Devil in a Blue Dress

Devil in a Blue Dress

v     Introduction

·         Devil in a Blue Dress is a film which goes back to the year 1948 with color. The protagonist Ezekiel Rawlins (Easy), an African-American veteran, finds himself unemployed after he is fired from his job for racial issues. In his attempt to make some money to pay for his mortgage and bills, Easy accepts a task to what it seems to be a simple searching for a “white” woman named Daphne Monet.

v     Traditional noir

·         Voice-over narration: Easy is the character that drives the narrative forward and also the voice that tells the story.

·         Story-line based in a war veteran: As Easy narrates in two different scenes in the film:

§         “I first came out to Los Angeles…when I got home from the war in Europe with $300 in my pocket and the G.I. bill”

§         I had seen dead bodies before. Cold, hard, still as concrete. Their eyes wide open, staring up at nothing…”

·         Ambiguous protagonist: Even though Easy knows his job as a detective it does not look correct, he accepts it by the need for money. As same as Walter in Double Indemnity (1944) when he accepts to do some illegal modifications to Mr. Dietrichson's insurance to later have his part of the policy’s money. Moreover, even though Easy is confronting different situations that are telling him that everything is going wrong, like Coretta’s and Richard’s McGee murders, he continues his searching for Daphne.

·         Overwhelming situations:

§         He is driving in a white neighborhood, with a white woman in the middle of the night which it is a dangerous situation for a black man because of the anxiety racism in the late '40s.

§         Easy has less than 24 hours to find a culprit for the two murders, Coretta and McGee, otherwise he will be charged for them even though his innocence.

v     The film noir is updated to neo noir:

·         It is not just updated with color to the film images but also to the characters. As David Ansen and Tara Weingarten mention in their article “The Neo-Noir '90s” that “film noir was only with Anglo characters and from their point of view” (71). Neo noir in this film updates such concept, where the African-American is the race that prevails in the film as well as the issues that are this film confronts belong to the black community.

§         The role of the detective is play by a black character: Easy

§         Daphne is a mulatto and in some way she is rejected by both of her communities: black and white.

·         Femme fatale, Daphne Monet, she is not the classic or modern femme fatal that kill because of her awful thoughts. If she does it, it is because is way to protect herself from the wrapped world which has taboos about her origin.

·         Film with a story-line based in late '40s and produce in the year of 1995 which deal with the anxieties of both periods: racism.

v     Sex and Violence

·         The sex and violence elements were kind of taboo in the era of film noir. Although, they were part of classic noir, they were not explicit as the way they are in neo noir. In the article “The Dark Past Keeps Returning: Gender Themes in Neo-Noir” Heather Fireman notes that “the Production Code allows filmmakers in the era of ‘40s and ‘50s to show on-screen murder or  extramarital activities if they were castigate” Something that the neo noir filmmakers do not need to deal with.

§         Although Devil in a Blue Dress it has only one scene about sex between Easy and Coretta, this scene is explicit.

§         When Easy enters into the room, to be interrogated about Coretta’s murder in the police station, one of the walls has blood on it letting the audience know that something else besides interviews have been taking place there. This suggestion is proved when Easy is literally beaten by one of the cops.

§         Mouse appears in his first scene pointing out Frank Green’s head with a gun when he (Frank) literally is cutting Easy’s neck. Easy tries to talk to Frank about Daphne, but he does not obtain any answer from him. And all of a sudden Mouse shoots Frank in his shoulder.