Why Should Double Indemnity Be Considered a Film Noir? Double Indemnity was published in 1944, directed by Billy Wilder. According to Filmsite.org, film noir become popular during the 1940. Tim Dirks, writer and editor of Filmsite.org, listed Double Indemnity as one of the greatest film noirs in history. There are many elements that classify Double Indemnity as a film noir, such as flashbacks, violence, dark settings, the dangers of what being in love could cause, and the list is endless. Double Indemnity should definitely be considered a film noir.
Double Indemnity is a classic film noir. Walter Neff is an insurance agent that was on the way to consult with Mr. Diertrichson to see if was interested in renewing his policy. Mr. Dietrichson wasn’t available. Watler was introduced to Mr. Dietrichson’s trophy wife, Phyllis Dietrichson. Walter could not take his off of Phyllis. Once Phyllis discovered Walter had a crush on her she quickly tried to manipulate Walter into convincing her husband to receiving a life insurance policy. At first Walter declined but shortly after Phyllis cried on his shoulder about how awful her husband treated her Walter couldn’t resist helping her create a strategy to kill her husband. Walter and Phyllis designed a murder that involved Walter killing Mr. Dietrichson and planting his body to make it
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This was traditional for film noir. Mr. Dietrichson was killed on a dark rode. Phyllis would only come to visit Walter at his apartment after hours. Walter also murdered Phyllis at night. The dark and depressing vibe was a traditional style for film noir. Another tradition of film noir is making the audience think the movie is about a different topic than the actual topic of the movie. For an example, at the beginning of Double Indemnity I thought the movie was about a love story but it quickly turned in to a drama with serval
The main male character, Walter Neff, is a mere insurance salesman who gets drawn into a murder plot because of his attraction to a married woman. Not surprisingly, Walter faces several moral challenges throughout the story. Since the movie was an adaptation of the novella, some of the moral struggles he deals with vary between the two. In the novella, the death of Phyllis and Walter blatantly defies usual moral principles. At that point in the story, they both had committed a murder and had been caught for it.
In Neo-Noir the films main female character relies on her intelligence more, as smart as the
Walter. She says to him “I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world. ”(876)Her dissatisfaction with her brother was seen. That a man of thirty could so easily be swindled after being warned not to. Showing that even a child would make such a deal.
Frank Capra’s 1934 black and white romantic comedy It Happened One Night set the pattern for future “screwball” romantic comedies. The story is set during the depression era and focuses on the unlikely paring of an heiress and an unemployed news paper journalist. The conceited and spoiled heiress has rejected her lavish lifestyle and ran away. The film clearly projects how love is able to cross over class conflicts and monetary differences. Unexpectedly, the film became a runaway box office sleeper hit, and won the top five Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Adaptation (Robert Riskin), Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actor (Clark Gable), and Best Actress (Claudette Colbert).
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a Western film directed by John Ford in 1962(The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), starring James Stewart and John Wayne as the lead characters, and Vera Miles who stars as their love interest. The movie opens with Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife, Hallie Stoddard (Vera) who returns to Shinbone. The citizens of Shinbone are very excited and surprised at this unexpected visit and the editor of the Shinbone Star wants an exclusive story on this unlikely visit. Ransom sits down with the editor and tells him the story of his rise to fame, the story of the man who really shot Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), explaining the true story of how he gained his power and fame. He takes the editor on flashback and explains how Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) played an enormous role in it and he elucidates that Tom is the reason for his return, as he is attending Tom’s funeral.
Film noir movies often have stylistic characteristics such as exaggerated lighting and shadows. Scarlet Street contained many subjective camera shots while also using exaggerated shadows, for example during the first scene in the movie, there is an emphasis on the mans shadow as he walks into the room. Which brings me to a crucial point, Black and white filmmaking. Black and white style is considered to be an essential attribute for a film noir movie, black and white allows the director to emphasize on distorting images, for example use of the venetian blind shot. Another continuous pattern of film noir is to include main stock characters, this film contains: an anti-hero and a femme fatale, these stock characters are always seen in noir films.
However, in the 1920s, a new era of crime fiction arose: American hard-boiled crime fiction. In this type of crime fiction, a sense of “graphic sex and violence, vivid but often sordid urban backgrounds, and fast-paced, slangy dialogue” is added to the environment (“Hard-boiled dectective…” Ralph Willet). In the Maltese Falcon, a film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s the Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade is presented with a case to find Ruth Wonderly (who later turns
There are many distinct elements of a film noir. Strong lighting features, tough female characters, a twisted love story, and crowded yet simple sets. These are just a few of those elements and they all make Blade Runner a film noir. One of the more noticeable elements of a film noir is lighting. Throughout the film, lighting is used to set the mood and atmosphere of each scene.
The most common archetype seen in noir is the femme fatale. The femme fatale becomes a distinct part of film at the end of World War II as well as a threat to transgress the patriarchy (Grossman, p.4). The origins of the femme fatale comes from "the historical need to reconstruct an economy based on a division of labor by which men control the means of production and women remain within the family, in other words, the need to reconstruct a failing patriarchal order" (Jancovich, 2011, p.100). Furthermore, Jancovich claims that the femme fatale was created as an effort to encourage women to revert back to their womanly duties and to quit their jobs that they took on while the men were overseas. He calls them a “demonization of the independent working-woman” ( 2011, p.105).
Walter’s story begins when his mother abandons him with Hub and Garth. They are initially displeased with being
The movie "On the Waterfront" is an example of Film Noir which literally means black or dark film. Movies like this were more serious and explored more realistic and depressing subject matters. The movie was mainly about the struggle of the working longshoremen in Hoboken, New Jersey against the gangsters who bullied and extorted money from them. The protagonist of the movie is Terry Malloy.
What sets James Cain’s “Double Indemnity” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice” apart is the dynamic created between the two ‘partners in crime’: Phyllis and Walter; Frank and Cora. Cain employs animal metaphors to characterize the two proto-femme fatales, Cora, the insecure small-town beauty and Phyllis, the manipulative “out-and-out” killer (184). The comparison between these women and different predators shapes how the reader views the narrator, his decisions and culpability.
The Maltese Falcon, a film categorised as Film Noir and The Searchers, a Western genre film, are both from different genres but both reinforce and challenge dominant social and cultural beliefs and values throughout each film. Each genre can be broken down into; codes, conventions and narrative conventions. Codes are aspects of the text that help the audience make meaning.
Femme fatales are usually destroyed in the end, either by being killed or being domesticated, as though they are being punished thinking they can compete with men. Male dominance is always restored by the end of the film. In established film noir, the new economic, social, and sexual freedom that women experienced during the war years as they joined the workplace was quite unsettling to many American men. This fear of strong, independent women and the need to show the danger of this independence was shown, whether consciously or not, in most film noir. The Maltese Falcon, like many films of its era, joins in the distrust of all things foreign.
Baz Luhrmann’s films are known their ability to make a watcher feel as if they are part of the show. Between his use of camera angles, shots and the use of a narrator, it’s no wonder he is able to keep viewers on the edge of their seat. But how does Baz Luhrmann pull off this spectacular feat of his? This is probably explained best by referring to Baz Luhrmann’s films and how he himself has evolved as a director.