Double Indemnity Movie Essay

Question One:

In Double Indemnity, the lead character, Insurance salesman Walter Neff finds himself in fatal love affair with femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson. Dietrichson’s relationship with Neff developed with the goal to kill her current husband, however once the goal is achieved the relationship between the two drastically crumples as both are tasked with hiding the truth from Neff’s Insurance agency. One of the crumbling factors in their fatal relationship is Dietrichson’s step daughter, Lola, whom confronts and confides in Neff for help after she suspects that Dietrichson killed her father and also her Mother. For Neff this becomes a conflicting factor for him as his relationship with Lola provides him with guilt and also suspicion of Dietrichson and her true motives. In comparison, the Maltese Falcon features a similar relationship between the “hard
In association to Schickel’s reading of Double Indemnity this scene contrasted from Wilder and Chandler’s earlier work, as the movie featured subtle dialogue that laces together “persuasively realistic violent death” but instead of concluding the movie with this scene the leading character, Neff proceeds to confess all of his crimes before collapsing outside his work office (63). In fully understanding the shoot out between the two iconic characters its interesting how in the reading by Schickel’s that budget cuts shaped a different understanding of this classic film noir scene as the director, Wilder, states it made Neff a “victim not a murderer” (63). In not having a dramatic big budget shoot out Neff’s character remains a consistant one that seeks to redeem himself by concluding his scene with Dietrichson and indirectly confronting his friend