Blood Simple is
from the genre of neo-noir. You have
now watched a film from the noir category and one from the category of neo-noir
(American). Think about Blood Simple
and Double Indemnity:
- the role of the female and her relationship with the "bad guy" (who can also be a female) and how this relationship is represented cinematically by the filmmakers;
- the "bad guy" and his/her violence and how he/she and the violence is represented cinematically by the filmmakers.
Remember that "cinematically" includes sound. Plot and narrative discussion should be limited. For those of you who are ambitious, please read Laura Mulvey's essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Try to connect this essay (agree or disagree) with the two films in one well-developed paragraph (extra credit).
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For a high grade, you must in a minimum of 3 paragraphs:
- speak cinematically and use your cinematic vocabulary
- show what you know about the genre of film noir
- include quotes from any film essays you’ve read on the subjects (women, noir, etc.)
Blood Simple and Double Indemnity incorporate the many aspects that make up the noir/neo-noir film genre, an era from the 1940s- 50s and echoes ensuing ever since. These types of films are categorized with gritty mystery, suspense and a dynamic main character incorporated into the films plot. The visual style, deriving from German Expressionist cinematography contains a lot of low-key lighting and the attitude comes from the crime fiction that emerged during the Great Depression.
ReplyDeleteIn Double Indemnity, our female character, Phyllis, is a manipulative, sleazy, and cheap woman who is able to control Walter Neff, a successful insurance salesman. He turns out to be our "bad guy" as Phyllis is parasitic towards him, corrupting and using him for her own personal agenda that doesn't include him. She puts Neff into positions where he feels he is obligated to help her. His trapped mind frame in these situations is represented in the cinematographers technique of venetian blind lighting which creates light bars over a subject. Between the two characters, we are constantly in suspense. This is created with the deployment of light and shadow, reminiscent of German Expressionism. The violence of these two characters is made as subtle and discrete as possible as neither of them want to be caught in their deeds. The filming is always done in a way that the acts of violence and killing are off screen, such as when Neff strangles Phyllis' husband.
In Blood Simple, the female character, Abby, is shown as an innocent, helpless woman, prey to surrounding situations. That is, until the end where she takes control in order to protect herself against the "bad guy", Loren Visser. Their relationship is more like that of a cat and mouse. In the end, we see Visser walking toward the door to kill Abby with blood on his face, representing the past violent ordeal, and Abby waits on the other side. She slides down the wall, representing her descent into the grasp of murder, which is further supported by the shadow cast across most of her face, drawing to attention her loss of innocence and knowledge of self-preservation in that moment.
The two films are similar in that the non-diegetic music constantly increases the suspense, eluding to an upcoming vision of horror. The "bad guys", Neff and Visser, always wear hats with brims which allow the cinematographer to use low key lighting to cast shadows over their faces, which implies their sinister qualities. The two films also heavily rely on smoke, usually from cigarettes, to elude to the hidden capabilities of characters and create the atmosphere of mystery. On top of this, they both also play with the stereotypes of women and men, loss of the feminine innocence, manipulated or misled men, typical for their genre.
Double Indemnity and Blood Simple are prime examples, cinemas that fall perfectly in the category of noir and neo noir. Both follow the genres signature of the femmes fatales and their relationship with the “bad guy” and their violence that build anxietal suspense and drama. The relationship and violence in these movies of the noir and neo noir genre are represented in the same ways cinematically, through the use of sound and the use of light and shadow.
ReplyDeleteDouble Indemnity’s femme fatale is a trashy woman named Phyllis. She uses her looks and attraction to get Neff to do she wants. He does it out of love when in all reality she was using him. Her relationship with him actually is the cause of his violence which makes her the fatale. Their relationship together is represented as sleazy and hidden in one big trap that they are both stuck in. This is cinematically represented in the scene where Phyllis and Neff are standing next to the car and they look so small next to a huge car as they are holding each other. Neff’s fatal sexual attraction to Phyllis is also represented through sound, their dialogue between one another that shows us their manipulative, desperate relationship. Walter stereotypically calls Phyllis “baby” showing how he wants to possess her. In his apartment, after they have decided to kill her husband, Walter says he wishes they had pink wine to celebrate, to create a more romantic atmosphere, but Phyllis dismisses him by saying Bourbon is fine. While his intention is clearly sexual, she wants to get on with the job in the most efficient way. Her intentions are clearly murderous and greedy, and her relation to Walter is purely manipulative. Through shadowing, like the shadowing bars over from a window all over Walter’s body, it shows us his trapped state of mind when it comes to his relationship with Phyllis that leads to the murder as well.
