Carnival of Souls and Dark City: A Study of the Horror Noir
Dark alleyways brimming with suspense and possible danger lurking at every turn. Smoke filled rooms with shady characters hidden in shadows. A man or a woman stands alone against a world that at one time they were a part of but are now rubbing against the grain and searching for a sense of belonging or understanding. What is my purpose, who can I trust, where am I going, where have I been or even who am I, are questions asked by these solitary individuals. These are the images conjured up when one thinks of Film Noir, a genre born of French experimentalism and honed to a mastery by filmmakers in the 30’s and 40’s. Throughout the years of cinema the images of Film Noir have crossed over to just about every type of film and sub-genre. Perhaps the best of these films are the horror/noir. Horror and noir fit together like the smooth pieces of a complex puzzle, intertwining, complementing and feeding off each other to create pieces of atmospheric, frightening beauty.
In 1960 director Herk Harvey crafted the masterpiece Carnival of Souls (his only film), and in 1998 director Alex Proyas (The Crow) created a similar masterpiece, Dark City. Both of these films prove to be perfect examples of the marriage between horror and noir, light and dark, the known and the unknown. Although they exhibit subtle differences in style, theme and character, their similarities are much more prevalent. In both of these films we are introduced to a character who is searching for the truth and for a purpose. Both of these main characters have lost touch with what they thought was reality, and are sinking deeper into the realm of the unknown. But ultimately it is this “realm of the unknown” that ends up being a place of answers, peace and an end to a quest of self-realization.
Narrative and Theme
Herk Harvey ended up being a director of a film way before its time and way before an audience could be appreciative of his work. He says in an interview on the director-approved cut of his film, that he wanted to create something weird, something different. He wanted to mix the images and atmosphere of Kafka, with the suspense of Hitchcock, and that he did. But unbeknownst to him, this type of film had yet to find an audience. People just weren’t ready for films like Carnival of Souls and so it sank from the box office only to reemerge some 24 years later as a truly grand and sought after cult film.
Carnival of Souls is about a young girl named Mary who was the only survivor of a car crash where three of her friends died. After surviving the crash she became distant and out of touch with others, and withdrew herself into her own world. She moved from one small town to another after accepting a job as an organist at a church. While driving to the new town she starts to see things on the road. She sees a number of ghostly men who appear than disappear without a trace. As she enters the town a structure on the horizon captures her attention and soon becomes an obsession.
This structure, she learns, was an old carnival site that has been closed for many years. She and the local minister then take a trip to the old carnival and she finds herself hopelessly drawn to the strange place. After many more haunting images of ghostly men she soon becomes even more aloof and withdrawn finally having a breakdown. She loses her new job and starts to have more horrifying images of zombie like figures dancing at the old carnival. One day she decides to try to leave the town but something keeps her from succeeding. She tries to flee but finds herself completely drawn to the carnival and confronts the strange place and it’s otherworldly inhabitants. It is then we find out that Mary did not survive the car accident. The Mary we know is a lost soul on her journey to her own form of the after life.
The theme of the film is that you cannot escape what is inevitable. No matter how hard Mary tried to escape her future, the fact still stood that she was dead. Even though she was a lost soul and had convinced herself that she was living, nothing she could do would replace what was stolen from her, her life and soul. We to try to fight against what we know is inevitable, but it is a fruitless fight, one that ends in us losing the battle but not always being worse off for having tried to fight.
Dark City is a film full of twisted environments, twisted characters and a twisted narrative. It is the story of a race of aliens who are dying. They retreat to a small planet at the outer most corner of the universe, Earth. Here on Earth they build a city and abduct people to occupy the city, all the while conducting bizarre experiments on the very nature of the human occupants. What they are looking for is a fabled power that some humans may have, a power that might save their race from extinction. Every night at 12am the entire city is magically put to sleep. Everything and everyone just stops, dead in their tracks. It is then that the aliens rearrange the streets, buildings, cars, houses and inner-change the very minds of the people living here.
However one night, one man does not fall asleep. This man is James Murdock. He stays awake and slowly starts to become aware of what is going on. Through the help of a local scientist who is in cahoots with the aliens, James learns of the power he has called the Tuning. This is the power that the aliens were looking for, but together with the scientist, James Murdock uses his power to destroy the aliens. After the destruction of the aliens there comes a moment of final truth: James reaches the furthest region of the city walls and breaks through, only to find that the city they are living in is not on Earth at all but is a huge flying space vessel.
What purposes do we really serve in society? How “real” are things that we have come to believe in? These are the questions asked in Dark City. Because we think something is real, is that not all that is needed to make it real? So if our lives as we think we live them end up becoming nothing more that prefabricated memories and ideas, implanted in our brains, does this make our lives anymore flippant? Maybe we are happier not really knowing what is going on but just living our lives how we see fit. Sometimes the questions we ask and the actions we take, lead us to answers and situations that could utterly destroy us.
Cinematic Style
Both Carnival of Souls and Dark City utilize very similar aspects of cinematic style. Both films are, at their core, studies of Film Noir and how the use of shadows, light and atmosphere can create strange but familiar worlds. Both of these films ask the viewer to use his imagination to fill in the details. Since so much darkness and shadow are used in the films, we are never really truly aware of what is there and what isn’t. Both of these directors utilize this aspect to prey upon our fears of the unknown.
