The Maltese Falcon is
a complex narrative of crime, mystery, and consequence. Samuel Spade, a detective, becomes involved in a case where he
has to get into other people’s business and use human intuition to figure out
the many intricate characters in the movie. Throughout the movie, I had a hard
time keeping up with who were bad people, who were good people, and all of the different
sub plots involved. While almost every story should involve a main plot and a
subplot, sometimes a viewer can become confused on where to direct their
attention when so many things are happening at once. Crime dramas usually
contain different sub plots to help guide the viewer to figure out who the criminal
is, but they also keep the viewer guessing and questioning. While watching The Maltese Falcon, the main plot and
sub plots seemed to intertwine and there is a hard time trying following every
detail that is going on.
The
main plot in a film involves the main focus in a story. In The Maltese Falcon, the main plot is the quest to find a statuette
of a falcoln that is said to be priceless with expensive jewels and diamonds.
Three criminals and a conniving, dangerous woman all want to find this bird and
bribe Sam Spade to do all he can to bring it to them. Sam Spade, the protagonist,
complicates the main plot because many of his morals and actions do not depict
what we believe to be a “good” detective. He is sly and acts as though he is
working with the criminals to gain money and the multiple women introduced
throughout the movie. I believe that Sam Spade’s motives throw off the main
plot at times because he does not have a moral code and confuses viewers on
whether or not he is actually working with these criminals to gain status and
money, or if he actually wants these criminals prosecuted. Many would believe
as a detective he should be working with the police and not befriending the
criminals, but he has a different way of figuring out who the one to blame is.
Along
with the main plot, there are many different sub plots in the movie that keep
us guessing and even throw off our attention and focus on what we believe to be
true. The sub plots in a story are less significant events, but they help guide
the viewer to the conclusion of the main story. There can be too many sub plots,
which takes away the focus of the story and causes misunderstanding. While all of
the characters in a story should not be static and never changing, it is
sometimes hard to keep up with the many complexities behind who these characters
are and what their point is in the sub plot story. The Maltese Falcon seems to provide many sub plots that confuse audiences
on where the story is headed. An example of a complex sub plot in The Maltese Falcon is when we find out
that Mrs. O’Shaughnessy lied to Sam about her identity, her sister, and
Thursby. This confuses the entire plot because the motive behind Thursby’s
death and behind Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s (now Brigid) reason for wanting him dead
is altered. Brigid confused me with her many sub plots because the density in
her emotions and actions caused me to contradict whether or not she was behind
the criminal actions as well. While many of the sub plots eventually lead to an
overall conclusion, it is hard to keep up with different activities and reactions
that challenge what we first believed.
I
believe that the writer of The Maltese
Falcon added many intricate details in the story to keep the reader/viewer
guessing. This causes mystery and engagement from the audience to see what
happens next. While I think this is a good attribute to have in a detective
narrative, having too many sub plots and complex characters cause confusion and
sloppiness in the way the movie is depicted. Too many things happening at once
is difficult to understand because an action could happen in the blink of an
eye that was important to the overall main plot.
--Allison Emery
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ReplyDeleteThe Maltese Falcon has many different intricate parts to tell the plot. I completely agree that it can be very confusing to keep up with the entire plot.
ReplyDeleteThe many characters with all of their stories is one very good reason as the five main characters each have their own story that is told, but all have one motive: to attain the falcon, all except for Sam Spade. I think the reason for this is to show how important this material object really is. The entire movie is based upon this object that the audience only sees, very briefly, at the beginning and again at the very end. Because of this you need all of the different subplots as to why so many people value the falcon.
Another reason it may be confusing is because you never really can grasp the true motives of Sam Spade. As I was watching, I wanted to believe that he had good motives, but he kept showing other motives. I also think this plays into the mysteriousness of the falcon because not only does the viewer not know the true value of the object, but also the true meaning of the main character.
Another tool that plays into the mysteriousness is the fact that Brigid always somehow in darkness, so you never really know her true motives either. There are many scenes in which her eyes are somehow covered, but you can always tell something is not right because Sam never plays into her pity or innocence.
All in all, I feel as if many people can relate to this blog post because The Maltese Falcon is not very easily grasped. Also you show that the confusion is just another utilized way of describing the entire movie to make it a classic.
-Group 2
The whole post as a whole is interesting but one thing that really grabs my attention is the subplot of the Maltese falcon's background. It never really gives a very descriptive background of the RECENT history behind events regarding the statuette but the fact that people came from all over the world to have their shot at stealing it interested me. We know that the original (and possibly present) owner of the falcon is a Russian man who is only spoken about briefly throughout the movie. Even though the movie itself is quite interesting, the fact that this group of people have actively been searching for a statue their entire lives and have formed a very dark history together is impressive. Gutman, Cario, and Brigid seem to have given up on everything else in life just to find this one "Holy Grail" of an item. This also lends itself to the main plot because without this whole background story, conflicts between the characters would never have risen up in the first place. In fact, the main plot probably would've never happened if Gutman weren't in the picture because Brigid wouldn't have come to Sam to seek protection because she wouldn't have anyone to hide from, other than splitting her treasure with Thursby. I agree that the subplots to the movie were added to engage the audience but also hold their attention to the main plot while also providing background to the story itself. The movie also has a nice balance because even though there are various side-plots, there aren't too many of them in the movie causing the viewers to become distracted while watching the film.
ReplyDelete