Billy Wilder, who was a famous writer and director who also won 8 academy award nominations as Best director over the course of his 50+-year Hollywood film career, directed Double Indemnity. Double Indemnity was written in 1944 but set in 1938, just before WW2. The film was written in 1st person narrative, which means that one of the characters in the film tells the story and is speaking to the camera. 1st person narrative is used because the audience feel like they are being included into the film personally. Walter Neff is the main character who uses 1st person narrative in the film. He uses this convention for the duration of the film and it makes the audience think and understand how he feels. It is used with flashback to talk about events that have happened in the past. Flashback refreshes the memory and gives a wider picture of what happened; it fills in gaps of evidence. The whole film of Double Indemnity is a flashback because it starts in the present and works back to the past. An example of a flashback being used is when Walter Neff commentates and we see the flashback as thought it actually happens there and then.
A convention that is also to do with the
narrative style is the basic plot. This gives the sense of a crime that has gone wrong. It is not complicated to understand, so it is good for the audience because it is simple. Overall the film noir narrative conventions of Double Indemnity set a scene and the background information for the film.
As well as narrative conventions, there are also stylistic conventions, which make film noir, and lots of these are shown in ‘Double Indemnity’. One of these being Venetian blinds. In my opinion, I think that this is the stylistic convention, which is, used the most frequent as well as shadows. Venetian blinds portray the feeling of a plot and hiding. This is like good and evil: light being good and black being evil. An example of this is in Walter Neff’s office and apartment. The Venetian blinds cover over their faces to create an effect of evilness. Also the blinds look like straight lines and together with other conventions, they make it look like a jail and that somebody is trapped behind them or is evil and hiding. To the audience, this may mean that something is going to jump out. Venetian blinds and shadows work together to produce an effective atmosphere with the audience. Both together, they make the character feel claustrophobic.
Another stylistic convention that double indemnity uses is the unpleasant weather. Bad weather signifies that there is evilness around or something that is going to go wrong. It reflects the pessimistic mood of film noir. This also affects the lighting by how it is, mainly at night when it rains and bad places are normally dark anyway comparing to tight places where hardly anything goes wrong. The weather seems to move along with the bad happenings in the film.
The two final stylistic conventions that I am going to discuss are the use of mirrors and staircases. In all film noir, mirrors are used to reflect somebody’s’ other side and see what they look like from another view. Together with staircases they create an eerie atmosphere. Staircases are normally presented when the femme fatales stands at the top and the weak male at the bottom. They are used to make the impression that femme fatales have power over the males. By standing them at the bottom, the weak male looks vulnerable and insecure. The mirrors are used frequently because it shows that mirrors never show the exact truth and everything is normally back to front. They may show that the truth is never quite there.
All stylistic conventions used in Double Indemnity have the effect on the audience like the other main film noir conventions. These create the effect of something going wrong or evilness. The conventions will keep them on the edge of their seats and keep them interested.
I know from watching and listening to the film that it was written at least 50 years ago. The language in the film shows this as characters use different words. All the characters use words akin to the time around 1940. I know this because Walter Neff uses words like ‘Baby’ after a lot of his sentences, when he is talking to Phyllis Dietrich son who is the femme fatales. The language today is a lot different and that is how I can judge that the film was made at least 50 years ago. By the way that Walter Neff speaks, I can interpret about him that he is into the women and he likes to keep himself to himself.
Blade runner was made a lot later than Double Indemnity. It was directed by a man called Ridley Scott in 1989 but was meant to reflect the life in 2019, so it was based in the future. Although it is a film noir genre, it also falls into the category sci-fi. I know this from evidence of replicants (robots) and flying cars that cruise through the city. I think that Ridley Scott used film noir conventions with sci-fi because it makes it a different film. Also I think he used film noir conventions because it gives the film a more realistic atmosphere and appearance.
