More than double indemnity!

I think the best way to start off this post would be with the definition of double indemnity which after looking up, really helped in understanding the point of the whole movie. Wordnetweb.princeton.edu defines it as “a clause in an insurance policy that provides for double the face value of the policy in the case of accidental death”. And as we know, this is what Phyllis had wanted in the beginning when planning for her husbands death. But the insurance company that Neff worked for wasn’t just going to hand money away unless they really had to. This is why the workers of the insurance company, mostly Barton, are looking so far into the whole scheme of Mr. Dietrichson’s death. I honestly think it seems a little unrealistic that Barton would pretty much figure out the exact plot of the death except for the fact that Neff was involved. And I can honestly say I did not see the ending coming. I really thought that Phyllis was in love with Neff and wanted to be with him, but come to find out she was just using him to kill her husband, just like she had killed his previous wife. This was all surprising, but it really helped to keep my attention in the movie and I really enjoyed those facts that we come to learn. I found this picture online and I think it captures the whole essence of Phyllis. Here she is pictured hiding behind the door, I believe outside of Neff’s room when Barton is about to leave. But I think it shows more than just her hiding from Barton, but it shows her whole mysterious vibe she has. She’s killed her husband, her husbands previous wife, and has lied about the whole situation. She is a con artist and it shows with this picture.

After reading this chapter of More Than Night, I think it was pretty interesting. I think there was a lot being thrown at you when reading it; a lot of terms and explanations and referrals to movies and books and I found very hard to remember a lot of it. I did like when it would talk about Double Indemnity. This is where I really understood what they were talking about. I liked how some reviews talked about the film as a “murder melodrama” and an “intellectual exercise in crime”. And I think this accurately describes the film. Some parts of the story were very exaggerated, especially the murder that Phyllis had committed in her past. And it does show an understanding of crime in the film, which we see when Phyllis and Neff finally murder her husband. But over all I think this article about Noir, really captured a lot of the aspects of it that is seen in the films we have watched along with the books we’ve read and I found it interesting when I could actually get a true understanding of what they were talking about. But overall, I think it has helped me to understand this class’s meaning as a whole.

 

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