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a comparison of wilder's "double indemnity" (1944) to kasdan's "body heat" (1981) by tracy taylor "The film noir is a male fantasy, as is most of our art," states Janey Place in her now classic article "Women in Film Noir" (35). Because of this she claims that women in film noir "are defined in their relationship to men, and the centrality of sexuality in this definition, is key to understanding the position of women in our culture (35)." Later studies regarding women in film noir such as Elizabeth Cowie's article "Film Noir and Women" dispute the claim that the film noir was exclusively a masculine film form (132). However, the majority of the classic noir films so often screened in film schools today tend to bear the stamp of the male fantasy. Through these windows into the American male psyche of the 1940's, it is possible to witness his fears and anxieties. Film noir is considered to be "a reflection of the various social and cultural upheavals experienced by the U.S. during the 1940's" and the primary point of view represented came from the male perspective (Krutnik 57). A primary social and cultural upheaval significant to film noir was the "temporary but widespread introduction of women into the American labour force during World War II" and the threat this symbolized to returning war veterans. (Harvey 24). Furthermore,
Janey Place states that "the attitudes toward women evidenced in film
noir -- i.e., fear of loss of stability, identity and security
-- are reflective of the dominant feelings of the time (37)," the
dominant feelings of the American male. If the American male's fear
and anxiety towards women in the w Might an exploration of the common denominators between Wilder's Double Indemnity and Lawrence Kasdan's 1981 noir tribute Body Heat reveal the inner workings of the collective American male psyche? Is the message in neo-noir still that any woman who is independent, sexually assertive, and attractive automatically doomed? Is the message still that any man who bucks the system and goes after one of these spitfires loses? After a thorough comparison, an essential factor in present day films influenced by the noir classics should prove to be the American male's continued dysfunctional relationship with the American female. There are enough common factors between Double Indemnity and Body Heat to warrant a comparison and to use the information gained as evidence to support the above thesis. Frank Krutnik, author of In a Lonely Street, categorizes the film noir "tough thriller" into three story structures according to the vocations and situations in which the male hero finds himself. These are the tough investigative thriller, the tough suspense thriller, and the criminal-adventure thriller (xii). What might Double Indemnity have in common with Body Heat? They are both criminal-adventure thrillers, stories in which the hero fulfills a wish so terrible that just thinking of it gives him anxiety, yet the danger brings him alive for once in his continuously boring world (137). Walter Neff in Double Indemnity decides to swindle his own insurance company by murdering the husband of his lover Phyllis Dietrichson, and Ned Racine in Body Heat decides to swindle an insurance company for his female lover Matty Walker by assisting with her husband's "accidental" death. In this type of story, the male is after a woman he cannot possess, because she is married to another man, yet his obsession with her is not his entire motivation for doing wrong. It's the swindle. The hero is typically a fairly educated male who's unappreciated by the system, an underachiever in life, who's bored with the status-quo, and his encounter with this woman entices him to attempt to outsmart the ever-smothering system of bureaucracy (138). In Double Indemnity, Walter Neff, the fairly untutored, all-risk sort of guy languishing away as an insurance agent, gets his one chance to play a high stakes game against his company which represents the patriarchal authority, and his mentor or father figure, Keyes (Schickel 39). Ned Racine, a somewhat intelligent yet inwardly weak as well as outwardly cocky lawyer who plays dumb in order to beat the system gets a chance to have it all and win out over his buddies who never believe he has the capacity to make good (Crowther 169). Both men suffer from the American male's obsession with competition, an insecure sexual identity, and a need to prove that "his" is bigger than any other male's. Both films contain a two part structure: "the story of the hero's temptation which leads to the act of transgression, and second, the story of the conflict between the hero and the (internal and external) forces of the law (Krutnik 158). Despite the fact that the narrative devices used are different (Double Indemnity has the voice-over narration flashback structure so popular in the 1940's and Body Heat is a linear tale without flashbacks or voice-over narration), there are enough similarities in the story structure to support the fact that they are in essence the same story. Both stories are told from the male perspective which emphasizes the fact that the woman is always defined through his relationship with her. Body Heat's lack of the noir voice-over convention does not make it any less powerful a noir film, because it allows the modern "viewer to co-experience his betrayal," a convention to which the modern moviegoer is much more accustomed (Silver/Ward 400). Besides the required non-heroic male and femme, both stories have men who serve as judges and father figures: Barton Keyes in Double Indemnity is often cited as "Neff's moral chorister (Schickel 52)." As Neff confesses into the dictaphone the audience discovers in flashback his relationship with Keyes as a patriarchal authority. As the investigator and representative of the law wthin the insurance company, Keyes becomes Neff's adversary in the second half of the film (Krutnik 139). In Body Heat the characters of Peter Lowenstein and Oscar Grace perform a similar function. In the first half of the film the audience discovers Ned Racine's working relationship with Lowenstein and Grace within the town's law enforcement and legal community. After appearing in court with Lowenstein, Ned Racine eats in a coffee shop with the two men. Lowenstein represents more of