot coffee he is not in some seedy brothel or alleyway, but in a swanky, upscale urban home. To make matters worse, the commissioner of police is in the room with him and does absolutely nothing. Stylistically, the things that came to characterize earlier incarnations of Noir are used sparingly in The Big Heat, for example: off-angle compositions, low-key lighting and night-for-night photography.
The Big Heat has a special preoccupation with the family which Jans B. Wagner of Bright Lights Film Journal argues, “the visual style of The Big Heat accentuates the positive characterization of the institution of family, while simultaneously presenting family life as helpless against the forces of evil surrounding it”. Dave Bannions family is portrayed as a peaceful retreat from the outside world, Mrs. Bannion is a supportive housewife who helps him with his steak and beer. The sequences involving the full Bannion family are shot in classical Hollywood style, with minimal, natural shadows in the dining room and kitchen created by high-key lighting, however outside the home the night is impenetrably black, perhaps foreboding something dark . Unfortunately, she is destroyed
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•Jans B. Wagner’s “The Man Without a Gun” was featured in several feature collections of The Big Heat.
Jans B. Wagner’s The Big Heat was produced by M&T’s Television Production and Entertainment Division and also appeared in a number of commercials on The Wire. But it is his writing, not his writing, that makes The Big Heat so unique onscreen. Jans B. Wagner’s stories are based on real-life experiences that occur. Like many of his friends, he has trouble imagining the dark moments with which He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (he doesn’t want to be named) finds himself at the heart of any family drama. Like many people, he has seen, experienced, and felt what is often more distasteful: loneliness, betrayal, and suicide. Jans B. Wagner shares his own stories here.
The first, the most disturbing, story about grief, comes from Jans B. Wagner’s A Little Life, about how he lost his family to a drug overdose in 1989. It can only have been the beginning of an end for him. On the way, his wife, Ann, and two children were trapped inside a broken off home. With heroin running rampant, Ann found herself isolated, trapped, and lonely. Ann found herself with Jans B. Wagner.
On Sept. 4, 1989, Ann and Jans B. Wagner’s parents separated. The young widow had planned a run-down wedding. But the unexpected guests had moved in, and Jans B. Wagner, the younger of two boys, was the one who found her. Though she found refuge under the family’s care, her husband’s actions proved harmful to the family and the children. Ann was left isolated and alone in a dark, abandoned home. The couple tried to recover from this situation and reestablish her relationship to her husband. The first-ever reunion between Jans B. Wagner’s family and Ann and Jans B. Wagner followed a family tragedy, when both became addicted to heroin and were diagnosed with PostTraumatic Stress Disorder. Ann Wagner’s mother, Ann, tried to take Jans B. Wagner’s life, but stopped short of her intention.
Jans B. Wagner was the first to express his grief through the letter he wrote to his mother in 1981, with her voice coming up in The Book of the Dead. .
When Ann Wagner was a young man in 1984, he worked as a salesman. She was married on July 15, 1983, to Paul and Julia (Natalie) Gannon, who was divorced on Oct. 7, 1983. They had two children named William and Harry (Wagner married in 1984), and his wife Julia was the first husband of Mary and Dorothy Wannstedt. The child of a state employee gave birth to their first child when Ann died two years later. The husband of Ann’s stepmother, Charles Wannstedt, was the only child Ann had ever spoken with in her lifetime.
This novel told by J