Outline for Final project: Topic B

Outline: Topic B
a) In choosing Topic B, I hope to explore why San Francisco is such an ideal setting for films from the thriller and film noir genre. Vertigo is one of my favorite movies, and I feel that much of the film's thrill and mystique comes from it being set in San Francisco. The city becomes, in some respects, its own character in many of the movies set there.
b) The same themes and tones that are common in thriller and film noir films can be found in the works of Allen Ginsberg (I.e. The idea of Moloch) and some of the essays in Reclaiming San Francisco. While reading the essay about the number of suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge, I couldn't help but think of the attempted suicide scene in “Vertigo” that takes place at the foot of the bridge. Many of the topics in discuss aspects of the city that are represented in the films that I want to discuss.
c) I would like to read some commentary on San Francisco film noir, especially on the films “Vertigo” and “The Maltese Falcon.” I would also like to find out more and develop some ideas about City Lights Bookstore, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Telegraph Hill, as they are all prominently featured in the films that I would like to focus on.
d) The thriller and film noir/ mystery genres find a unique setting in the city of San Francisco. The classic films Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, and Born to Kill all use San Francisco as a unique backdrop to convey the darked, clouded, and mysterious nature of the film noir genre. More modern films such as The Darwin Awards, Interview with a Vampire, and Zodiac also show the mysterious and dangerous tone that the city seems to project.
e) I would like to address a couple of the more idealistic, or at least, brighter representations of the city found in films such as City Lights with Charlie Chaplin, for which City Lights Bookstore is named (I may address this in my footnotes...). I also want to make sure that I don't put too much focus on the plot of the movie, but more on how the plot interacts with and comments on the city itself.

1. The Maltese Falcon:
-the archetypal film noir
-lots of mist (SF climate)
- inability to see clearly, darkness
-representations of the Pacific Rim
-SF as a safe haven for criminals/ people of “questionable morals”
2. Vertigo
-history of SF
-shows the thin idealistic veil thrown over the darker aspects of the city
-SF as a city that plays tricks on your mind
3.Born Killers
-another example of archetypal film noir
-SF as a place where criminals can live comfortably??
4. The Darwin Awards
-City Lights Bookstore
-a humorous representation of the dark and strange
-all the action of the film ends up stemming its action from SF
-home of a serial killer (safe haven for the strange/criminal)
5. Zodiac
-based on true events
-serial killer (again) using SF as his home
Interview with a Vampire
-again, links SF as a safe place for the truly strange and unnatural (this is the city in which Lestat can tell his story/bear his soul)
-connection to Lousiana (New Orleans) as a strange unnatural place with a distinctly European feel
-SF as its own world (contado)
general points:
-Films show SF as the catalyst for their action, city as its own character
-significance of the light, or lack thereof
-The Golden Gate Bridge
-an icon of SF
-SF always shown as a place that people come to not as a place that people naturally inhabit
-people strangely drawn to the city (unnatural feel)