Gilda, made in 1946 by Charles Vidor, is an unusual film (to say the least), when placed in the broader contexts of the studio system and the typical features produced at that time, including the already “deviant” film noir.
Title
The film is called Gilda, using a woman’s name, though the plot centers on a man, Johnny (Gleen Ford), and his radical conversion, a process that consistently erases Gilda’s subjectivity and independence as an agent, turning her into an objectifed image.
Cinema of Excess
Throughout the film there are manifest and latent excesses in the narrative, characterization, and visual style.
Consider:
Sado-Masochism:
Johnny marries the presumably widowed Gilda in order to punish her, but in the process, he also punishes himself.
Mundson is depicted as dead several times–until he finally shows up at the end. It’s sort of an apocalyptic death and then resurrection.
There’s a blatantly erotic depiction of male bonding. (see my article about gay reading).
Cane/Sword/Penis?
Mundson’s eroticized attachment to his cane/sword, which he calls “my little friend” (is he also describing his penis?).
Mundson offers a toast to “the three of us,” but it’s unclear exactly who are the members of the trio. Could it be Mundson, Johnny, and his “little friend.”
At several points, the unsheathed sword is rising upward, from the waist up at a suggestive 45 degrees!
Why is Johnny so often seen on the floor (first scene), seated below and beneath the other figures, who often looks down on him–is he an inferior sort of man who needs to reclaim his measure of masculinity?
There’s also excess in the level of arousing the viewers to a spectatorship of heightened excitement, rooting for the characters’ already established positions of submission to be further humiliated?
There’s excess in the opulence of the sets and costumes (especially Gilda’s), a shimmering light and expressive darkness.
Note the intimate yet aggressive movements of the camera, and the contrived sonority of the soundtrack.
Compromised Happy Ending?
The happy ending allows Gilda to reclaim her basic, inherent goodness, and it permits Johnny to return to the mode of healthy and normal heterosexuality.
As the film is set in Argentine, the ending of “let’s go home,” reaffirms sort of patriotism in the post-WWII era. The message: There’s no place like (American) home.
The conclusion also reaffirms the viability of corporate capitalism. It suggests the restoration of justice and the authority of the law, and the wise orderliness of the middle class, which does not tolerate promiscuus women like Gilda, and boyish men like Johnny.
