Film Noir Analysis: Double Compensation and Body Heat audience. Although keen to produce a new wave of storytelling through their work, the directors were faced with government restrictions regarding the blacklist and the Hays Code. With these iron-fisted restrictions, themes of sexuality and violence were considered suspect and not openly accepted. Faced with this dilemma and the appetite to circumvent prevailing politically correct norms, filmmakers have been forced to discover new ways to tell their stories and depict their visions without being disdained. It continued to be an uphill battle for storytelling until 1966, when the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system emerged, pushing restrictions on explicit acts of sex and violence to reach the big screen. With this new emancipation, the way film noir was represented changed forever and ultimately allowed directors to blaze their new cinematic path that would both seduce and frighten the world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayNoir, a term coined by French film critics in the 1940s, had its heyday a long time ago, but that n t has not stopped the famous cynicism, eroticism and harsh dialogues that gave birth to a multitude of films produced over the last century. Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder, is one of those films whose plot, themes, and sexual innuendos were explored again in the 1981 film Body Heat. Although both films feature central themes associated with mixed genre of noir, their similarities also introduce key differences that speak to the progression of cinematic acceptance. Double Indemnity demonstrates that what was restricted in the realm of contemporary Hollywood films has always been there, hidden in dialogue and shadows, and awaiting the release of authorized storytelling. In comparison, Body Heat is the liberation that took a plot seemingly consistent with the femme fatale and rejuvenated its storytelling through means that symbolize the birth of a new era. Double Indemnity is the story of two lovers who become lost in a sea of infidelity and murder. , and betrayal. In this film, a promiscuous married woman (Phyllis Dietrichson) meets an insurance salesman (Walter Neff) who has come to her home to discuss car insurance with her husband. After the first meeting, both subjects begin a downward spiral toward a lustful quest for wealth and happiness. Dissatisfied with her cruel husband, Phyllis reaches out to her new lover and asks for a solution. Charmed by her beauty and charisma, Walter Neff agrees to help her. Although seemingly benign at first glance, Phyllis' character's femme fatale emerges by identifying how she desires freedom from her husband: murder. The plot to kill Phyllis's husband unfolds, and thus follows the ultimate demise of our femme fatale. Our two protagonists, Walter and Phyllis, create an elaborate plan for how, when and where they will get rid of her terrible husband. However, as we understand that this is a film noir, it inevitably results in a deterioration in the morality of the characters, as in most films made during this era, and chaos soon takes over the world in which they live. One of the major themes explored, female sexuality, creates deep tensionbetween the two disturbed lovers. Phyllis desperately begs Walter that she needs him whenever they are not together, but he makes it clear that they must not be seen together in order to pull off a heist of unprecedented proportions. As viewers, we would expect this film to include sex and violence to advance its plot; However, since this film is constrained by the limits of society's morals, the film's central themes of noir and the femme fatale character were downplayed to become more politically acceptable. These underlying themes are further evoked through the use of creative dialogue, the attributes of the female characters, and the constructive use of black and white film. It would seem that Phyllis accepts the role of men in her world as powerful people, but she knows that they can be easily manipulated by carefully calculated sexual inducements. This type of control she exerts over men is the exact archetype used to define many femme fatales seen in Hollywood's Golden Age films. However, Phyllis' sexual nature was just one of many ways that filmmakers used different perspectives of women in their films. German Expressionism is a term related to the use of light and shadow as a means of conveying a character's deeper psychological or ulterior motivations, and this idea plays a key role in most film noir of the golden age. In Todd Erickson's text "Kill Me Again: Movement Becomes Genre", he describes this style as "...deep focus photography, extreme camera angles, optical effects, flashbacks, and voiceover narration... (they are) cinematic components of the overall film noir movement, a movement that darkened the mood, or tone, of virtually every Hollywood film product of that era. Deep, harsh shadows and low-key lighting are noir tropes that have helped