Watch and Report on a Classic Film Noir

I have chosen to watch “Double Indemnity” and analyze the scene where Walter Neff meets Barbara Stanwyck’s character. The scene starts with a shot in which Neff is trying to persuade the housekeeper to let him talk to Mr Dietrichson, in this shot there is a lot of harsh shadows, a noir convention, we get the feeling that these shadows being cast are from lamps instead of ceiling lights from the height of the shadows on the wall. Followed by a low angle shot showing Neff at the bottom of the shot and Mrs Dietrichson at the top, already from this we can get an idea of the character she is going to play. Traditionally a more dominant character will be higher in the shot than a more submissive character. The next shot is a higher angle shot, in which we see Neff looking up at Mrs Dietrichson, once again a show of the dominance of the Phyllis character. In the next shot we see Phyllis a in a little more detail as to her costume. The costume is nothing but a towel, maybe a show of the characters naivety, and yet she is still very high in the shot, and continues to be over the next few shots. Over the course of these shots, Walter Neff’s speech is very bouncy and up-beat, whereas Phyllis’s speech is very low and monotonous, this s unusual for a female character in most films. But we can begin to get a sense of the fact that this woman is going to be smarter than she lets on, and she what the film noir world as a Femme Fatale. We next see a tracking shot of Neff who continues to look up at the empty space where Phyllis once stood. We see where Neff is going, in this shot we can see, a lot of shadows, mostly from a set of venetian blinds. Wes see a shot of the room, some high ceilings, from this we can infer that the occupants of the house are reasonably well-off, this we can add to the list of things we can learn about the character of Phyllis. Once again this shot is in a high amount of shadow, mostly from venetian blinds. But then we come to a tracking shot of a pair of shoes coming down a set of stairs, with a little shadow coming from the stair rails. From this we can see a different side to the Phyllis character, the more feminine side of the character that we had not seen before. We are still on her but she is still being very feminine. Next is the shot where she is standing in front of the mirror, with Neff standing behind her. In this shot he is higher up in the shot. Showing that in this instance he is the dominant character. Then she walks away from him, and then he follows, maybe insinuating that the Neff character is thinking about pursuing Phyllis. Even when sat down, Phyllis is much lower in the shot, as she slouches in an armchair, whereas he is sitting on the arm of the chair across from it. This is all still in a lot of shadow, from each other’s bodies and still the venetian blinds. The rest of the scene is swimming in sexual innuendo, Neff trying to become the dominant character against a very reluctant looking Phyllis. This is another mind game, typical of a Femme Fatale.