Touch of Evil: Deep Contested Values of the American Society

Every film says more than can be seen at first and superficial glance. This is also the case of Touch of Evil, one of Orson Welles's masterpieces. In this review you will find how rich, deep and meaningful this film is, and we will discover together some things that cannot be seen without a detailed analysis. This is part of a paper I made for school.

Structure

In Touch of Evil's structure there is a strong opposition between the two main characters, Sheriff Quinlan and Mexican authority Mike Vargas. Each of them embodies opposite values, and fight to impose their own vision of the world: while Quinlan represents modern corruption, abuse of power and evil, Vargas embodies romantic purity, decence, respect of the law and goodness.

The binary opposition between them is made by Welles not only through their attitudes (Quinlan plants evidence and tries to save himself, Vargas wants to give legal guarantees to the suspect and to unmask Quinlan, but “finding proofs” instead of manufacturing them [Truffaut 230]), but also through the construction of the characters. Quinlan, played by Welles, is a huge person, old, who cannot walk properly (a twisted man?), wearing dirty clothes and showing a dirty face, a partially restored alcoholic. Vargas, on the other hand, is a fit man, young, well dressed, who walks straight (a straight man?) and is always clean. It is not by chance that his character is played by Hollywood star Charlton Heston. He represents, in some ways, a “young Quinland” (Johnson 240), a person before he makes his first sin (which could be his spying of Quinlan, at the end of the movie [Johnson 247]). A pure hero.

Moreover, their social situation is relevant: Quinlan is a widower and Vargas is just married. Quinlan's wife was murdered several years ago, and that was the declining point of the policeman, who arrives to his lowest point when he himself becomes the same character his wife's murderer was. His wife's murderer killed her with a rope and escaped, and Quinland killes Grandi (the local mafia chief) with a rope and tries to escape. Quinlan's breaking point in the film is the moment in which he makes the deal with Grandi: it is the moment in which he accepts to drink bourbon (he had not been drinking for 12 years).

It is the moment when he crosses the line: he not only abuses of his power to incarcelate delinquents but also makes deals with other delinquents in order to save himself. Note that Grandi is a small reproduction of Quinlan (Higham 155). Quinlan becomes a delinquent himself, and his falling afterwards is fast, up until he arrives to his worst moment when he comits assasination by his own hands. As all of his victims, Grandi is not innocent, but what's important is that Quinlan abuses and comits crime.

THE CANE

All this also find a strong symbolization through Quinlan's cane (any sonic remembrance to Citizen Kane?). It appears in the film not only to emphasize how much this character is twisted (physically, mentally, spiritually, socially), but also to symbolize the use of power.

This phalic conventional symbol of both power and straightness is what helps him to be standed, is what “corrects”, artificially and from outside, his twisted and corrupted “natural” personality. But this power, this correctness, is not really in his hands. He “forgets” the cane twice - the cane is nor part of him, but he needs it. The second time he forgets it (at the motel where he killed Grandi), it is found by Menzies, and that's the moment in which others decide his definitive fall. The others have the real power on him. The others (the American twisted society?) are who valorate him. The first time Quinlan forgets his cane in the car, Menzies regrets the fact, and knows that the support the society gives him is what maintains him alive. In the symbolic narrative, this means without drinking - without his cane, Quinlan comits the “sin” of falling in the alcohol again, and Grandi occupies then the place of the cane. It is not the “good” side which supports him now, but the “evil” one, the crime side.

The second time he forgets his cane, Menzies decides to take this power and this artificial straightness from Quinlan's hands, and gives it meaningfully to Vargas. When Vargas has Quinlan in his hands (when he has his cane in his hands), he has everything of him: his social support, his power and his life.

BINARY OPPOSITIONS

I have found many binary conceptual oppositions in this film:

• Modernism vs. Elegant Past
• Simple Justice vs. Law
• Corruption vs. Purity
• Social vs. A-Social
• Civilization vs. Anarchy
• Hero vs. Anti-Hero
• Good vs. Evil