enhance audiences' understanding of the themes explored in each film. When Neff first meets Phyllis, he recounts how: "I was thinking about that lady upstairs, and the way she had looked at me, and I wanted to see her again, up close, without that stupid staircase in between." We. » In this specific scene we see Phyllis as a spectacle of beauty, having her face illuminated by intense lighting allows the viewer to be drawn in, like the mermaids of Greek mythology. Like any good enchantress she spins us along her web and as the story develops she becomes extremely discreet, perhaps this was used to convey the true evil intentions behind the character by Phyllis. Lawrence Kasdan's 1981 film Body Heat features an almost identical scene. a story that reflects all of the major themes, cinematography, and dangerous female characteristics found in Double Indemnity, but turns those ideas on their head. Body Heat tells the story of Ned Racine, an incompetent lawyer who finds himself trapped by the handsome Matty Walker. Within the first 30 minutes of the film, it's obvious that Body Heat took great liberty in drawing its plot from Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. Featuring an equally sleazy vixen, sexual tension, and a questionable plot to take out Matty's husband, the film appears to be identical to its parent. While Double Indemnity may not tread into overtly sexually explicit territory, Body Heat leaves nothing to the audience's imagination. The aforementioned staircase scene in Double Indemnity that served as the focal point for drawing Walter Neff into Phyllis' web of sexual desire also found its way into Body.Heat. Male protagonist Ned Racine throws a chair through the front door of Matty Walker's house after asking him to leave, and then the two have an explicit sex scene that takes place on his staircase. This scene, with its dramatic lighting change, sweaty bodies, and violent lovemaking, presents a kind of new age vision of what it means to be a woman with sexual desire. The sight of Phyllis Dietrichson in just a towel in Double Indemnity would have caused enough of a scandal at the time of its release. Body heat goes further. Nudity is an important aspect of Body Heat and is used not only as a "lick my ass" respect to the old Hollywood status quo, but is also used as a way to express the individuality and freedom that women have experienced during the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies. Todd Erickson's "Kill Me Again: Movement Becomes Genre" explores the idea of female liberation when he quotes GoodAlan Waxenberg, housekeeping editor, "... a cycle began in the early fifties with the baby boom, which created a societal pressure that forced women to be nothing more than housewives “The 60s and 70s were. years of experimentation, pushing women away from the home." Although little has changed in terms of dialogue between the years of Double Indemnity's creation and those of Body Heat, this fierce recognition of the female body is a critical theme explored by Lawrence Kasdan. Where filmmakers of the dark golden years tiptoed around sexual activity, Body Heat embraces the limitless potential that the nude form offers. Body Heat also takes place during an excruciating heat wave in Florida, which the film uses to further promote sexual themes with a focus on sweaty bodies. The 1960s and 1970s saw the use of color film as it began to gain momentum. in popularity, and in doing so it also ended the "classic" noir narrative style found in films of the forties and fifties and their use of black and white film (with the exception of a few films very selected who experimented with color). Todd Erickson astutely noted this change in style when he wrote: "American filmmakers were unable and unwilling to spontaneously translate the cinematic vocabulary of film noir to the big screen, a color format that was becoming the standard in American cinema's competition with television for the public. “Television, with its demand for full lighting and close-ups, gradually undermined German influence,” Paul Schrader points out in “Notes on Film Noir,” “and color cinematography was, of course, the final blow to "black". (p. 195) The integration of the use of color film also meant that a filmmaker gave a film more freedom of expression, and as a filmmaker it makes sense that the color palette you choose reflects the choices and lives of the characters who inhabit your film. The dominant color red still signifies the underlying themes of desire and lust that are prevalent in Body Heat. The color red is representative of love, strength and danger which perfectly complements the female lead in Body Heat. While audiences might view Matty Walker as a replacement for the older femme fatale archetype, what if that wasn't the case? Although the term "noir" was coined by French critics of the mid-1950s, "neo-noir" exists within the universe of noir itself, but with an updated version of the classic style seen in the 1940s. and fifty. Matty Walker is one of..

