Mirrors: Two More Examples

Written on the Wind

Directed by Douglas Sirk

(1956)

Robert Stack is the spoiled son of an oil baron. Rock Hudson, his childhood friend, has gone up the ladder with his hard work. They meet Lauren Bacall, who works in the New York office of their oil company. Robert Stack falls in love with her and later he marries her. Robert Stack takes her to a hotel in Miami Beach. As they arrive, he takes Lauren Bacall to show her the suite he has rented and filled with clothes, purses, and perfumes. The move is to show off his wealth and power.

This shot shows them arriving at the vanity table with several perfume bottles, leaving no space for anything else. The vanity table, signs of a shallow lifestyle and character, and the mirror separate them. Stack's face displays confidence and pleasure, but Bacall's face does not show she has been impressed by what has been shown to her. On the contrary, she betrays doubt, questioning the meaning of Stack's action. We should note Sirk's subtlety in placing Stack within the frame. The mirror reflects a part of him as if Bacall faces two different persons or a person with broken a personality.

A love triangle starts to form.

We also see the reflection of Hudson in the mirror; unlike Stack, his reflection is complete. In a sense, Hudson has been positioned in between Stack and Bacall. He is far and not entangled in Stack’s charade. Stack and Bacall wear suits with shades of gray; their color harmony is broken by the vanity table and Hudson's brown suit. 

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In a Lonely Place

Directed by Nicholas Ray

(1950)

The first image of the movie in the title sequence is the reflection of Humphrey Bogart’s eyes in the rearview mirror of the car he is driving. As we later learn, Bogart plays a screenwriter with a dual personality, a violent one who often finds a way out to destroy what his kind side of character has built. 

Here, Nicholas Ray emphasizes his split personality at the very beginning. We only see his eyes and nose, implying his fractured personality and a strong sense of paranoia, separated from the remains of his face. Ray intelligently uses the frame of the windshield-some of the older cars had a metal frame splitting the windshield to two halves-to further cut through of what see of his face.

Eyes without a face, fragmentation of a character

One of the themes developed in post-WWII film noir was the impact of the war on people returning from the fronts. What is, these days called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is known as Shell Shock. Violence, paranoia, and depression were among the presentations. With the reference that Bogart and the police officer both were at war, suggests individual’s response to the stress of conflict is different, Bogart comes back heavily affected, but the police officer maintains a normal behavior. 

—Naser Mojtahed

Written on the Wind can be streamed online: Look for it on many streaming services such as Amazon Prime, AppleTV, and Criterion Collection.

In a Lonely Place can be streamed online: Look for it on many streaming services such as Amazon Prime, AppleTV, and Criterion Collection.