Written by Georgina Guthrie
Translator: Iris
Proofreader: Yi Er San
Source: Sight & Sound (March 30, 2023)
White lies, black lies, scams, fraud, mischiefs and cover-ups – lies are often accompanied by a complex grading system, primarily to mitigate the guilt of the deceivers or condemn them. When you really dig into it, they're a fascinating phenomenon — and maybe that's why so many films tap into their theatrical potential.
Many American film noirs depict two-faced women in trouble. The classic femme fatales on screen use their beauty to mask their complex character and deadly intentions.
Kathy Moffat (Jane Greer) in the 1947 film Beyond the Vortex uses her angelic appearance to deceive men; Similarly, in 1941's The Maltese Falcon, the noblewoman Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) is the same - however, her trickery does not help with Sam (Humphrey Bogart), a pessimistic and intuitive detective who has a pessimistic view of human nature, and he hands her over to the police.
The Maltese Falcon:
The Hays Code , in force from 1930 to 1968, insisted on punishing crimes in film, so that femme fatales in film noir eventually faced "just" punishment, whether forced by circumstances or not.
Cheating is another plot setting that has lies at its core and appears in many films, like the femme fatale deal in film noir, which offers a wealth of moral questions waiting to be discovered. "Meet and Hate the Night" (1945), "Sex, Lies and Videotapes" (1989) and "In the Mood for Love" (2000) are all films about "cheating", but there is no right or wrong in them, but full and ambiguous emotions. Fortunately, none of the films ended with a disastrous ending, unlike some of the works in this list.
Sex, Lies and Videotape
There are also lies that work on a larger scale – governments, like the government scandals exposed in The President's Team (1976), the economic lies debunked in The Grapes of Rage (1940); As well as lies that start in the family sphere and spread outward. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Hunt (2012), and Sarah Davis and Anna Ross Holmer's God's Creation, in which Emily Watson plays an Irish mother who lies to protect her estranged son (Paul Mesca), all centered around the same kind of lie, with its toxic branches spreading outward to corrupt everything that comes into contact.
"God's Creation"
Here are ten masterpieces with the theme of lies:
1. "Double Indemnity" (1944)
Director: Billy Wilder
When Phyllis Dietrickson (Barbara Stanwyck), wrapped in a bath towel, paces to the staircase of her Los Angeles villa to greet insurance salesman Walter (Fred McMurray), every sign is that the woman is at a disadvantage and will be tempted by her heart. But it's not that simple—like her Spanish-style villa, Phyllis just looks beautiful: a face with an innocent smile, blonde hair, and the white dress she's wearing. The pair engage in an exciting cat-and-mouse game-style flirtation, and in the end, the pursuers win: Phyllis convinces Walter to sell insurance to her husband and then plots to kill him so they can take the cash.
However, the tragedy of Double Indemnity does not belong to Phyllis, who (allegedly) understands the meaning of love too late – not even Walter, who finds himself caught up in countless deceptions. This sense of tragedy belongs to Walter's boss, Keith (Edward M. G. Robinson), who has always regarded Walter as a proud assistant, but finally witnessed his fall. "Because the person you're looking for is too close to you, just across the desk," said the dying salesman, who collapsed on the floor. "Closer than that, Walter." This is a desperate answer.
2. "The Countess's Earrings" (1953)
Director: Max Ophirs
At the beginning of Max Orpheus's classic, we can see Louise (Danielle Darieu) stroking her gloved hands over jewelry, haute gowns, and furs, before returning to the beginning – a pair of shiny earrings that her husband gave her when she got married. It was for this reason that this auction was carried out in secret and accompanied by her first lie: she pretended to lose her earrings at the opera house. This sets off a chain of events in which the jewelry circulates in the hands of different people and eventually returns to her through her lover, which gives the earrings a new emotional weight, while also bringing a wealth of deceptive experiences that are bound to poison things.
This sweet tale of love and lies offers a wealth of emotional power and visual luxury, but notable for the ballroom scene, showcasing Ophirs' masterful use of push-track shots. In a long shot, lovers twirl in flickering candlelight in fancy costumes for five consecutive nights, each captivating dance adding to sexual tension. Lies rarely seem so beautiful and heartbreaking.
3. "The Demon" (1955)
Director: Henri-George Clouzot
This dark masterpiece by Henry-George Clouzot tells the story of a wife who is unhappy in marriage, with the help of her husband's mistress, plotting the murder of her husband. When the body disappears, the whole thing takes on a supernatural color, and the barely suppressed guilt of the delicate wife follows. She was coerced into participating in a murder plot and then tortured by her husband from the "grave" – a difficult deal, and the real tragedy is that the liar is a good person and she doesn't deserve what happens.
Demons is often hailed as Hitchcock's best work he did not direct – Cruzot bought the rights to the novels of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcillac before Hitchcock. As a "consolation", Hitchcock bought the rights to adapt another novel of the two writers, "The Living and the Dead", and finally made "Ecstasy", another story that ended in disaster and was full of lies.
4. "Spider's Nest City" (1957)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Shakespeare's plays are full of deception. Iago constantly instilled in Othello the lie of jealousy, Hamlet playing madness and causing Ophelia to drown, but few of Shakespeare's works show the disastrous effects of lies as vividly as Macbeth. The story begins with a witch's prophecy (or is that also a lie?). ), then turned to treason, causing the accomplice husband and wife to plot their own plots. Since then, everything has gone to failure.
