the night out sequence is as great an example of narrative realism as i can think of. what’s so important about it is how the scene is prolonged: first they are hanging out in the hotel lobby; then the shoot-out happens; then they are taken to the cop shop; then they stop in at a bar on the way back to the hotel. bogie leaves, then bacall re-joins him in his room with a bottle (possibly the sexiest gesture i have ever seen in a movie). that’s about three natural ending points to the sequence already; but then they move back and forth, across the hall, between rooms, like three times?
realism in film emphasizes filmic techniques like long takes and deep focus, but this narrative technique (not at all limited to film) of prolonging a scene is a very important realist technique that i haven’t really seen mentioned much. it’s definitely going into my book of poetic techniques. the point is that you push the characters outside of their natural boundaries; the writer is forced to dig deeper, deeper into the character to uncover whatever truth is contained in the scene.
other examples that came to mind include the scene in My Struggle 1 when knausgaard and his brother need to continually interrogate their grandmother to find the truth of what happened to their father; and so many godard scenes.
the final shot of this film emphasizes what’s going on here, too. we see the backs of the two characters as they walk OUT of the scene, out of the setting; we don’t linger long, just enough to see them disappear and be left with a martinique thrown to fend for itself after the fun of the adventuring americans has come to an end.