Essay / Film Noir Analysis: Double Compensation and Body Heat audience. Although keen to produce a new wave of storytelling through their work, the directors were faced with government restrictions regarding the blacklist and the Hays Code. With these iron-fisted restrictions, themes of sexuality and violence were considered suspect and not openly accepted. Faced with this dilemma and the appetite to circumvent prevailing politically correct norms, filmmakers have been forced to discover new ways to tell their stories and depict their visions without being disdained. It continued to be an uphill battle for storytelling until 1966, when the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system emerged, pushing restrictions on explicit acts of sex and violence to reach the big screen. With this new emancipation, the way film noir was represented changed forever and ultimately allowed directors to blaze their new cinematic path that would both seduce and frighten the world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayNoir, a term coined by French film critics in the 1940s, had its heyday a long time ago, but that n t has not stopped the famous cynicism, eroticism and harsh dialogues that gave birth to a multitude of films produced over the last century. Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder, is one of those films whose plot, themes, and sexual innuendos were explored again in the 1981 film Body Heat. Although both films feature central themes associated with mixed genre of noir, their similarities also introduce key differences that speak to the progression of cinematic acceptance. Double Indemnity demonstrates that what was restricted in the realm of contemporary Hollywood films has always been there, hidden in dialogue and shadows, and awaiting the release of authorized storytelling. In comparison, Body Heat is the liberation that took a plot seemingly consistent with the femme fatale and rejuvenated its storytelling through means that symbolize the birth of a new era. Double Indemnity is the story of two lovers who become lost in a sea of infidelity and murder. , and betrayal. In this film, a promiscuous married woman (Phyllis Dietrichson) meets an insurance salesman (Walter Neff) who has come to her home to discuss car insurance with her husband. After the first meeting, both subjects begin a downward spiral toward a lustful quest for wealth and happiness. Dissatisfied with her cruel husband, Phyllis reaches out to her new lover and asks for a solution. Charmed by her beauty and charisma, Walter Neff agrees to help her. Although seemingly benign at first glance, Phyllis' character's femme fatale emerges by identifying how she desires freedom from her husband: murder. The plot to kill Phyllis's husband unfolds, and thus follows the ultimate demise of our femme fatale. Our two protagonists, Walter and Phyllis, create an elaborate plan for how, when and where they will get rid of her terrible husband. However, as we understand that this is a film noir, it inevitably results in a deterioration in the morality of the characters, as in most films made during this era, and chaos soon takes over the world in which they live. One of the major themes explored, female sexuality, creates deep tensionbetween the two disturbed lovers. Phyllis desperately begs Walter that she needs him whenever they are not together, but he makes it clear that they must not be seen together in order to pull off a heist of unprecedented proportions. As viewers, we would expect this film to include sex and violence to advance its plot; However, since this film is constrained by the limits of society's morals, the film's central themes of noir and the femme fatale character were downplayed to become more politically acceptable. These underlying themes are further evoked through the use of creative dialogue, the attributes of the female characters, and the constructive use of black and white film. It would seem that Phyllis accepts the role of men in her world as powerful people, but she knows that they can be easily manipulated by carefully calculated sexual inducements. This type of control she exerts over men is the exact archetype used to define many femme fatales seen in Hollywood's Golden Age films. However, Phyllis' sexual nature was just one of many ways that filmmakers used different perspectives of women in their films. German Expressionism is a term related to the use of light and shadow as a means of conveying a character's deeper psychological or ulterior motivations, and this idea plays a key role in most film noir of the golden age. In Todd Erickson's text "Kill Me Again: Movement Becomes Genre", he describes this style as "...deep focus photography, extreme camera angles, optical effects, flashbacks, and voiceover narration... (they are) cinematic components of the overall film noir movement, a movement that darkened the mood, or tone, of virtually every Hollywood film product of that era. Deep, harsh shadows and low-key lighting are noir tropes that have helped enhance audiences' understanding of