For the most part, these films are very typical of Hollywood films in their use of the 180 and 90-degree rule, and even in their use of editing shots to keep the pace alive and moving. In each of the films there is one scene in particular that stood out and was a departure from the typical Hollywood style. In Carnival of Souls this scene takes place in a vision that Mary has of the carnival. In this scene she sees the ghostly, zombie-like figures participating in a dance. The scene is one long shot and is shot in various speeds to suggest a surreal atmosphere. The camera starts off low to the ground as the figures dance around like in a demented waltz. The camera then starts to pull back and pan up while the figures dance faster and more chaotic. When the camera finally reaches its apex, the frenzy of the dancing subsides and all of the figures turn to face the camera. Without a moments notice they all charge at super fast motion towards the camera leaving our field of view. This scene points at the breaking point in Mary’s mind making it apparent that she has truly lost touch with reality.
In Dark City the scene in question is when James Murdock finally sees what really happens when the rest of the world is locked away in its deep magical sleep. As James watches the city, it truly comes alive. The buildings start to sway and move in a rhythmic fashion. Some of them fade away while others grow to monsterous size. The streets of the city begin to move and slither like snakes rapping around the new buildings and taking there new form. The scene is long and very epic, really showcasing the awesome special effects crafted for the film. The city looks like a highly detailed model and feels like the inner workings of some universal clock as the gears move into position and time and space transpire. It is in this scene that we become aware of the massive undertakings of the alien race. We start to feel for James as we see him, as a man completely out of his element, and who without a miracle stands no chance of survival.
Character
Like in many other Noir films, the characters of these two movies often take the back seat to the dark environments and thick atmosphere. Not to say that they are underdeveloped or thin, but it is this aspect that makes them more believable. In real life there are no true heroes but normal everyday people who do not really stand out. Individuals who live their lives like any other face in the crowd. Both James Murdock and Mary are these “everymen” but they rise against their situations to become extraordinary survivors of extreme circumstance. Because we first see these characters as very normal individuals we become more attached to them when they are thrust into dire situations. We start to identify with them by asking ourselves what we would do in their place. This is the beauty of the Film Noir character, people with whom the audience can identify with on almost every level. James and Mary are not so extraordinary that they defy belief, but it is their normality that pushes them into their position of power.
When James and Mary are forced out of their normal lives, it is then that we see them as special. We see them as figures who were at one time at peace with the world and society but who are now at odds with everything. They were forced out of their element and forced to make rapid decisions that have extreme solutions. This is the romantic side of the characters, our attraction to them and the Film Noir genre. When at first we see them as normal “everymen” we identify with their problems and lives, but then, suddenly, we are caught romanticizing about being in their situations no matter how dangerous or life threatening. And now, even though we see these characters as being special some how, it is still the anchor of normality that keeps us interested, concerned and romanticizing about there well being.
Dominant Ideology and Agreements
Like most movies of this kind, there doesn’t seem to be any one dominant ideology, but more of a conflict between the various ideologies. With Dark City this aspect of clashing ideologies is a little easier to see. The aliens represent a government that has and wants to continue control of every aspect of their subject’s lives. They want to control them financially, socially, and economically and they even want to control what they think about and who they think they are. This issue of control can be seen as a mixture of extreme conservative and social democratic ideals. Because the aliens want to try to preserve their race, by any means possible, they in turn want to preserve their traditions and their own set of ideals and system of agreements. They do this by in acting strict policies of pure government control and special “programs”.
Jack Murdock represents all that the aliens hope to destroy in preserving their race. He is a free thinker. He is one that rubs against the grain and wants to fight this harsh government control. He most definitely reflects a more libertarian ideal and will stop at nothing to see mankind rise above the oppressive government. This idea of totalitarian control over mankind brings up many questions regarding our system of agreements. Often today we have the belief that our careers give us identity. But what if are careers were predestined and chosen for us? Would we still believe them to be so important? The inhabitants of this city are living in a perpetual dream world that seems to be normal to them. The norms of everyday life are recreated every night by the aliens and thus can be changed literally by a flick of a switch. Morals can be tampered with like a computer program and everything they know could become useless at the drop of hat.
In Carnival of Souls the dominant ideology isn’t as easily defined. Mary is most definitely a freethinking individual and is a newly liberated woman of the 60’s. She wants independence to become a meaningful woman in society so much so that she withdraws herself from the world. She too is being oppressed but not by a government or set of ideals, but from a spiritual force that will not let her soul find peace. This spiritual force is ambiguous in nature and therefore frightens Mary. She is fighting against a spiritual belief of the after life. Religious beliefs are often closely tied to moral issues and therefore create the norms a society chooses to follow. Why should Mary’s soul be subject to an afterlife when she may not even believe one exists? Does religion transcend beyond just our own system of agreements? Just because Mary may not believe in religious ideals, does that not make them any less of a reality to her soul? If Mary were to choose not to believe in oxygen would this change the fact that her very life is dependent on the fact that oxygen exists?
Once again we are left with more questions than answers. Like any really important film, these two movies ask the audience to question the very makeup of their lives. It is films such as these that impact us for a longer period of time than just the ninety or so minutes of screen time.
