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There has been ongoing controversy about whether or not Orson Welles’ “The Lady from Shanghai” filmed in 1948 fulfils the requirements of the film noir genre. ... However as a film noir film, “The Lady from Shanghai” is a failure due to strange comical twitches, overplayed scenes and a lack of narrative closure for the audience. ... From Elsa and Michael O’Hara’s first meeting we learn that she is a white Russian born in Chifu, China where she worked as a high-class prostitute. ... “I worked there… How do you rate Shanghai? I worked there too…You need more than luck in Shanghai.” Elsa uses her sexuality and desirability to lure Michael into her evil plot and plans to frame him when she kills her husband who is physically impotent from the waist down. ... Although she seems to be truly in love with Michael, she sacrifices this love in order to save herself and break free from her tortured marriage. “She recognizes the badness of the world, but she does not recognise that while one cannot escape from the badness or defeat it, one also cannot embrace it”
The next film noir characteristic that “The Lady from Shanghai” fulfils is that of the morally ambiguous hero, Michael O’Hara who plays the role of investigating and solving the puzzle in the film but also claims to have killed a man and been to jail for it so he is morally ambiguous. ... O’Hara fulfils the role of the ambiguous hero in the way that he recognises the trouble he is getting himself in yet fails to remove himself from the situation. ...
Another way in which “Lady from Shanghai” fulfils the requirements of film noir is through night-for-night on location shoots and urban settings to create high contrast lighting shots and also because it was cost-effective, especially after the war.
Approximate Word count = 1418
Approximate Pages = 5.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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