the male partner and Grace more of the older father figure. Yet in the second half of the film, they take over as the judges, adversaries and representatives of moral judgement towards Ned. Although the relationship isn't as dominant in the film as the one between Ned and Matty, the characters who attempt to warn Ned come from the male arena just as it is in the case in Double Indemnity. The male bond is strong, and if that bond is broken, there is hell to pay. Heaven forbid any woman who intervenes now or then. Often the locale in which men and women find themselves speaks volumes about their character. Although Double Indemnity is set in Southern California of the late 1930s and Body Heat in Southern Florida of the 1980s, both locales tend to emphasize the animosity and dysfunction between the main male and female characters. What do California and Florida have in common? Both are locales heavily influenced by the expansion of subdivisions and strip malls and tacky tourist traps and decadent resorts and summer homes. Both are states "at the far end of the American Dream (Schickel 31)." The suburbs defined the horizon of the new America, and they were testimony silmultaneously to material wealth and cultural alienation. (Krutnik 60). Despite the fact that Double Indemnity is set in Los Angeles and Body Heat in a small town north of Miami, Florida, the locales have a common heritage and are shot in such a similar manner that the mood and tone evoked by the locales heighten the characters inability to function rationally and to relate to each other in a normal fashion. According to Foster Hirsch in The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, the setting of Double Indemnity was filmed in such a fashion that "there seems to be no world outside the frame, and there are almost no other people on view besides the principals (Hirsch 6)." This sentiment can also be applied to Body Heat. While viewing the opening sequences of the film one notices that as Ned Racine travels from his claustrophobic bedroom saturated with sex, to a courtroom dark and dreary and later, at night, to a sweltering smoke-filled bar, that there are no wide establishing shots to give the viewer the lay of the land. Just as in Double Indemnity, there is very little world outside the frame, and therefore, sultry Florida with its palm trees and Hispanic architecture could very well be Southern California, two places in the United States often given an aura of unreality. Finally, one key additional similarity which supports the idea that noir is about the sexual relationship between men and women is the use of "badinage" or repartee. In the now classic and famous scene where Walter Neff meets Phyllis for the first time, they exchange words which on the surface appear to be about driving, but the subtext is clearly sexual. For example, when Phyllis tells Walter her name he replies, "Phyllis, I think I like that," and she answers, "But you're not sure?" and he counters with "I'd have to drive it around the block a couple of times (Biesen 46)."
In both Double Indemnity and Body Heat the majority of the conversations between the male protagonist and the femme fatale relate to sex. In the classic noir films sex was equated with danger and death, and it continues to be equated with danger and death today. Despite the fact that neither Ned nor Matty die at the end of Body Heat, death results from their sexual activity. Matty intends to murder Ned by blowing him up in a fiery boathouse explosion, but doesn't succeed. Instead, Ned is condemned to a living death in the state penetentiary. Matty's husband is murdered as well as a blackmailing friend from her earlier days who serves as her body double in the ashes of the boat house. Has the portrayal of the non-heroic hero and the femme fatale's relationship changed significantly from Wilder's to Kasdan's interpretation? In Double Indemnity the woman is the erotic object desired by the man almost immediately. According to Claire Johnston this first encounter is "marked by a fetishistic fascination: simultaneously the dangerous site of castration and the pleasurable appearance (104)." She is fascinating yet at the same time feared. She is sexual object from the first moment Neff meets Phyllis as the camera pans up her body emphasizing her ankles and her bare legs. (104) Although the camera movement is not as blatantly sexual when the viewer first sees Matty from Ned's point of view in Body Heat, it is obvious she has caught his attention in a sexual manner. Her primary role as a sexual object, however, is forcefully confirmed in the now famous scene when Ned stands outside of Matty's door and watches her, bathed in the light of the entryway, simmering with desire, beckoning to him to tear down any barriers to get to her like any classic Loreilei. At this moment the camera fixates on her, isolates her, moves in on her and turns her into the requisite noir erotic object. She's married, she's feisty (evidenced by the earlier repartee) and that makes her attractive to Ned. She is a modern day femme fatale yet more so because she goes so far as to aggressively initiate sexual activity time and time again even after Ned is exhausted. In one scene just moments after the last climax, as they stand in front of her bedroom window she attempts to again arouse Ned. She is insatiable. Matty Walker is Phyllis Dietrichson times ten. Therefore, a possible conclusion is that today's women are viewed as even more dangerous, more evil and more fear-inspiring than any woman of the 1940's. In Double Indemnity the femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, not only was sexually independent and assertive, she also went against the moral values at a time when the primary view was that the woman's place was with her husband and her family. Instead through her sexual wiles she persuades a man to kill her husband so that she might pursue another adulterous relationship. She is duplicitous, conniving, cold and immoral. At the end of the picture Phyllis displays a momentary weakness--she can't fire a second bullet to finish off Neff. Instead, she goes to him. Then while in an embrace that simulates sexual climax, he shoots his gun into her. Neff uses this symbolic sexual act to end her power over him and all other men. The message clearly states that any woman who