The Maltese Falcon (1941) is a film directed by John Hunston. In the film, a private detective named Sam Spade’s partner gets murdered and a woman, Ruth Wonderly, shows up needing his help to find a falcon statue. Spade meets a variety of characters all with the same motive of acquiring the falcon statue. This films use of a classical opening and closing, the way it develops its characters, the omniscience of the narrator, and causal linearity combined with the continuity editing system define this film as an example of classical Hollywood cinema.
The opening of the Maltese Falcon represents the exposition used in Classical Hollywood (Bordwell). It begins by displaying a prologue explaining what the Maltese Falcon is. It then introduces when …show more content…
In the Maltese Falcon, Spade is kept from a lot of elements of the plot even though the audience is introduced to them relatively early. For example, we find out Miles was killed prior to Spade and that Cairo is working for Gutman. The normal structure of the narrator omniscience is violated in this film at times by virtue of being a crime film. A crime film must have a plot of “increasing mystery, and often ambiguous resolution” (Corrigan and White). To satisfy this, the audience could not be completely omniscient or this would have ruined the mystery need in the film.
The conclusion of the Maltese Falcon also represents a classical Hollywood closing by ending all the major plot lines. At the end, it is revealed that Spade was working with the police, he gives them the money he got, he tells the police the location of Wilmer Cook, Cairo, and Gutman, and also turns in Wonderly for her murder of his partner Miles. Although we never see the ending fate of Cook, Cairo, and Gutman, we are left to assume that they are eventually caught and tried. A Classical Hollywood conclusion has a tendency to leave out minor plot lines in its conclusion of the narrative
The opening of the Maltese Falcon represents the exposition used in Classical Hollywood (Bordwell). It begins by displaying a prologue explaining what the Maltese Falcon is. It then introduces when …show more content…
In the Maltese Falcon, Spade is kept from a lot of elements of the plot even though the audience is introduced to them relatively early. For example, we find out Miles was killed prior to Spade and that Cairo is working for Gutman. The normal structure of the narrator omniscience is violated in this film at times by virtue of being a crime film. A crime film must have a plot of “increasing mystery, and often ambiguous resolution” (Corrigan and White). To satisfy this, the audience could not be completely omniscient or this would have ruined the mystery need in the film.
The conclusion of the Maltese Falcon also represents a classical Hollywood closing by ending all the major plot lines. At the end, it is revealed that Spade was working with the police, he gives them the money he got, he tells the police the location of Wilmer Cook, Cairo, and Gutman, and also turns in Wonderly for her murder of his partner Miles. Although we never see the ending fate of Cook, Cairo, and Gutman, we are left to assume that they are eventually caught and tried. A Classical Hollywood conclusion has a tendency to leave out minor plot lines in its conclusion of the narrative