Like in Double Indemnity, Blade runner can use a lot of narrative conventions to make the film noir. One of these is 1st person narrative. Again, this is told by the main character (in this case, Deckard) as a commentary and he gives his opinions on what he is talking about. To the audience, I think that by using 1st person narrative, they can get an idea on how the character really thinks and how they feel. I know that 1st person narrative is used in both films so I can make a prediction that it is a popular convention to use in film noir. In Double Indemnity, I think that there was more commentating than in Blade runner. This may have been because Blade runner is a more recent film but it also could have been because Blade runner is more of a sci-fi film and does not have 1st person narrative conventions.
Another narrative convention that is used in Blade runner is Flashbacks. It is used in the first scene of the film when one of the replicants – Lyon, is shot. It is confusing to have a flashback at the beginning and that’s why I think the audience would get confused at first. I think if the audience watched both films, they would think that flashbacks were best used in Double Indemnity. This is because Double Indemnity fits into the film noir genre a lot better than Blade runner and it uses more stylistic conventions.
Blade runner uses a wide variety of stylistic conventions throughout the film. Two of the main ones are the use of fans and Venetian blinds. An example of a scene when the fans are there to create an effect is near the end of the film and Roy and Deckard are fighting. Roy appears to be on a rooftop above Deckard, which may mean that Deckard is the weak male. But the use of fans behind Roy may interpret that Roy has an evil background which he has control of. To the audience, seeing a fan behind a character might signify that somebody is just about to get hurt. I say this because normally when a character is seen on top of a disused warehouse rooftop, with the wind blowing and the fans, something may happen. In Double Indemnity, fans were not used because it is not a convention that would stand out from the rest. Venetian blinds are also used frequently for the duration of Blade runner. These are found mainly in Deckard’s hotel room and in the test room where Rachel is tested to being a replicant. The blinds are used to create the affect of somebody’s real self, hiding behind their appearance. This may be because Rachel is really a replicant but she thinks she is a real human. The audience may interpret the use of blinds as this or they may just think that blinds signify that somebody evil is in the room by them being closed. The reason that Blade runner uses the fans and blinds as its conventions is to stand out from the rest of the science fiction films. Science fiction films are known to contain aliens and flying spaceships but Blade runner contains a similar example to both of these and also contains a lot of conventions, which are known to be film noir.
Another convention that is used in Blade runner is the unpleasant weather. The use of weather is used all the way through the film to create a scary atmosphere like something is going to go wrong any minute. There are lots of umbrellas and puddles, which create the impression that the answer is blurry and cannot be understood. An example of this is when Roy dies at the end. The rain is pouring down both Roy’s and Deckard’s face. This may be because it is hiding away the tears. It is a pathetic fallacy because the weather fits in with the mood. The audience would interpret this as being grim and unhappy. The unpleasant weather is used a lot more in Blade runner than in Double Indemnity to give the impression that Blade runner uses more conventions.
I think that the language used in Blade runner is similar to that of today apart from the futuristic language, which is mixed from all over the world. Certain characters are made to speak in the new futuristic language because it may give the audience the impression of what the future may actually really be like. Another view of this is that characters speak this language to let the audience know that they may not be real.
Summarising the older version of film noir and the more recent version of the film, I can see that the 1945, Billy Wilder version, is more to do with the realistic life of that day. I know this from the language that is used and the actions the characters take. I also know this from the area they live in, the streets and their general life style. With the 1989 Ridley Scott version, no one actually knows if that’s going to be real. One of the types of sci-fi films is the ones that are set in the future. I can tell that the development of films since 1945 have been more focussed on the future and what it may be like then. Some of the scenes used in Blade runner may be unreal to what will actually happen but ideas are coming across about whether it will be like that or not.
I think that film noir is still quite a powerful genre although I do think that it is mainly focussed on the older generation. I think this as the main productions of film noir were years ago and so they are more associated with them. During the past 10 years, I think that genres have been more animation as technology has developed and action films as more people are becoming interested. Although film noir is still quite a popular genre, it is not as popular as years ago, but whoever does watch it, is held in by the conventions.
Both films personally interested me a lot because I am a sci-fi buff and love Star Trek etc. Overall I think I preferred Blade runner because it used more conventions and had more characters in. I do not think I enjoyed Double Indemnity as much because it was in black and white and there were not many characters. I do not particularly like film noir. Well, the old film noir anyway because The Matrix is also classed as film noir, neo noir.
