Gilda

Charles Vidor - 1946
A deeply sad sotry really, a good way of looking at it, as the papers have recently mentioned, is as the flip-side of Casablanca. Of course Hayworth gets the attention, and deserves very much, but Glenn Ford is really the centre of the film. It is, ultimately, following around a sad, lonely, and deeply confused man.
Ford has hatred, desperation, economic desperation, a lack of education. Frankly, he doesn't know what he wants, he is confused. He doesn't know what to do with Hayworth; he follows her, is clearly in a way obsessed, but rather cruel. There are some nice long takes, just a few beats longer than necessary, in that SRS where Ford looks, Hayworth looks back or away, and it all is unravelled.
Their is hardly any depth in the mis-en-scene, and Charles Vidor has some fascinating framings where there is a face, a body part, very close to the camera that is completely out of foucs, in a most unclassical way. His direction is generally efficient with some flourishes of tracks in or out, flourishes of Gilda (and the wait before we first see her).
Hayworth is of course remarkable, tall, proud, one imagines it takes her quite a lot of time to turn her body round. She towers over Ford, certainly that is the impression. Ford is a man who has been economically cowed, forced to be second best for the money. He is really rather lost, and rather cruel.
The mixture of noir themes, backlights where the front is sometimes turned off, melodramatic scenes of romance also, don't overload, but, as I said, add up to quite a quiet film, affecting in its more contemplative moments.