running, lurking, smoking

In the second coffee shop scene in Body Heat, the audience gets a feeling for how these guys -- Ned Racine, Peter Lowenstein, and Oscar Grace -- hang out with each other...how they relate.

Big strong Oscar observes, and is humorously philosophical.

Tall thin Lowenstein dances.  (Next to his two iced teas [one is not enough, it's so hot], his fingers "dance" -- as he traces a pattern, works out a series of steps to practice next time he has room-and-space to soft-shoe it....)

LOWENSTEIN:  I'm really disappointed in you, Racine.  I've been living vicariously off you for years.  If you shut up on me now, I'll just have my wife.

Oy! -- this guy lives for the local gossip -- lives for it, lives on it, sifts for it, digs, picks...in real life if I knew someone like that I wouldn't like them...or, wouldn't like what they do...(Mind your own business it isn't nice to gossip!!!)  But seeing him in the movie, portrayed by Ted Danson -- it's funny.  That's the thing, with art -- in a movie, or a dance, or a song -- some things can be tolerated, and maybe better understood, which in real life we really don't want. ...

These guys tease each other, push, provoke each other.

"A narc from Palm Beach -- what is that, his hobby?"

..."Oscar, I just can't figure out how you could be doing advanced theoretical thinking like that and still be stuck in our little town."

-- "Lowenstein dreams of bigger things!"...

===================
After the coffee shop scene --
EXT.  Walkers' house. - Night

SOUND of the chimes. Ding-ding-ding, Ting-ting-ting...
Branches and big palm-fans on the trees, move in the breeze.

INT.  Matty Walker's bedroom - Night

Next to the bed, on the carpet:  a gold cigarette lighter, and an ashtray containing a bunch of finished cigarettes.

INT.  The master bathroom

Ned Racine and Matty Walker are in a bathtub, heads and shoulders visible above the edge.  The bathtub is black -- (black??) -- and upheld by gold "legs" on a vast uncarpeted floor.

RACINE
You are killing me.

MATTY
Is there any more ice?  I'm burning up.

Racine gropes for the ice container and dumps the remaining ice cubes into the tub with them.  Matty takes one & holds it to her forehead.

MATTY
He's coming up tomorrow.

Racine knows.

MATTY
I can't stand the thought of him. . . He's small.  And mean.  And weak.

Her gaze is distant.  She looks sad.  Racine kisses her face.

============ Over the next FIVE short scenes, Music.  The tune is yearning, wistful, beautiful -- the notes dip and soar and gently drip over the scenes which contain no dialogue.

1.  A pier by the water, which is calm.  Sun almost ready to begin setting.  A few people on the pier, some relaxing, some fishing.  Ned Racine, finishing his run, jogs toward the Camera, slows to a walk, taking out a pack of cigarettes from a pocket, and starts shaking down the pack, to get a cigarette to peek out.  Then he gives up on the shaking-down, and just walks over to the pier's railing, leans on it, looking out over the water, catching his breath, thinking, being alone.

2.  EXT.  The Walker house - Night.

Point of view high-up, looking down at the house, through the trees, and panning down, down, (the Music) seeing the house, trees, then some mixture, nearer the ground, of mist, fog, and cigarette smoke.  Ned Racine stands there in the dark, under a tree, smoking a cigarette, looking at the house, and at the big white car parked in front.  The husband is at home.  That's his car.

3.  INT.  Ned Racine's bedroom. 
He's sitting on the bed, leaning back, shirtless, with a cold can of beer, touching it to his forehead.  On a table by the bed, a small, round fan is going full-blast; a black telephone is not-ringing.  When he isn't with Matty, he's thinking about her....(Whoo--it's hot....)

4.  EXT.  The Walker property - Night

Ned's red car drives in through the "gate" -- (two things, on either side of the driveway at the entrance, made out of stone or brick....)

5.  EXT.  The gazebo - Night

She is standing in the gazebo, leaning gently, gracefully -- alone.  Her back is to the Camera; she's looking out, past the boat house, over the water.  Her thick brown hair, below-shoulder length.  White shirt, white skirt.  Wind chimes hanging in the gazebo, barely tinkling.
 
As Ned Racine walks boldly into View of the Camera, toward the gazebo, he speaks boldly to her.  (Finally they can be together...)

-------------------------
----------------------

When you try to find a definition of film noir, you get more discussion than definition.  The borders, or boundaries, of noir are sort of fuzzy.  Perhaps appropriately so.

Encyclopedia Britannica says it is the

[quote ENC. BRITAN.]  cinema of the disenchanted.  Early examples of the noir style included dark, stylized detective films such as John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941), Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire (1942), Otto Preminger's Laura (1944)...French cineastes admired them for their cold, cynical characters and dark, brooding style....French critics coined the term film noir in reference to the low-keyed lighting used to enhance these dramas....

The darkness of these films reflected the disenchantment of the times.  Pessimism and disillusionment became increasingly present in the American psyche during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the world war that followed.  After the war, factors such as an unstable peacetime economy, McCarthyism, and the looming threat of atomic warfare manifested themselves in a collective sense of uncertainty.  The corrupt and claustrophobic world of film noir embodied these fears. ...

Classic images of noir included rain-soaked streets in the early morning hours; street lamps with shimmering halos; flashing neon signs on seedy taverns, diners, and apartment buildings; (the Pinehaven Tavern in B. Heat!) and endless streams of cigarette smoke wafting in and out of shadows.  [end Encyclopedia Britannica quote]

-------------------------------
---------------------

Ned Racine walks INTO Camera's View, away from the Camera, and toward the gazebo.  He's fit from all that running.  His shoulders are strong.

RACINE
Hey lady, you want to [make love]?

The long, thick brown hair moves -- as she turns her head, the face becomes visible, slowly -- sparkling eyes, pronounced cheekbones, pretty -- but it isn't Matty Walker.  It's someone else.

=====================
{Scenes from the film Body Heat, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, 1981.  The Ladd Company / Warner Brothers}

-30-