Although often lumped in with those films to which is seems to share almost nothing in common that make up the canon of film noir, Laura is best only tangentially noirish. Few film that make it into the discourse actually lack so many of the fundamental elements that are associated with film noir: Laura Hunt is hardly a femme fatale, most of the film takes place during the day in very high-priced NYC properties so noir’s trademark long shadows are hard to come by, there is basically nothing to suggest that a war world has been raging that is about to change the entire nature of good of evil and the only low-life at all is Shelby and he’s a fairly sad imitation of the usual suspects navigating their way through an increasingly ambiguous morality. The Laura is even mentioned in this discussion almost certainly has to do with director Otto Preminger’s noir credibility on much more obvious display in films like Where the Sidewalk Ends, Whirlpool and Angel Face.
Preminger’s stylistic mode was the dark shadowy underbelly of the American legal system and so it is perhaps inevitable that Laura manages to slide into his noir resume. There is, however, one other element found in most noirs and all the great ones: the director integrates all those cinematic elements like low key lighting, abundant use of shadows, mise-en-scene within the ambiguous underbelly of America’s social structure to purposely convey the message that this story takes place in a world where the rules have changed and nobody should be fully trusted based on surface expectations.
In those films of his that are noir, Preminger does just that. His work in Laura, however, is a reflection of the pretty girl in the picture: detached, not-quite-knowable and open to interpretation based on what other people say about her. Make no mistake, the upper class world operating in the daylight of gossip columnists and fashion designers and social climbers is every bit as morally ambiguous as the more common noir world of dirty cops, noble thieves, femmes fatale and the saps they rely upon. The difference is Preminger does not telegraph to what extent the subjective interpretation of this world should be recognized. In a film where the dominant image of a two-dimensional portrait of a pretty woman, Laura features a surprising dearth of close-ups. The close-up is a favorite tool of directors for guiding audience sympathies. Like the almost full-body enigmatic portrait of the woman in the picture, Preminger frames most scenes from a distance allowing the audience to see most of the actor’s body. This is vital: when the audience can see the body language of the actor’s performance, it is they who are guiding their interpretation of the character of that person. The actor gives, the audience receives and a contractual agreement is made.
For a director well known for being almost dictatorial on the set, handing over such power to the audience is truly extraordinary. That film noir is so ambiguously defined that this surrender of control still doesn’t convince people Laura is not noir may actually be Preminger’s single greatest influence on the genre. Even when he was not trying to make a noir, he apparently still managed to make one.