seeks to be independent financially and sexually outside of patriarchal institution of hearth and home is immoral and evil and will be punished in the end for her transgressions. Is this the same message delivered in Body Heat almost forty years later? Yes and no. The message through Matty's story continues to be that the independent sexually assertive woman is evil and should be avoided at all costs. However, when she seeks to be outside the patriarchal institutions of marriage or appropriate women's careers in the workforce (there is evidence that Matty has worked her way into her current position as Ed Walker's wife through deception and criminal activity) in the end she may continue to live, but she will be cursed with dis-ease, because she cannot be complete as long as she thwarts the established patriarchy. What does this say about the non-heroic male and his fate? Instead of dying from a gunshot wound inflicted by his lover, at the "movie's close Ned is in prison with all the answers but no hope while Matty lies in sunlit luxury, free but with maybe just a hint of regret that she is sharing her riches with someone other than the lawyer she so successfully duped-and who for a while gave her the sexual excitement on which she thrives." (Crowther 169) The message today continues to clearly state that if the male pretends to be just a little smarter than he is, that if he fails to listen to his male partners when it concerns a female, that if he doesn't get with it and become satisfied with the "American Dream" of family and a professional position such as being a lawyer, like Walter Neff, who couldn't be satisfied with his insurance position and failed to take Keyes up on his offer to advance in the company, he is doomed. What does it say about a man who seeks such a duplicitous woman as Matty Walker? He's a sucker who's doomed to a living hell. Ned may not have died in the end as we assume Walter did, but he sure as hell wishes he had. Finally, what does Matty's ability to so completely blindside Ned say about men's view of women and their place in society today? A woman who seeks sexual gratification in such an aggressive manner, who seeks to be so blatantly independent, may win out in the end but she's a cold-hearted evil woman, too smart for her own good, who doesn't know her place because she ends up alone (albeit on a very nice beach) with no one to totally emotionally and sexually gratify her. In conclusion, Body Heat portrays a world that is less naïve, more despairing, and much less black and white (no pun intended, although this movie is in color). Moral standards have changed. It is acceptable for Ned to get away with a few shady deals and many one-night stands with the ladies, but there is finally a line that he cannot cross without repercussions from the patriarchal order. Once he has gone over that line, to see how far he can go, to make the big score, to have it all, he is doomed. This woman Matty, is way too much for Ned to handle. He knows it so he keeps her a secret from his male friends. Matty will never be satisfied with him, so she doublecrosses him and moves on. She wins out in the end, but it is a bittersweet victory at best. As we see her sitting on the beach, she has a discontented look on her face which is open to viewer interpretation. Although she is in paradise, something is not quite perfect. Is it that Ned's not with her? Yes, if you see it from a male perspective. Yet there are other perspectives. It is quite possible that her dis-ease emanates from no longer being part of a sick sexually dysfunctional game with an nearly equal male competitor. It's the thrill of the match; it's the game that counts, not winning. The woman of the fim noir vision of the 80's and beyond is an excitement addict. What does it say about men, women and relationships in the 21st Century? Men just don't get it. They are damned if they do (Matty has everything but she is still not happy), and they are damned if they don't (life is so boring without an occasional tryst with one of these fireballs). Men are still fearful of women and unless they can keep the little ladies back at the hearth and home (the movement to get back to "family" issues of the far right and the men's movement known as "the promisekeepers" in addition to the agenda of the current Bush Administration). She's seen as a threat to his entire existence. And why not? In this age when women can procreate without getting near a man, and with claims of "Raelian" cloning and widely-publicized celebrity female-female relationships, maybe there is something to fear. Despite paranoia over terrorist nuclear, chemical and biological warfare threats, one overriding fear that will continue to spur on the development of noir-like films is the American male's fear of the American female. Not just fear that she will not stay in her assigned role, nor fear that she may seduce him and then cry out "sexual harassment", but fear that she does not need him at all. Men and obsolescence. A great kernel of an idea for an upcoming neo-noir flick. Works Cited Biesen, Sheri Chinen. "Censorship, Film Noir, and Double Indemnity," Film & History, Vol. 25, No. 1-2, 1995, pp. 41-52. Body Heat. Dir. Lawrence Kasdan. Perf. William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, and Ted Danson. Ladd Co./Warner Bros., 1981. Copjec, Joan, ed. "Film Noir and Women" by Elizabeth Cowie. Shades of Noir: A Reader. London: Verso, 1993, pp. 121-165. Crowther, Bruce. Film Noir: Reflections in a Dark Mirror. New York: Continuum, 1988. Hirsch, Foster. The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., Inc., 1981. Kaplan, E. Ann, ed. "Double Indemnity," by Claire Johnston. Women in Film Noir. London: BFI Publishing, 1978, pp. 100-111. _____."Woman's Place: the absent family of film noir," by Sylvia Harvey. Women in Film Noir. London: BFI Publishing, 1978, pp. 22-34. _____. "Women in Film Noir," by Janey Place. Women in Film Noir. London: BFI Publishing, 1978, pp.35-67. Krutnik, Frank. In a Lonely Street: Film noir, Genre, Masculinity. London: Rutledge, 1991. Schickel, Richard. Double Indemnity. London: BFI Publishing, 1992. Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward. Film Noir: An Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 3rd. edition, 1992. Copyright © 2003 The Write Word, Inc. All rights reserved. |
