Midterm Summary

The range of masculine personae in the first half of the course show a perhaps unexpected range—from traditional extreme of Bogart to much more vulnerable masculine, expressive persona of Stewart before the war.

   After the war the range becomes more narrow, we see more emphasis on the more traditional male persona—even in Stewart, where it becomes almost pathological
  We're moving now into the latter part of the twentieth century.  By sixties and seventies shifting gender roles were recognized, though we could say it had been happening since WWII (as woman cabbie in Big Sleep suggests).  Post-seventies masculine personae are famously supposed to be more sensitive, yet in many ways Eastwood persona even more extreme than our previous extreme in Bogart. He’s certainly much less communicative in general.
      At least Bogart is willing to talk—as Sam Spade says in the MF
When Gutman, the fatman, asks him:
"You're a close-mouthed man?"
"No, I like to talk."

"Better and better. I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice. Now, sir. We'll talk, if you like. I'll tell you right out. I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."

Somewhat unexpectedly, however, Dave Garber in Misty isn’t exactly uncommunicative when he needs to be, but it doesn’t solve his problem.