White Heat :: essays papers

white-hot HeatWhite Heat clearly belongs in spite of appearance Shatzs category of genres of assure.How far do you agree with this statement?This is an exiting essay to write for a number of reasons. For one itis an honour to follow in the footsteps of Raul Walsh understanding themotivations that brought him to localize White Heat in the way he did it.For another reason is wonderful having the possibility to list itthrough the Shatzs module that can describe perfectly every aspect ofa selected movie. Because it is essentially a narrative system, a filmgenre can be examined in terms of its radical structuralcomponents plot, character, setting, thematics and so on. Shatzdivided Hollywood film genres in two main categories, these aredistinguished by completely different characteristics. As he saidEach genre represents a distinct problem-solving strategy thatrepeatedly addresses basic cultural contradictions (Shatz, 1948 34).He defined certain genres like screwball comedy, family melodrama, melodic and so on as rites of integration. Those films are centred upona doubled or collective her o set into a civilised space, the mainproblems are stirred up and the resolution is always by love. Othergenres centred on an individual male such as Western, rabblester,detective, etc. appertain to the genre of order category. Theprotagonist (individual male) is the rivet of dramatic conflictswithin a setting of contested, ideologically instable space. Conflictswithin these genres are externalised, translated into violence, andusually resolved through the elimination of some threat to the socialorder (Shatz, 1948 34). At the end of the film the protagonistalways leaves the contested space either by his departure or death andhe always maintains his individuality and he doesnt learn about valuesand lifestyle of the community. The principal thematics within thisgenre are the mediation-redemption, the male macho code, isolatedself-reliance and utopia-as-promise. White He at is a classic gangsterand was directed, as I said, by Raul Walsh in 1949. It stands at thecrux between the 1930s gangster movies and the post state of war film noir. Theplot is briefly this James Cagney plays Cody Jarrett, a psychotic whodreams of being on top of the world. Inadvertently leaving cluesbehind after a railroad heist, Jarrett becomes the target of federalagents, which send an undercover agent (OBrien) to infiltrate theJarrett gang. While Cody sits in prison on a deliberately trumped-up tuition (he confesses to one crime to provide him an alibi for therailroad robbery), he befriends Fallon (OBrien), who poses as ahero-worshipping hood whos always wanted to work with Jarrett. Bustingout of prison with Fallon, Jarrett regroups his gang to mastermind a