30 Years of Brilliance: 1930-1959
Otto Preminger Otto Preminger was born in Austria and emigrated to the United States in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a movie director. From his early film noir 'Laura' in 1944 to his thriller 'Bunny Lake is Missing' in 1965, he showed a remarkable ability to be independent, intelligent, demanding, and successful. If his later work is perhaps best forgotten, one must not ignore what he contributed to classical Hollywood.
Two words come to mind when discussing a Preminger movie-'objectivity' and 'ambiguity'. These are central to his 'mise-en-scene', but did not prevent him from taking sides. In his finest achievements, Preminger leaves his audience in no doubt as to where he stands, thanks to an acute sense of what details matter and a rigorous use of the camera. His awareness of the complexities of human psychology - that famous 'ambiguity' - is why his characters are seldom cut and dried. His films demand that the spectator must constantly review his or her point of view.
One example is the way Preminger films the detective's interrogation of Waldo Lydecker in the opening sequence of 'Laura'. The former's insistence on details comes as the latter, who dismisses them, is paying great attention to his clothes-the only way Preminger had to hint at his character's feminine side and therefore his homosexuality. In 'Angel Face' in 1952, Robert Mitchum's fascination with the young heroine soon becomes a morbid mixture of voyeurism and masochism, and is revealed via a complex play of looks and editing that involves the spectator in the deadly game the two will play. In 'Anatomy of a Murder' in 1959, it is a case of representing the need for the law to give the benefit of the doubt even when everything appears to be clear.
