The Origins of Cool in Postwar America by Joel Dinerstein

Author:Joel Dinerstein [Dinerstein, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Naked City (1948) and Side Street (1950)

There is an underlying existential question to Jules Dassin’s Naked City: What does it mean to be an ordinary man in a metropolis? Or more to the point, how can one find individual dignity and social purpose as part of the urban masses? Filmed in quasi-documentary style, an impersonal voice narrates the detective work of the New York Police Department (NYPD) in methodical detail. The work of the police is seen as representative of factory work: it is dignified despite its repetition, and the social purpose of each man is to be a worthy cog in a morally righteous system. Combining the metaphors of the machine and the military, the film synthesizes the division of labor with the chain of command. Naked City offers its American audience a pragmatic, nonreligious framework of social purpose and function: every person is an important unit in urban society. Its reward was two Oscars (cinematography, editing) and a nomination for best screenplay.18

Naked City was filmed on location in New York City—then a rarity—and Dassin mixed actors with ethnic locals in the search for the murderer of a blond model, an itinerant jewel thief. The police force cranks into action like a human assembly line: beat cops gather evidence, the lieutenant checks out leads and interviews suspects, individual cops show initiative and reveal their character traits. On their return to the precinct, a wise Irish lieutenant assesses the information, asks for and considers each one’s hunches, then redirects them efficiently to their next task for the NYPD. Naked City at first feels like government propaganda. Yet as influenced by Italian neorealism, the policemen mix as equals with locals and its populism seems genuine: in any given scene, a policeman may go into a candy shop or jewelry store, pass kids diving off the docks or playing street games, watch as construction workers lower a beam or dig into the ground. We hear emanations of conversations from people at the crime site or from telephone operators. The film mediates the central tension of mass society—that is, between the individual and the collective—in order to fight a common enemy.

The level of intelligence increases every step up in the chain of command, from each beat cop to young Jimmy Halloran to Detective Lieutenant Dan Muldoon: the rational quality of a policeman’s thought, his level of maturity, his sense for compassion, and even his capacity for joie de vivre. In so doing, the film endorses the core Horatio Alger aspects of American mythology: social mobility is real, virtue rises, hard work will be rewarded, America is a meritocracy open to immigrants. Jimmy Halloran in particular represents the postwar future since his home life and work life are intertwined. He performs a civic duty at the domestic level with a new home in the suburbs, a young, beautiful wife, a sexualized relationship, and a young son. The film revels in the hierarchical nature of corporate society as a stabilizing force allowing each individual enough wiggle room to gain a viable freedom within a democracy full of surveillance.

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