The Ghosts of Planet Retail
As war became more inevitable the relationship between men and women in society was changing and so came the creation of the concept ‘femme fatale’. The women having the power as the men trained for war. This leads to film noir and the specific use of shadows. It’s a poor time as money is rationed to build machines for war so the artist uses shadows instead to suggest that something is there that might not actually be.
The first image below is from a film titled ‘touch of evil’. It shows strong tension between male and female with the female almost in centre shot with the idea of her as the light , the one light shining out of the darkness. There is a feeling of danger for the woman as the male in front of her casts an ominous shadow on the wall and a dark shrouded figure in the background.
The second image is from ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and shows a spider-like woman also in the light with her head held high with the male looking uneasy, head downturned and a shadow cast across his face.
As all this comes in to play; war, femme fatale, poverty, violence so does the photography of Walker Evans. He photographed a dream that went wrong. The billboards in front of the house show hollywood films full of cheapness and brutality and a rise in crime as confidence drops showing the true mood of the nation.
Todays visual drawing is titled ‘The ghosts of planet retail’ and incorporates the use of machines, femme fatale and film noir with the use of shadow, black and white. I the composition of the escalators being off centre. I tried to make the female look like the only form of light but I could have created me shadow in the background. Alternatively I could have tried the composition the other way round with the view from the top of the escalators looking down with the male creeping up behind.
