Double Indemnity: An Analysis

 Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)

























Film noir
Both visually and morally dark

Use of lighting to suggest a crowd
Low budget - between the wars and post-depression so lack of funding
Plot-wise: dark, detective element - defines the genre
Detective elements - lighting turns it into noir
'noir' = black - dark subjects and themes, moral ambiguity

Femme Fatale - 
Double Indemnity is similar to Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond

Is Some Like It Hot a departure for Wilder's directing career?
Yes. SLIH is very different to both Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity as it goes into a comedic direction, focusing on issues just as deep but with the guise of humour. Whilst Sugar is depressed, she is also a humerous and fun character. In films like Double Indemnity, Wilder steps into the darkness of the film without hesitating, with humour playing a minimal role. This fits in with film noir a lot more, embracing darkness over light. All of these films do have the use of subterfuge in common where everybody is deceiving everybody else, whether it be by crossdressing in SLIH or gaslighting Norma in Sunset Boulevard so that she feels important.

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