Blood Simple is based off the femme fatale of Abby. Yet, with less manipulation we are still shown the same situation as in Double Indemnity; murder out of love for a women. Abby in this case is still seen as the drive for the violence, but way more helpless. Shadow is used to show the relationship between Marty and Abby, but in the opposite way. I noticed that shadow was used to show darker scenes and create an eerie mood such as when Marty brings up killing Abby and Ray in the car with the assassin, they are both partially in shadow. Then again when the assassin delivers photos, they are in shadow, maintaining this eerie mood. Since the relationship between Abby and Marty was never violent face to face, shadow is used to shock us. When Marty grabs Abby in Ray’s house, the scene is very well lit, and Marty grabs Abby so quickly without warning to the audience, causing his actions to feel like they came out of nowhere. Because Blood Simple has conditioned us to associate darkness with dark actions, we think since this scene is pretty well lit that there isn’t going to be anything violent or eerie in this scene. The lighting seemed to have broken from its pattern on purpose to shock the audience, and to relate Abby’s surprise and helplessness with audience. Both of these films follow their genres precisely.
While watching Blood Simple and Double Indemnity,both movies have an implicit detail on the characters who are considered “the bad guys”. These details are shown through the use of low-key lighting which shows that the characters have a dark personality. When watching Double Indemnity, i’ve noticed the role of the female and her relationship with the “bad guy” that is played in double indemnity, which later in the movie turns out to be herself, is once again mainly lit with a low-key lighting,and also accompanied with occasional dolly shots to make the viewer realize that she has a darker and a manipulative personality as the narrative progresses. This is shown when when Phyllis breaks her husband’s leg and then they both travel to a train station, but oblivious to her husband, Neff is shown hiding in the back seat. Phyllis then manipulates Neff into killing her husband for a claim.Her violence is represented by the filmmakers, when the filmmakers are influenced by the devastation of the bombings and the surprise attack on pearl harbor. The scenes are influenced by this, when near the end of the movie, Phyllis is shown trying to betray neff by killing him for the insurance claim, but Neff shoots her instead. This leads up the the events to the beginning of the movie, where Neff is first shown walking slowly to a building as if something devastated and injured him. This is also represented when the socio-context of that scene is about the devastation that happened after that incident involving pearl harbor and how it left a terrible mark on human history. The relationship between the “bad guy” and the role of the female is represented through the use of deep shadow castings on the female and it’s accompanied by the occasional use of dolly shots and low-key lighting to show her dark and manipulative personality.
ReplyDeleteWhen watching Blood Simple, The role of the female and her relationship with the bad is represented by filmmakers, is when the role of the female and the relationship with the “bad guy” has less darker personality than the role of the female in double indemnity but instead is more focused on the stereotypical role of the passive female, and while the main antagonist, Visser was shown to be the villain of film, the female gives the impression that Marty and Ray was the villain as he was shown to cover up the fact he buried marty but didn’t kill him. The role of the female has almost the similarities of the role in double Indemnity such as the personality of the femme fatale, but she is less manipulative than the role in double indemnity.The bad guy and his violence is represented by the filmmakers, when he is taken influence from the “Cold War” which the film was being made during that time. The influence is for when people blame and assuming that other innocent people were supporting “Communism” This is taken to account for when there are multiple scenes where the main protagonist Abby, is accusing Ray and assuming that he was the killer instead of Vissen. These are also accompanied by the uses of the low key lighting and even an occasional worm’s eye view to express Visser's dominance over the situation and that he could get away with escaping that situation knowing that Ray would get blamed for what happened.
Overall, the film Noir genre expresses different and unique ways a film is produced, such as the frequent use of shadow castings and low-key lighting to explain the film’s implicit and explicit narrative. the genre has also taken influence from german expressionism which takes overly expressive acting and heavily styled makeup to express its implicit meaning during World war 1. And its follow up, neo-noir have take influence from the Film Noir genre. The neo Noir also takes influence from the Film noir genre when it expresses the implicit meaning from historic or just recently occurring events for when the year the movie was made, and make that event into the implicit narrative of the film. Both movies expresses these perfectly.
Both Double Indemnity and Blood simple are classic Noir films, and both feature prominently the archetype of the femme fatale, one of the most recognizable things about Noir movies.
