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The Killers has a splintered narrative structure with eleven flashbacks. Some viewers found the storyline convoluted but it’s anything but. The flashbacks are told with precision and logic and never loose focus. A flashback structure locks in a picture’s downbeat ending and the audience is cognizant of impending doom from the start. This is part and parcel of Noir’s fatalistic spirit. Usually the flashback is told by the ill-fated protagonist himself before he dies. Here the Swede is killed right in the beginning of the movie so others must tell his story. The mystery unfolds through the testimony of several witnesses who all contribute a part of the puzzle until Reardon has a whole. He fights for the guy who can't fight for himself anymore.
I think Swede`s introduction scene is also important and interesting. Lying apathetically in bed in the dark, waiting for death to knock on the door, he barely moves or raises his voice when his friend Nick comes to warn him about the hitmen. He makes no move to save himself. The dialogue of that scene is worth quoting in its entirety. When we see Swede’s face it is expressionless, he’s detached to the point of numbness. Completely unresisting, he faces his killers stoically and without panic. He doesn’t fight or beg or run. He has no fight left in him.
When Reardon and Lubinsky visit dying gang member Blinky in the hospital, the doctor assesses his situation dryly: “He's dead now, except he's breathing.” So is the Swede but that’s about to be fixed.
When Al and Max enter his room Swede is not only willing but absolutely eager to die. To Hemingway scholars this attitude is known as heroic fatalism. It is the dignified acceptance of one's circumstances in the face of impending disaster including death. A Hemingway man must be able to look his own mortality straight in the eye with honor and dignity. He realizes that life is essentially meaningless and that trying to outrun death is in essence futile. Hemingway did not consider this attitude a defeat. On the contrary, he saw it as an act of courage. And not only courage but as the last conscious decision a man has left whose life has lost its purpose and direction. Death as catharsis. For everybody who doesn't subscribe to this Nihilist philosophy it’s simply valuing your life at zero by committing suicide.
Discussion questions
Which difference makes The Killers quiet unique among other noirs in that decade?
- Robert Siodmak’s The Killers - which is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway – follows the same rule but here there is one big difference that makes this quite unique among other noirs of 40s. The film uses multiple flashbacks and by gathering little pieces of information/truth from various people it follows the pattern of one big puzzle where you need to put small pieces together in order to reach an insightful and accurate whole. In this regard The Killers is much like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane where no single individual knows everything, instead it is the different perspectives – which are not always perfect – that can give you insights into different aspects of an event or a character. This innovative narrative structure makes the experience of watching The Killers an engaging and even interactive one as we are not just simple observers, we need to use our minds to – like the protagonist himself – build the big picture.
2. How was Kitty`s effect on Swede?
- She makes Swede lose his moral compass. So besotted is Swede with Kitty that he - out of misplaced chivalry - doesn’t hesitate to take the rap for her when she’s caught holding stolen jewelry. It earns him a three year stretch. She doesn’t even visit him in prison.
3. How do you describe Kitty Collins' character?
- Kitty is one of Noir’s most masked femme fatales. Nobody sees how evil she is until it is too late. She hides her rottenness better than any other deadly dame I’ve seen. On the surface she has a certain helpless appeal, “enacting a charade of feminine sweetness and frailty”
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