Post by klep on Nov 6, 2017 7:49:38 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/6: Double Indemnity
FIRST WEEK OF NOIRVEMBER!
The 1920s saw the birth in American fiction writing of the hardboiled novel. Hardboiled stories are stories of crime and corruption, generally starring an antihero or a good man who gets sucked in to something bad. They exploded in the 1930s as their cynicism and mistrust of people an institutions found fertile ground in a society going through the Great Depression.
Hollywood took note, as it does, and this led to an explosion of stories based in this literary tradition. There had been stories like this before - like Fritz Lang's M, but it was in this period that the genre took real form and developed tropes which separated it from other kinds of stories. It needed a name, and there was only one name for films this black: film noir.
James M. Cain was one of the greatest of these early hardboiled writers. His books have been adapted to film over two dozen times through the years, and still receive attention today (as recently as Mildred Pierce in 2011). But for one of the greatest, it took a man with sensibilities as black as the story he was adapting: Billy Wilder with 1944's Double Indemnity. Wilder worked with another brilliant hardboiled writer - Raymond Chandler - in adapting Cain's novel, and despite their turbulent working relationship they turned out one of the best, most iconic noirs ever made.
Double Indemnity is the story of a crime that might never have happened but for a chance meeting. On the one hand you have insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who has the means - having idly plotted the perfect crime that could get by his company's investigators. On the other you have Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) with the motive - an unhappy marriage to an abusive husband. Together they create an opportunity to knock off the husband for the insurance money.
Like most noir protagonists, Neff isn't really a bad man, but he's no saint either. He's not inclined to criminal behavior, but the allure of a beautiful woman and a huge sum of money proves too difficult for him to resist.
Phyllis, on the other hand, is a classic femme fatale. From the first moments she's flirting with Neff, suggesting without suggesting her scheme. What at first seems like genuine distress and uncertainty from her however later proves to be manipulation. We eventually learn that Phyllis probably killed her husband's first wife in order to get her hooks in him, and is already scheming to dump her hapless accomplice. She is the spider, and her men are just trapped in her web.
The film checks off a number of other noir hallmarks as well. It's shadows are sharp and expressive, making frequent use of Venetian blinds for powerful effect. And Wilder and Chandler hit on the brilliant idea of having Neff's confession as a framing device - allowing the effective use of voiceover narration throughout the film.
In the end, of course, it all goes wrong. No crime is perfect, and it only takes a couple small details for Neff's coworker Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) to sniff out the plot. And as is the way of noir, lust and greed ends up the undoing of a normal guy.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/13: Laura
SECOND WEEK OF NOIRVEMBER: NOIR'S GOLDEN AGE
Our celebration of Noirvember continues next week with a focus on the Golden Age of noir, when the genre exploded onto the screen in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Our film will be Otto Preminger's Oscar-winning Laura, a tale about a woman, a man, and a murder. Laura is available on Filmstruck and for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/2: The Meyerowitz Stories
The Next Picture Show Podcast completes what has sadly become an untimely look at the past and present of Dustin Hoffman with Noah Baumbach's new The Meyerowitz Stories, featuring Adam Sandler actually trying for once! We'll have a thread for discussion of the film next Wednesday. The Meyerowitz Stories is available on Netflix Instant.
FIRST WEEK OF NOIRVEMBER!
The 1920s saw the birth in American fiction writing of the hardboiled novel. Hardboiled stories are stories of crime and corruption, generally starring an antihero or a good man who gets sucked in to something bad. They exploded in the 1930s as their cynicism and mistrust of people an institutions found fertile ground in a society going through the Great Depression.
Hollywood took note, as it does, and this led to an explosion of stories based in this literary tradition. There had been stories like this before - like Fritz Lang's M, but it was in this period that the genre took real form and developed tropes which separated it from other kinds of stories. It needed a name, and there was only one name for films this black: film noir.
James M. Cain was one of the greatest of these early hardboiled writers. His books have been adapted to film over two dozen times through the years, and still receive attention today (as recently as Mildred Pierce in 2011). But for one of the greatest, it took a man with sensibilities as black as the story he was adapting: Billy Wilder with 1944's Double Indemnity. Wilder worked with another brilliant hardboiled writer - Raymond Chandler - in adapting Cain's novel, and despite their turbulent working relationship they turned out one of the best, most iconic noirs ever made.
Double Indemnity is the story of a crime that might never have happened but for a chance meeting. On the one hand you have insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who has the means - having idly plotted the perfect crime that could get by his company's investigators. On the other you have Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) with the motive - an unhappy marriage to an abusive husband. Together they create an opportunity to knock off the husband for the insurance money.
Like most noir protagonists, Neff isn't really a bad man, but he's no saint either. He's not inclined to criminal behavior, but the allure of a beautiful woman and a huge sum of money proves too difficult for him to resist.
Phyllis, on the other hand, is a classic femme fatale. From the first moments she's flirting with Neff, suggesting without suggesting her scheme. What at first seems like genuine distress and uncertainty from her however later proves to be manipulation. We eventually learn that Phyllis probably killed her husband's first wife in order to get her hooks in him, and is already scheming to dump her hapless accomplice. She is the spider, and her men are just trapped in her web.
The film checks off a number of other noir hallmarks as well. It's shadows are sharp and expressive, making frequent use of Venetian blinds for powerful effect. And Wilder and Chandler hit on the brilliant idea of having Neff's confession as a framing device - allowing the effective use of voiceover narration throughout the film.
In the end, of course, it all goes wrong. No crime is perfect, and it only takes a couple small details for Neff's coworker Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) to sniff out the plot. And as is the way of noir, lust and greed ends up the undoing of a normal guy.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/13: Laura
SECOND WEEK OF NOIRVEMBER: NOIR'S GOLDEN AGE
Our celebration of Noirvember continues next week with a focus on the Golden Age of noir, when the genre exploded onto the screen in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Our film will be Otto Preminger's Oscar-winning Laura, a tale about a woman, a man, and a murder. Laura is available on Filmstruck and for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/2: The Meyerowitz Stories
The Next Picture Show Podcast completes what has sadly become an untimely look at the past and present of Dustin Hoffman with Noah Baumbach's new The Meyerowitz Stories, featuring Adam Sandler actually trying for once! We'll have a thread for discussion of the film next Wednesday. The Meyerowitz Stories is available on Netflix Instant.