Out of the Past

"It is a mistake to think that the past is dead."
-Will Durant

Cigarettes and fedoras are staples of film noir, with hardly a moment going by featuring a lack of smoking. Arguably no man (save for Humphrey Bogart) is responsible for this more than Robert Mitchum. "Out of the Past" was one of Mitchum's first successes (and probably the one with the most cigarettes). Film noir is the epitome of surrealism, best exemplified by the far-fetched dialogue (and gratuitous cigarette smoke) so prevalent in its films. Even the simplest--and perhaps silliest--of lines is beautifully yet toughly executed by Mitchum.

"Something the matter?" someone asks.

"Maybe not," is his terse reply. I can't think of many actors who could deliver a line like that.

Robert Mitchum was probably the most uniquely handsome Hollywood figure aside from Marlon Brando. Here he plays Jeff Bailey, "a detective," he dismissively calls himself. Like many noir films, there's a fairly complicated plot, beginning with Bailey's past finding him away from his private eye life where he owns a gasoline station. Martin Amis once remarked that the past was another country. That's sort of how it feels to the viewer, augmented by those dark shadows. The shadows only become omnipresent once Bailey is pulled away from his rural gasoline station and back into urban jungles. Whit Sterling, played by Kirk Douglas, is our villain, and he summons Bailey for a meeting. Douglas' screen persona equals Mitchum's, and the two duel with a tense game of tennis rhetoric. Mitchum was one of those rare actors who could exude vulnerability and machoism simultaneously--he has a line where he mentions a character being a "leaf that blows me from one gutter to another," and while I have no idea what that actually means, it sounds quite cool coming from him. And Douglas is one of the few actors who can demonstrate hospitality masking his real power.

This is arguably the most beautifully shot of the genre. With that being said, frankly, "Out of the Past" is not quite as good as "Chinatown," "Double Indemnity," "The Maltese Falcon," or "Kiss Me Deadly." But when folks think of film noir, this film often pops into their head. Why shouldn't it? Its influence continues. I couldn't help but notice an obvious connection between this film and HBO's terrific "True Detective." A perfect example of neo-noir, the machoism of Woody Harrelson's character and the cigarette smoke and demeanor of Matthew McConaughey's has its roots in "Out of the Past." Incidentally, both "Out of the Past" and "True Detective" are exhibited in a world of characters concerned about and haunted by the past. In a somewhat famous study about the happiness of older people, researchers found that older participants in the study tended to remember the positive pictures rather than the negative ones. I wondered if the same conclusions could be drawn if the participants were shown their own pictures of their own past. My point is that I believe our memory has a unique ability to remember the best and forget the worst. Currently, my own thoughts of a dreadful vacation six months ago have slowly evolved into more positive perceptions. But this cannot be so of Rust, Marty and Jeff Bailey. The past is a strange, haunted foreign country that should be avoided.

When people think of film noir, the image that likely pops into their heads is Mitchum, cigarette in mouth and fedora on his head, moving about in the shadows. After Mitchum knocks out a guy, he finds the briefcase he's been after, but then picks up the guy's lighter and uses it. Classic Mitchum. He "talks big," as another character says. Talking big in a big, dark movie. Classic Mitchum.