ReplyDeleteIn Double Indemnity, the femme fatale is Phyllis Dietrichson, a sleazeball and psycho of a women who exerts ridiculous influence over our “bad guy”, Walter Neff. In fact, she is arguably the catalyst for Neff’s transformation from likeable everyman to bad guy. Look at the way we first see her – half naked at the top of the stairs, looking down at Neff, almost as if she has just found a new toy. The low-angle shot from Neff’s point of view at the bottom of the stairs presents Phyllis, as soon as we meet her, as having power over Neff and his actions. It is extremely telling that during Mr. Dietrichson’s murder, the camera focuses not on Neff, the one actually committing the murder, but on Phyllis – in fact, Neff is completely out of frame, almost obsolete. Instead, the camera shows a close-up of Phyllis, as we see a little smile flash on her face as her husband is killed beside her. So while Neff may be the one perpetrating the violence, the camera knows (and shows) who is actually responsible – Phyllis. Neff is really not supposed to be the bad guy here, and when we meet him, he doesn’t seem to be capable of the violence we see him commit later in the film – but he becomes one and commits some pretty heinous acts, largely through Phyllis’s manipulation (although there is some evidence he is just as sleazy as Phyllis – look at the way he constantly refers to her as baby, almost possessively).
Abby in Blood Simple is a much more complicated femme fatale than Phyllis in Double Indemnity. Instead of being a straight up scumbag, Abby is more well-rounded – capable of defending herself (as we see in the last scene), but also manipulative and faux-innocent. While in many ways Abby is the spark for the powder keg of violence that occurs in Blood Simple, she does not take as active role as Phyllis does – rather she appears more passive, innocent, almost dumb sometimes. However, this does not mean she is not completely unaware of the violence she causes – look at how her face is often covered, at least partially, in shadow. In fact, she is perhaps most vulnerable when not covered in shadow – look at how Marty is able to grab her in Ray’s house, almost from out of nowhere, even though the scene is almost fully lit. The bad guy in Blood Simple, Private Dick Loren Visser, supplies almost all the violence in the movie, and you can tell almost instantly he is more than just a P.I – his hat is constantly casting him in shadow. He is perhaps the ultimate catalyst for Abby’s full personal 180 – when he hunts her down at her apartment, the scene is almost pitch-black, and Abby’s face becoming more and more obscured by shadow. As Abby shoots Visser, and finally realizes he isn’t Marty, she sinks down, finally delving completely into the dark.
Over the course of the past couple of weeks, my peers and I were introduced to Double Indemnity, a classic Film Noir movie-as well as Blood Simple, a Neo-Noir movie, both utilizing the shared and significant characteristic of containing a femme fatale to develop the riveting plots in a very distinct and bold way.
ReplyDeleteLooking first to the older of the two, Double Indemnity, it is crucial that we establish the role of Phyllis, a female master manipulator, through the way she is portrayed cinematically. Addressing first our introduction to her, we are given a low angle shot of her as she makes small talk with Neff before dressing herself and coming down the stairs. What may passively be just a shot from Neff’s perspective, allows the subconscious of the audience to absorb the angle’s implication that Phyllis has already, will continue, or soon will, dominate the life of someone--in this case, Neff, since he is the one viewing her. In this very same introduction we can reference Laura Mulvey’s essay on feminism in cinema, and her argument that man is the bearer of look, woman is image. In other words, the woman is portrayed based on the man’s personal fantasies. Whether or not this argument was meant to work in the favor of Phyllis, it definitely does. In continuation, throughout the movie we see something very common, and almost expect of Noir movies: harsh contrasts between dark and light, which to the audience would generally come through as contrasts between black and white. We can recognize that there is seldom an instant that Neff’s face is not at least partially covered in shadow, indicating that he has had a darkness of a lack of knowledge cast over him. As the movie progresses, Phyllis’ face also becomes more darkened, until the fateful moment where Neff and herself have their last exchange, where her face is fully lit as if a revelation or epiphany has come over her-such as the one she is describing. An ingenious lighting tactic is also used when venetian blinds cast shadows resembling prison bars over Neff’s face, creating the all symbolic suggestion that he has trapped himself in this twisted system of Phyllis’, and the, “last stop is the cemetery.” Now, referencing Mulvey again, we can also say that the reason Neff found himself so tied up in this nonsense was because of the castration theory that suggest a sort of irrational intimidation of that which does not bear a penis. This intense theory, in my opinion, fades from the bold to the implied as Noir movies progress in the continuing cycle of time.
