Sunday, May 20, 2012

Femme Fatales--Women in A "Man's" Film


This week we'll be watching Billy Wilder's masterful and epoch-making Double Indemnity.  Though most might not give it preeminence as the first film noir (Huston's Maltese Falcon usually gets that honor), it still gets the title of the earliest, "pure" noir.  Falcon has the atmosphere and the femme fatale, but her allure is no match for Spade's self-mastery.  Walter Neff is not made of the same stuff, though he thinks he is.
      We'll watch this week to see how this strong-willed woman fares when set alongside our previous heroines.  Obviously, the cinematic worlds each inhabits are very different--Tracy Lord in the romantic comic world and Julie in the historic melodrama.  Both of those genres are typically associated with the feminine.  Film noir, however, is associated and largely inhabits the sphere conventionally defined as masculine.  Consequently, Phyllis Dietrichson struggles against and is presented through men, something we should recall when attempting to reach conclusions about her character.   Jeanine Basinger, in A Woman's View, asserts that DI tells the story of a treacherous, beautiful, blond, deadly woman of experience who lures a willing man into sex and murder" (193).   That sounds like the description Walter Neff--and his pal Keyes--would offer.  Should we accept that characterization or is it more complicated?
     Further, in the previous films, the heroines eventually learn to accept their previous headstrong ways as improper, and conform to more socially acceptable (i.e., submissive) personalities.  Does something equivalent happen with Stanwyck's character in Double Indemnity, or how does it work in this instance?

8 comments:

  1. I wouldn't characterize Walter Neff as weak or manipulated. When he decided to go ahead with the plan, it wasn't in acquiescence to Phyllis, it was because he thought she had a good plane that he could improve upon(by doubling the payout) and get away with it.

    Regarding Phyllis' redemption as she atones for her improper unwomanlike behavior, her redemption is fleeting at best. She has just shot a man. Then instead of finishing the job, she shows that a true woman loves a man, and is blown away. I realize The Code dictated that Phyllis and Walter must pay for their crimes on screen but the way this scene played out rung hollow for me. Walter overpowering Phyllis and then finishing her with her own gun would have rung more true to the character that Phyllis was.

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  2. I thought this movie was interesting. As much as the both of them wanted each other, Walter knew what plan should take place because he knew the insurance business and where the both of them could make the most money in the end. The true love comes through when Phyllis could not shot to kill Walter because of her love for him. The ending was a bit of surprise in that he would die for helping her kill her husband. When that movie ends the way that it did, it leaves you wondering more that many of today's movies that end with a happy ending.

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  3. One thought that I had was the fact that she got out of the trouble she was in by getting someone else to do her dirty work. Maybe she missed him on the first shot knowing he would turn the gun on her and end her troubles. She still followed her same pattern of keeping her hands (somewhat) clean while still gaining her end results.

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  4. Something similar? Maybe. When she decided not to shoot him in the end may have shown that she changed and was not as horrible. However, I still believe she died as a manipulating woman who tried to do everything in her power to get what she wanted. The fact that she didn't kill him was not satisfying enough for me as a viewer to see her as a redeemed character.

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    1. I have to agree with you on this one Jamie. I didn't get the sense that Phyllis had changed, like Tracy or Julie did in the two previous films. If I had to choose a character who was changed, I would have chosen Walter. I'm not sure if anybody else noticed, but Walter stopped Zachetti, Lola's boyfriend, from entering the house after he shot Phyllis. I think Phyllis' plan was to have Zachetti 'take care' of Walter, and then somebody would probably 'take care' of Zachetti. Walter might have stopped him just to save his own skin, but nobody would have known it was Walter, not with the police on the way and Zachetti at the scene of the crime. I think Walter stopped Phyllis' vicious cycle of manipulation.

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  5. Who is the guilty party? Evil vs. innocent? Both accomplishes proved evil in many ways, form the start of the film to the ending of the last scene. He knew she was married, yet he flirted just the same, even when she did show herself at the top of the stairs in a towel flirting along. The movie played tug of war between evil and innocent with both characters as the plot thickened building with anticipation if the murder from the train was actually going to take place. She pushed gingerly and innocent as he plotted the whole thing, with her nudges. She wanted to look innocent, yet was as guilty as he for deceiving her husband and using the insurance man as an escape goat. He might have worn a ring to look like he was a good family married man, but all along it was just a front to deceive others. He deceived his boss, and himself, by falling victim of lust to a conniving woman, who just wanted out of a bad situation. She manipulated someone else in order to achieve her final goal. He is guilty just as much as she, while they were both evil and innocent.

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  6. Going back and reading this now makes me think of the argument in class of Jackie Brown being a fatale. I most certainly think that she does not fit this mold because she is not dangerous to the men she is around. She never seems like a real threat. At the end of the movie when she is pulling the gun out of the desk drawer it seems slow and awkward like she is not sure what she is doing and that is why she is practicing it. She does manipulate the men that she is around just like Phyllis but it is not in a harmful way.

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