"The Obvious and the Code"

“The Obvious and the Code” breaks down Howard Hawk’s The Big Sleep (1946) both physically as well as contextually by scene. Bellour offers readers a better understanding of the film by the way that editing techniques are set up for the film’s audiences. While watching The Big Sleep, many of these techniques stood out to me as a viewer. However, after reading Bellour’s analysis of the film, there appears to be significantly more analysis of both the cinematography and the context that I missed upon my first viewing of The Big Sleep. In fact, “the work of the codes” is barely something that I knew existed prior to this reading. Hawk is able to expand on codes and establish connections mainly by associating various scenes’ codes as well as their narrative evolutions. His elaborations on transitions between different shots allows for a further understand on what it was that Howard Hawk exactly intended for his film. It is likely that if I had read “The Obvious and the Code” prior to screening The Big Sleep, there would be many more elements integrated into the film that I would have picked up on. If I was to watch the film once more, it would definitely be a different experience.