Goodbye, Laura. Goodbye, my love.
The film Laura, starts off as a "whodunit" murder case with Detective Mark McPherson investigating the murder of Laura Hunt. All the of the suspects in the case are shady in their own way, some of whom being affectionately involved with her. Everyone seems to love her and even McPherson starts to fall in love with her without ever having met her. However, the story takes a huge twist when Laura all of a sudden shows up alive. We find that it was a model who was actually murdered and then the search for the murderer continues with Laura being more heavily involved.
I felt it was this twist that changed the feeling of the movie. It went from being a murder movie to something more of a romance. The murder is still involved but seeing as it's now someone else's death rather than Laura's, the film turns away from it keeping more of the focus on Laura herself. Everyone is trying to win Laura over in their own way, some trying to "protect" her from the law, while others trying to place the blame on someone else. Even McPherson jumps in, seemingly trying to win her over while working on the case.
Moving from the murder to Laura's personal life, she always seems to just do what she wants. Waldo Lydacker, one of the men in love with her, always tells her what she should do. To some extent, she just seems to do the opposite out of spite. She does similar things every time someone tells her to do something, like when McPherson tells her to not call or leave. She wants to do what she wants and directly not what others want. It gets her into trouble sometimes but she continues throughout the entire film without fail.
Laura makes the perfect title for this film because that's exactly what it's about, Laura. At first glance, people might think it's about the murder, or McPherson, or any of the other characters but everything just comes down to Laura. It's her role that makes this movie into what it is and without her, it's just another generic title in this genre of movie.
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I think you're right, once Laura showed up alive the importance of the murder case minimized drastically. I think in a way that shows how high on a pedestal she really was. There was even a party celebrating Laura being alive. The fact that some other girl was dead mattered little.
ReplyDeleteI agree that "Laura" was a perfect title for this movie as well. It wasn't so much about her as a person but the affect she had on the characters (mainly male). Her character defined everyone else in the film.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that you saw Laura as a character that did what she wanted. I would disagree but your examples support your claim. I guess I saw Laura as an indecisive character. I felt that Laura did not truly have a voice of her own, but when you gave these examples it did make me go back and rethink her. Great insight because I always felt her decisions were never her own but a result of being unstable.Perhaps she did what she wanted at times and remained indecisive at other points because the pressure held to much weight of other people's expectations. She possibly did what she wanted to as a way to refute them. I never saw Laura as a true character with a relatable quality until now.
I agree with you about how the whole movie basically changes when Laura shows up. It went from this murder mystery to a romance and when it did I was still caught up in the murder. I wanted to find out what happened with the murder and solve it and it seemed that no one in the movie even cared about it anymore. It was like "oh, Laura's back so what does it matter"; but yet someone had still died. I also like how you mentioned the title of the movie. It's just "Laura" which is a good title seeing that this whole movie is just about her.
ReplyDeleteWhen Laura walked in after being "dead" I was shocked, but found her arrival back into the movie fairly anticlimactic. It was interesting that you thought her presence defined the landscape of the film.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I would agree that the film turns into a romance. For it to be considered a traditional romance I feel that the people involved in the romance would all have to be responsive. We see more of the three men trying to over dominate each other than a courtship between Laura and any of the men.
Some good points in the comments, and I think that Sarah's observations shed some real light on what is a puzzling movie in some ways. I think that sms is also accurate when she says this movie really isn't so much about romance as about the relationships of the three men--largely to each other, and peripherally to Laura.
ReplyDeleteMakre sure you use reading and class concepts in your analysis! You'll be able to go a lot deeper and get more out of it, I think.