Blog #2

As with all film noir, murder is usually the element and greed, jealousy is the motivation. For example, in the website Filmsite, it states “Very often, a film noir story was developed around a male character who encountered a beautiful but promiscuous and seductive femme fatale.” This being the case, the women or better yet the femme fatale gets the man to commit her crimes on the promise of her and her money.  As seen in the novel Double Indemnity written by James M. Cain, this is exactly what happens.

The male character is an insurance salesman by the name of Walter Huff who meets the femme fatale Phyllis Nirdlinger. As is the case in all film noir, Mr. Huff is the anti-hero that is flawed and morally questionable because he decides to help Mrs. Nirdlinger murder her own husband. The reason he agrees to help her can be found on page 22 in Double Indemnity for it reads ““What would you do this for?” “You for one thing.” “What else?” “Money.”” Therefore this shows that greed and lust is the element.  

As stated in the website Filmsite the femme fatales are “mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women” and that is exactly who Phyllis Nirdlinger is.  She tries to make excuses for the reasons she wants to murder her husband, she says “He’s not happy. He’ll be better off-dead.” (pg.23) She also states that she does not love him and acts duplicitous on page 23 were she states “Please Walter, don’t let me do this. We can’t. It’s simply-insane.” In reality she’s hoping that Mr. Huff would help her double-cross her husband by seducing Mr. Huff in her web of innocence,  which is only a façade that Mr. Huff sees right away. However he still agrees to help her because as stated on page 30 “When I met Phyllis I met my plant.”

In the article, Towards a Definition of Film Noir,” the authors Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton state “film noir is [crime] from within; from the point of view of the criminal.” As well as in Double Indemnity the story is told by Mr. Huff the” criminal” for he murders Mr. Nirdlinger. It shows his point of view on how he came about his disastrous decision to commit murder and why. It shows that Mr. Huff and Mrs. Nirdlinger decided on a railway accident in order to collect twice the amount of a twenty-five thousand dollar policy under its double indemnity provision.  It shows his every thought, decision, and action he decides to make in order to get what he wants.

In the end Double Indemnity surely falls under the various definitions of film noir, a psychological thriller and crime drama, that is based on a anti -protagonist hero  that is lured to a life of crime because a femme fatale. With its subjects of violence, murder, adultery, and insurance fraud, Double Indemnity is and will always be classified under the film noir genre.

Blog #1, Question #3

Film Noir vs. Neo-Noir

When people refer to film noir they are referring to the classical period, between the early 1940’s to 1950’s. However films produce after that period was known as neo-noir. Film noir was born in a time the Unites States was recovering from World War II, therefore the moods and themes were different from neo-noir. Though both film noir and neo noir included love, murder, deception, and intrigue the contrast was somewhat great. Film noir dealt with crime dramas with the same plot and character types such as the detective, private eye, “heroes” that are flawed, femme fatale, affairs, false suspicion and double crosses.  Film noir was also associated with low key lighting, which includes the dramatic shadow pattering, the black and white visual, its weird angle shots and its special effects. On the other hand neo- noir film re-emerge in the 70’s and 80’s where it reflected much of the skepticism, and introduced innovations that were not available in film noir. Neo-noir shot in color, due to the progression in technology and its themes consisted of identity crises, and memory issues rather than the earlier version that included detectives and femme fatal, which are hardly present in the films now. Neo-noirs content, style, and visual elements are more explicit and different in artistic view.  While film noir audience had to build a relationship with the anti- heroes, neo-noir reversed it , so that you wouldn’t feel as if you were taking part in the movie. Though many elements  are similar, film noir and neo-noir are seen and created from an entirely different perspective due to the fact that they were entirely from different eras.