Blood Simple, although more modern, and not quite as dense uses the femme fatale in a different, and in my opinion, more developed light. In this case, the characterization of Abby seems so complex that it will continue to raise questions from film viewers for years to come. She cloaks herself with a veil of innocence, although it seems she is nothing but at points, which ultimately, is the truth. In this way, the characters of Phyllis and Abby are relatable. When Abby seems least pure, but still tries to maintain herself, there is shadow cast over her face, as she is able to portray herself as crime free throughout the movie, the shadow will diminish accordingly. Reminding me of a Film Noir, T-Men, (DP John Alton), in the final scenes of the movie, Abby’s face gets increasingly washed out by darkness, fading slowly into it for the first time, until the end where she let’s it swallow her up completely.
Here we can see the importance of lighting and contrast in both instances in portraying the femme fatale in different yet effective ways.
Both Blood Simple and Double Indemnity are categorized under the noir/neo-noir film genre. Both films follow the idea of femmes fatales and how the femme fatales relate to the bad guy which all adds up to drama and suspense. The low lighting and style of attitude were very popular around that time because The Great Depression was going on around that time and crime fiction was a very popular genre then.
ReplyDeleteIn Double Indemnity, the femme fatale is a woman by the name of Phyllis Dietrichson. Phyllis is a self-centered woman who uses Neff like a puppet. She makes him do all these crazy things and he listens because she uses her looks to almost hypnotize him. This is why she is considered a fatal, because she makes him do her dirty deeds. For example, she wants him to kill her husband and in return he gets her love, but not actually. Another great example in the film is when Phyllis is first introduced into the film, she is standing at the top of a flight of stairs half naked gazing down on Neff. This makes her seem like she has power over him or will eventually gain power over him, like a puppet. Which she eventually does. The relationship Neff desires is represented through sound, when Neff and Phyllis first meet, he comes to the door looking for her husband but since he isn’t home, Neff starts talking to Phyllis and begins to flirt with her. She goes along with it until later in the film when she turns on him. Lighting also plays a very important role in Neff’s relation with Phyllis. They’re relationship is real fuzzy and mixed up, shown by a certain style of lighting, when the light is coming through the blind of a window and creates light bars on Neff, because of the lighting this shows that Neff is trapped.
In Blood Simple, the femme fatale is Abby. Abby is a different kind of femme fatale compared to Phyllis. Abby is a “smarter” femme fatale because she knows how to defend herself if she’s backed into a corner. For example, when she takes control of the ending situation by sitting down and preparing for the worst, while Loren Visser is slowly making his way toward her to kill her. Usually when we see Abby is comes across us as an innocent character when shes the real reason behind all the killing and problems that are caused. Just like in Double Indemnity, the femme fatale makes the audience think that someone else is the villain when really, they’re the villain. Abby makes us think that Marty and Ray are the evil characters. Lighting plays a big part in Abby’s role as the femme fatale, usually when Abby appears on screen, a shadow is being casted over her face to kind of give a sense of eerie/dark or mysterious, and since dark lighting is highly associated with dark actions throughout Blood Simple, this shows us that Abby isn’t really innocent.
Blood Simple and Double Indemnity have several parallels between them in theme and overall construct. An obvious similarity between the two is their noir genre. Common themes of noir films are exemplified in both movies. There are deception and dark tones in both storylines. The femme fatale character arch type in both movies but the two characters in the films representing this arch type are very different. Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity is a true femme fatale and set the standard for most after. She’s filthy, vile and the perfect representation of evil in the plot. She deceives the main character and corrupts him with her lies. On the other hand, Frances McDormand creates a likeable misunderstood character in Blood Simple. She represents the femme fatal character even though there is nothing fatale about her. Contrary to Stanwyck’s character, the femme fatale in Blood Simple is quite innocent. However, there is still the fact that McDormand’s character does kill someone. This killing and the killing in Double Indemnity are completely different. In Blood Simple the femme fatale is vanquishing evil but in Double Indemnity the kill is evil. The killing is a major element of a film noir plot but the killings in these two movies run perpendicular to each other in meaning. In Double Indemnity the main villain is Stanwyck’s character. In Blood Simple the main villain is barely ever seen by McDormand’s character until she kills him. This represents how pure evil the villain is almost taking on a role as the devil that can assume any figure but is just human in the end. When the villain comes after McDormand’s character shadow is added to the scene and the film starts to take a darker ominous tone. The Coen brothers created perfect suspense in the scene and made the viewer question what would happen to Abby. The violence by the villain in Double Indemnity is not actually done by Stanwyck’s character but instead she manipulates Neff to do the dirty work. This adds to her cycle as a black widow metaphor of sorts. She stands by the car as Neff does her work and looks innocent as she waits. She is surrounded by darkness representing how she controls the world around her for evil. The bad guy in Blood Simple looks like a cliché of bad guys in film noir, looking similar to Orson Welles in The Third Man and matching him in cunning. The Coen brothers managed to shift the private detectives personality from fun loving to pure evil. When the detective is first approached everything is light with high key lighting. Then when it seems he has done the right thing by not killing the couple he seems to become a protagonist only to shift immediately once he starts after the couple again.
