ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author offers the interpretive viewing with the assumption that it represents neither an objective deciphering of the film's 'true' meaning, but rather a new significance that has emerged in the transitional space opened up by his intense personal and transferential encounter with Arthur Penn’s Night Moves. The film's plot interweaves and juxtaposes two equally important stories: detective Harry Mosby's attempt to decipher the disappearance, and later the death, of an adolescent girl, Delly Grastner; and his struggle to save his disintegrating marriage to Ellen. At the background of both stories stands a common emotional theme: failed parenthood, and its sequela—the helpless yearning, despair and rage of the abandoned child. While The Maltese Falcon 'is completely devoid of any explicit reference to inner feeling states or motives', Night Moves is psychologically minded and often interpretive.
