Film Noir: Dominic Nemmers
I would definitely classify film noir as a genre of American film. The cinematography and the mood of film noir and the fact that it occurred during a certain time frame in American history, right after WWII, gives it the embodiment to be a genre. All of the films of film noir really typify much of the resentment of what happened to urban America after WWII. Much of the white soldiers came back from the war looking for something more. They had experienced awful things in combat and were looking to make a better life for themselves and their families. They felt the American dream of owning your own house and having 2.3 kids was the best way to do that. There wasn’t much space in the middle of the usual American city to fit a house and a yard, so the middle, and upper-middle class whites left the city in droves, moving out to suburbia. When they left the city they left much of the blacks and the other minorities behind. While the conditions were better outside of the city, they left much more than that behind. The whites that had left felt themselves superior to the other people who didn’t have the means or the want to leave the city. This made the city seem less desirable than the suburbs, and the inhabitants of those locations were grouped in with the feelings that the whites had for them. The Inner city populous started to be looked upon as less and less favorable people, who were more in cahoots with crimes and other less than desirable qualities. Film noir captures much of the feel of the inner city with its rough dialog and imagery. It also captures much of the femme fetale character; the women who didn’t want to give up the rights that she had gained by being an integral part of the American economy during the war. Much of the femme fetale’s unabashed sexuality, ruthlessness, and ambition come from that fact. Phyllis, in Double Indemnity, really embodies the worries that many men had of the time. The worry that women would become manipulative and evil with the power that the men felt they shouldn’t have. Double Indemnity does a good job of portraying both the film noir genre and much of the feelings of Americans in the tumultuous times after WWII, and thusly, falls into the category of films that I have enjoyed.