Double Indemnity Analysis

Representations :
Phyllis Dietrichson: (first impression) blond beauty, stylish, long suffering wife, slightly abused, introduced into story half naked, drinks ice tea, is in love with Walter.(last impression) femme fétal, manipulative, probably murdered before, unkind to Lola her step daughter, unloving, liar, uses Walter.
Lola Dietrichson: innocent, young, brunette, step daughter, unhappy, secretly dating Nino who her father disapproves of, shown to be crying quite often, mother dead.
Mr Dietrichson: Sleazy, ugly, old in his 50s, sometimes abusive, neglectful to family, drunk borderline alcoholic, does not inspire sympathy from audience, fat, works at an oil field.
Walter Neff: Slick salesman, tall and handsome, successful, talks in fast short sentences, calls Phyllis “baby”, confident, prefers a beer, very masculine, smokes a cigarette, single.
Mr Keyes: short, intelligent, good instincts his “little man”, smokes cheap cigars, Walter’s friend and employer, single though almost married a girl till the “little man” told him to check her background, never seen wearing a jacket or blazer like the other insurance people, a good heart under a hard exterior.

Audience: The audience respond to the characters and situations depending on how they are represented. We as the audience watching the story unfold have ideas put in our heads through out the picture and the people inside it, we have little sympathy for Mr Dietrichson when he is murdered because we don’t like him as we briefly get to know him through witnessing his behaviour ourselves and hearing about his habits from his wife. The audience’s response to Phyllis Dietrichson changes as the plot progresses, at first we strongly sympathise with this beautiful long suffering wife and almost find ourselves egging her on to get rid of her abusive husband, but as we get to know her and hear about what her step daughter has to say about her and we grow suspicious and realise we’ve fallen for it just like Walter.Industry: director Billy Wilder’s directorial choices in this film reflected his belief in the primacy of writing, he avoided the exuberant cinematography and shots that called attention to themselves would distract the audience from the story. Double Indemnity is a typical Claudio Carvalho script and story, full of dark tricks and deception with an unhappy ending. Billy Wilder is in his element in working on such a story and double indemnity was one of his most well-known and celebrated works.

Language: what each character is saying and how they say it has a profound effect on the story and the audience, the movie’s catchphrase “it was murder at first sight” uses the popular saying “love at first sight” so we understand that this is a romantic story with a dark twist. For the most part the tone of all the characters is casual that is only moderated when Walter and Keyes meet an executive of the company. Walter Neff’s language is simplistic, short and to the point, very similar to Keyes’s style and typical of film noir dialogue. Phyllis talks with a smooth breathy tone almost all the time when she’s with Walter but switches to sounding professional and in charge during more formal scenes with undertones of seduction.

Narrative: Walter Neff provides the narration throughout the picture, starting from the first scene as he confesses to the crime in Keyes’s office and during significant moments in the film when its appropriate to know what he was thinking at the time. If Walter had not been narrating in key moments of the film the story would have been harder to follow as it provided a lot of insight to where the plot was going, we could not have known certain things like when Walter was driving away from his first meeting with Phyllis, he described the smell of honeysuckle as he travels down the drive, “I didn’t know then…that murder could smell like honeysuckle” the voice overGenre: As a film noir picture the film must meet a certain criteria; dark deeds, devious motives, black widows, crooked characters and death. Double Indemnity is a quality film noir classic as it provides all the shady twists, flawed characters and murderous plots that noir demands.