This week in class we watched a classic film noir movie, Double Indemnity, a movie where almost everyone is guilty of something. These type of movies were released during the time of WWII and hit Europe after the war was over. This is when many people started seeing similarities in the movies made during this time. It seemed that all of the movies had dark shadows and had a grimy feel to them. Dark shadows, dark people, and especially dark women. And I guess that is what would make it a black film.
So in the class we are suppose to be looking at the different types of cool and what makes us think that they are cool, but while watching this movie the male and female leads were anything except cool. Phyllis is a conniving, corrupt, crazy woman and Neff is willing to plan to kill her husband without being asked. Phyllis's husband is a drunk and portrayed as a looser. The only person that has a shred of dignity is Keyes, and to me, he is the only cool person in the film. There is just something about Keyes that makes him cool. I don't know if it is his ability to solve even the strangest of cases, or that he wants to believe that Neff didn't have anything to do with the murder because he was his friend.
I would have to say that the movie is cool, but most of the people are not. I like the dark shadows and the way that the movie is made, but the characters and shady are definitely not cool. This movie showed me that a movie could be a cool movie but have lame characters.
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ReplyDeleteEveryone hated this movie! It saddens me so!
ReplyDeleteI liked your post--I can see where you're coming from with the crazy femme fatale, but I think it's a tad ironic.
How?
Well, last year The Dark Knight came out, a movie involving a villainous character who loves no one, is conniving, corrupt and crazy. He tricks people.
He also wears a lot of makeup.
People think he's cool, though. Is it because he blows things up? How come the same elements in two different people can make one person awesome and the other one lame?
It is because the Joker could never happen (this is what I'm hoping) we can imagine someone like her. I liked the movie, but didn't think that it fits with the characters being cool, but more like the movie in general being cool.
ReplyDeleteExplosions are cool... not necessarily the people that make them.
The idea of a story being cool, but not the characters in interesting. I often try to figure out what makes things cool compared to what makes people cool. Ideas?
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