Orson Welles' German expressionist-inspired work Othello (1948), Justin Kuzel's landscape-rich epic Macbeth (2015), and Joel Cohen's subversive version of The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) – all of which are excellent adaptations of Shakespearean texts. Although Kurosawa's samurai story differs from the original drama in script, it is most faithful to the show's gloomy sense of paranoia and weirdness. The barren battlefield replaces the highlands, and the three witches become a spooky ghost, spinning and singing mysterious ballads – is this a false web she has weaved? This is as vague in the film as it is in the text. Then there's a minimalist soundtrack made up of screams and percussions, more chilling than any winter in Scotland.
5. "Ecstasy" (1958)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
There doesn't seem to be a single interpretation of Ecstasy that has universal appeal, but here it is (note: spoilers later). We all know what a lie is – Judy (Kim Nowak) dresses up as Elster's wife and tricks Scott (James Stewart) into becoming complicit in the killing. But what is the end of the disaster?
Not Madeleine's death, she was Scott's object of lust – not the Lady Elster we never met, nor the death of Judy dressed as Madeleine. The first person never existed, the second we don't know, and the last one sinned, not to mention that she was the catalyst that led Scott into immorality (though we don't blame her for his fault). The disaster of the central lie of the film is Scott's ruined life, and in the end, he cures his fear of heights, but is trapped by the past at the moment when he finally gains his freedom; Bound by a desire that he can neither recreate nor expel. As Richard Brody wrote for The New Yorker, this is the famous shot captured through the dizzying "Hitchcock zoom": the fate from which Scott could not escape.
6. "One Flew Over the Madhouse" (1975)
Director: Milos Foreman
Jack Nicholson, who has just entered the film industry, plays Mike in the film, an alcoholic, profan-mouthed prisoner who pretends to be mentally ill in order to avoid being imprisoned for rape, and ends up in a psychiatric hospital led by the cold nurse Rachel (Louise Fletcher). He rampage through the hospital room like a tornado, but he was a breath of fresh air, inciting basketball games, sudden fishing trips and booze parties. His antics played a greater role in the mental health of other prisoners than Rachel's "caregiving".
It may be hard to like rude Mike—but Rachel's mediocrity and cruelty make Mike seem human, and soon we'll sympathize with this rough ordinary person. Unfortunately, behind his opponents is a ruthless, oppressive bureaucracy, and the lies he tells to avoid jail quickly turn into tragedy.
7. "Money" (1983)
Director: Robert Bresson
"Money" is a loose adaptation of Tolstoy's novel "Pseudo-coupons" - small movements acquire enormous moral weight through sound: the rough rustle of money rubbing, the clink of cash registers and the slamping of car doors, marking the journey to track down a counterfeit banknote, which poisons everyone who comes into contact with it. The lie in the film is capitalism itself, represented by paper money, which passed from the son of a wealthy couple to a respected shopkeeper. These bourgeois figures lie easily and willingly watch the ripples of lies turn into waves, turning over those who are not so rich. Robert Bresson's peculiarity is to make us interested in those on the margins: low-level blue-collar workers and criminals who occupy the story and end up being the most miserable.
As the final work of Bresson's career, Money tells a story with astonishing efficiency, mixing mysterious blankness with direct blindness: just hearing the word "money" in the footage of the bloodstained walls and we know all we need to know.
8. "Farewell to Sentient Days" (1993)
Director: James Ivory
Self-deception is a cunning beast; The mind is good at blinding us with prejudice and blocking out unpleasant things. When Kazuo Ishiguro's novel "Long Day Traces" won the Booker Prize, James Ivory immediately made it into a movie. The film centers on the story of the elderly butler Stevens (Anthony Hopkins), who drives through the west of England after leaving the place where he has worked all his life, Darlington Manor. Much of the film is told through flashbacks, as he recalls the time when Lord Darlington worked under him, and we come to learn that he was a Nazi sympathizer.
The polite Stevens has suppressed his emotions almost all his life, but through his memories and current interactions, we learn two things: first, he dedicated the best time of his life to his former boss; Second, he now began to understand that it was a crime to have served such a person. The tragedy is profound, but calm: it is the story of a lonely man who only late realized that he had wasted his life.
9. "The Hunt" (2012)
Director: Thomas Winterberg
"Thou hast built up power from the mouths of babies and feeders for the sake of the enemy, so that the enemy and the vengeful will be silenced." This verse in the Bible's Psalms is so innocent and immaculate, but it ignores the corruption and sin we are born with. Directed by Thomas Winterberg, this film tells the story of a beloved kindergarten teacher (Max Mikkelsen) who is accused of having sex with a person by a student (Annika Wadekop), and a magazine is a corrupting force to convince a young girl's lies.
Watching well-meaning adults unwittingly put lies into the mouth of an overwhelmed child is distressing because it demonstrates the devastating effects of such false accusations that slowly tear apart a life, a school, two families, and a close-knit community. The best thing about The Hunt, though, is that it shows the universality of lies. Like the damp smell seeping into the house, which no smell can cover, the girl's childish mistakes left a lasting mark on her teacher.
10. Parasite (2019)
Director: Bong Joon-ho
After the release of "Parasite", the semi-basement where the "Parasite" family lived in the film gained the attention of global audiences. This movie tells the story of the family's rise to the upper class. In 2022, the Seoul government promised to ban the existence of such damp semi-basements after deadly floods, but the gap between rich and poor discussed in the film remains.
"Parasite" is inspired by Kim Ki-young's The Lower Daughter (1960), and the story of the Pappin sisters, Christine and Leia, who kill a pair of maids from their employer. Bong Joon-ho's class fable touches on a dark reality: people you invite into your home may murder you instead. But there is also an even bigger lie about capitalism. The title refers to those who live on wealthy families, and what is even more emotional is that the upper class uses the labor of the lower classes to keep the latter in docile slavery, falsely claiming that if they work hard enough, they will one day succeed.