The Lady from Shanghai Film Review

Notebook #2 Crazy house in the film "The Lady from Shanghai"

Linting Cai

Jan.21

In the last scene of the film "The Lady from Shanghai", there are only three characters alive in the crazy house. All of the truth underneath now comes out. The voice-over narration reveals the answer to the puzzle-within-a-puzzle: Grisby killed Broome to make him shut up. For the same reason, Elsa killed Grisby. Michael is not an innocent participant seeking clues anymore, but more like an observer who has known the big story, waiting for things to happen. In the previous part of film, Michael is living at present, which means all the events occur as time goes by. His narration is remarkably unrevealing and reserved. However, when the film comes to this scene, this story becomes Michael's memory and thus, the story is exactly a recurrence.

As the camera positions switch from the open-air fairground to inside, Michael is standing in a little chamber of darkness. The dim light is consistent with Michael's mood. He used to admire Elsa, a wealthy, blonde beauty. However, the fact he found out that she is the biggest deceiver and murderer breaks him down. The audience feels desperate and mysterious under such lighting, as even the shadows are thick and ambiguous. Everyone no matter in camera or not is holding his breath now. Eventually, the femme fatale Elsa appears from backlighting. Unlike "a romantic heroine with a halo effect"(The ‘Grammar' of Television and Film), she is definitely a dangerous cold beauty this time, showing her cold back to the audience. With the harsh light, the camera quickly cuts to a medium shot of Michael, which indicates the distance between the two characters. Why it is Elsa shines her flashlight but not Michael? What if she lit up a candle generating soft light? Why did the director exaggerate such black-and-white contrast? Isn't this a metaphor that Michael is innocent while Elsa is guilty?

If we think deeply, we can probably understand that Orson Welles wouldn't make light for no reason in this typical noir.

With the light becoming brighter, suddenly, the camera cuts to a worm's eye angle