the themes explored in each film. When Neff first meets Phyllis, he recounts how: "I was thinking about that lady upstairs, and the way she had looked at me, and I wanted to see her again, up close, without that stupid staircase in between." We. » In this specific scene we see Phyllis as a spectacle of beauty, having her face illuminated by intense lighting allows the viewer to be drawn in, like the mermaids of Greek mythology. Like any good enchantress she spins us along her web and as the story develops she becomes extremely discreet, perhaps this was used to convey the true evil intentions behind the character by Phyllis. Lawrence Kasdan's 1981 film Body Heat features an almost identical scene. a story that reflects all of the major themes, cinematography, and dangerous female characteristics found in Double Indemnity, but turns those ideas on their head. Body Heat tells the story of Ned Racine, an incompetent lawyer who finds himself trapped by the handsome Matty Walker. Within the first 30 minutes of the film, it's obvious that Body Heat took great liberty in drawing its plot from Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. Featuring an equally sleazy vixen, sexual tension, and a questionable plot to take out Matty's husband, the film appears to be identical to its parent. While Double Indemnity may not tread into overtly sexually explicit territory, Body Heat leaves nothing to the audience's imagination. The aforementioned staircase scene in Double Indemnity that served as the focal point for drawing Walter Neff into Phyllis' web of sexual desire also found its way into Body.Heat. Male protagonist Ned Racine throws a chair through the front door of Matty Walker's house after asking him to leave, and then the two have an explicit sex scene that takes place on his staircase. This scene, with its dramatic lighting change, sweaty bodies, and violent lovemaking, presents a kind of new age vision of what it means to be a woman with sexual desire. The sight of Phyllis Dietrichson in just a towel in Double Indemnity would have caused enough of a scandal at the time of its release. Body heat goes further. Nudity is an important aspect of Body Heat and is used not only as a "lick my ass" respect to the old Hollywood status quo, but is also used as a way to express the individuality and freedom that women have experienced during the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies. Todd Erickson's "Kill Me Again: Movement Becomes Genre" explores the idea of female liberation when he quotes GoodAlan Waxenberg, housekeeping editor, "... a cycle began in the early fifties with the baby boom, which created a societal pressure that forced women to be nothing more than housewives “The 60s and 70s were. years of experimentation, pushing women away from the home." Although little has changed in terms of dialogue between the years of Double Indemnity's creation and those of Body Heat, this fierce recognition of the female body is a critical theme explored by Lawrence Kasdan. Where filmmakers of the dark golden years tiptoed around sexual activity, Body Heat embraces the limitless potential that the nude form offers. Body Heat also takes place during an excruciating heat wave in Florida, which the film uses to further promote sexual themes with a focus on sweaty bodies. The 1960s and 1970s saw the use of color film as it began to gain momentum. in popularity, and in doing so it also ended the "classic" noir narrative style found in films of the forties and fifties and their use of black and white film (with the exception of a few films very selected who experimented with color). Todd Erickson astutely noted this change in style when he wrote: "American filmmakers were unable and unwilling to spontaneously translate the cinematic vocabulary of film noir to the big screen, a color format that was becoming the standard in American cinema's competition with television for the public. “Television, with its demand for full lighting and close-ups, gradually undermined German influence,” Paul Schrader points out in “Notes on Film Noir,” “and color cinematography was, of course, the final blow to "black". (p. 195) The integration of the use of color film also meant that a filmmaker gave a film more freedom of expression, and as a filmmaker it makes sense that the color palette you choose reflects the choices and lives of the characters who inhabit your film. The dominant color red still signifies the underlying themes of desire and lust that are prevalent in Body Heat. The color red is representative of love, strength and danger which perfectly complements the female lead in Body Heat. While audiences might view Matty Walker as a replacement for the older femme fatale archetype, what if that wasn't the case? Although the term "noir" was coined by French critics of the mid-1950s, "neo-noir" exists within the universe of noir itself, but with an updated version of the classic style seen in the 1940s. and fifty. Matty Walker is one of..

Navigation

« Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next »

Get In Touch