ReplyDeleteBoth Blood Simple and Double Indemnity are noir/neo-noir films genre which focus on the idea of femmes fatales and how the relate the characters and the film as a whole. Blood Simple and Double Indemnity have contrasting elements in terms of both the femme fatales and in cinematic themes.
ReplyDeleteThe femme fatale in Double Indemnity is a woman by the name of Phyllis. She is the mysterious and mischievous person in the film, and we realize what she is truly like cinematically. For the first time upon introduction, Phyllis is in a bath towel showing her lack of self-respect and femininity. This also signifies that she is no woman with morals, and dressing sleazy adds to the overall image of her in the movie. In Laura Mulvey’s essay, she states how the women in film are portrayed as the image, and being more risqué in this costume design goes along with her statement. Also in this scene, there is a shot that revolved around her as a character and reflects upon her image as whole. This is a low angle shot of her looking down on Neff. What this symbolizes is her full control over him along with the power that will come in her determinations throughout the film. It foreshadows her manipulative nature of Neff as well. She is also portrayed as evil. Upon examination cinematically, once she killed her husband, there was a major focus on her rather than Neff. Cinematically this shows that she is the one who has caused this to happen, even though Neff was alongside her through the ordeal. She wanted it to happen and got it through her manipulative nature.
Moving onto Blood Simple, our femme fatale, Abby is more complex in nature in comparison to Phyllis. Phyllis is more upfront and abrupt in her demands, while Abby is more so on the innocent side, often quiet. This is actually deceiving however because cinematically, she usually has some shadow on her face, which symbolizes something dark and mysterious about her. The scene in which we realize the most about Abby is in the final dramatic scene where she is up against Private Dick Loren Visser. Again, we see much darkness coming from her face in this heated “battle” between them. This shows that she gets more fierce the darker her surroundings and face gets, and upon realization that it wasn’t Marty, the screen went to black.
Blood Simple and Double Indemnity are two movies which have proven their importance within film culture. They beautifully portray the pivotal components of film noir. These being unsettling narrative themes of death, angular shadows, feelings of isolation in large cities and confliction of characters. In addition, film noir is characterized by its presence of femme fatales, and the distinguishing mood and style that harks back towards the days of German Expressionism. In essence, both Blood Simple and Double Indemnity portray the ideology, tradition, and characteristics of film noir.
ReplyDeleteIn Double Indemnity, the femme fatale was clearly Phyllis Dietrichson. Phyllis is shown to be a heartless, manipulative, and vile human being in the way that she so effortlessly controls the mind of our “bad guy”, Walter Neff, who was at one point just the average man trying to make a living.This is all shown cinematically from evidence in the film such as how Phyllis looks at Walter from atop the stairs when they first met. She was high above him, imposing a sense of importance with the high angle shot as well as the allure directed toward Walter with her being almost naked. This sense of importance traces back to her manipulative ways, as Walter quickly fell for her. Even though Walter is the bad guy for committing the murder of Phyllis’s husband, we quickly realize that the will and evil behind all of this is Phyllis. For instance, during the murder scene there is a shot where Walter, our resident bad guy, is not even shown in one of the frames of the shots after the murder of Phyllis’s husband. Rather, we see a detailed close up of Phyllis instead, representing her larger overbearing role in comparison to Walters’ physical actions. Also, the relationship between Phyllis and Walter puts a strain on the mind of Walter such as during our end scene where the blinds put a zebra effect of lighting all over Walter to resemble the path he took with Phyllis which conflicted him on a much more personal level than previously conceived.
Blood Simple is our more modern adaptation of the film noir genre. In blood simple, our main female protagonist is Abby, who is shown as an innocent individual who is voluntarily helpless until she takes the reigns of her fate into her own hands. Our bad guy, Loren Visser, is the one who tries to murder Abby. Cinematically, specifically in the end, we see Abby slip down a wall as the bad guy is after her, showing how she gave herself up to the nature of violence, murder, and mental chaos. The constant shadowing on Abby’s face show not only her fear of what’s to come, but the fact that darkness she chose to embrace is closing in within Abby in a negative way, taking hold of her innocent nature, which led to the violence that surrounded her.