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Briauna AzerBusiness Administration 490September 19, 2011Human DesireA Comparison of Human Desire and Double IndemnityFilm noir explores how modernization causes a character to digress from their long-established role in society and influences traditional value systems. All of these films have one common catalyst: the femme fatale. Pierre Duvillars’ article “She Kisses Him So He’ll Kill” explains the nature of this dangerous dame, “‘She’ only has to appear for the man, now subjugated, to lose all his vitality, all his will, all his personality…The man is trapped like a fly in the spider’s web. The potion she uses secretly makes him a paralytic who only rediscovers the use of his body on her orders so that he can accomplish whatever she desires” (Duvillars, 30). Although the Fritz Lang’s movie, Human Desire, appears to have this role fulfilled in the character of Vicki Buckley, she never has the power Duvillars speaks of over the film’s main character, Jeff Warren. In fact, all of Human Desire’s characters fall short of fulfilling the roles the genre is known for. This is especially evident when the Lang’s film is considered alongside the established noir Double Indemnity; to the audience it is evident that all of Human Desire’s counterparts do not showcase the typical femme fatale, paternal mentor, and homme fatale. The femme fatale is an essential character in noir, and unlike Phyllis Dietrichson, Lang’s character Vicki Buckley is forced into the role by her husband and resists the transformation. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is how differently the two women express a key attribute of the femme fatale: sexual allure. Mrs. Dietrichson uses her body as a tool to manipulate men with absolute mastery. Brian Gallagher astutely recognizes every detail of Phyllis’ appearance in his article “ ‘I Love You Too’: Sexual Warfare & Homoeroticism in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity” and examines the scene where this she first meets the private eye: She has just come from sunbathing and is draped only in a small towel…Walter, who has come to sell insurance, gazing lewdly upward and suggestively punning: “I’d hate to think of you getting a smashed fender or something while you’re not-uh- fully covered.” The next shot of Phyllis is a close-up of her shapely calves as she descends the staircase, an anklet flashing. (Gallagher, 240)Every aspect of Phyllis’ image is carefully calculated. Her clothes (or lack thereof), her anklet, her haunting honeysuckle scent, and the mise-en-scène with the staircase all make Mrs. Dietrichson appeal to Walter as a commodity. To this private eye, Phyllis is a product on the top shelf and he will do anything to get his hands on her. Vicki has the same power but unlike her counterpart in Double Indemnity, she does not enjoy being a sexual object. For most of the film Mrs. Buckley appears in a frumpy coat and hat. In fact, the incidences of Vicki using her body to manipulate men all happen because her husband forces her into them. Carl calls upon his wife to get his job back, and at first she refuses. Vicki knows what it will take to make Owens rehire her husband and she is reluctant to do it because she does not want to be unfaithful. Carl, however, wears her down and after she returns he starts to demand her body once more. She comes up with excuses to avoid his obvious intention to become intimate, but when he corners her she cries out, “Don’t paw at me, I’m sick of it from all of you” (Human Desire). Vicki has married Carl because she thought he would take good care of her, but instead he objectifies her as a solution to all his problems. Even the mise-en-scène in the film confirms Carl’s manipulation of Mrs. Buckley. After he looks into the box he has hidden from his wife that contains a letter incriminating her, there is a disturbing shot of the couple: the two stand on opposite sides of the screen with a thick wall between them. On the right Carl leaves the house out the front door and on the left Vicki takes care of the dinner dishes next to a caged bird. Clearly, Mr. Buckley controls Vicki; she is not so much a wife to him as she is an enslaved pet. The suggestive cinematography continues throughout the movie. Consider, for example, that when Vicki first appears in the movie she is lying at the end of two twin beds pushed together. After the murder the audience is again let into the master bedroom and quick pan shot reveals the two beds have been pulled apart. The movement of these beds represents how Carl has forced his wife into the femme fatale role and their shattered relationship is a product of his actions. Just as Phyllis and Vicki are dissimilar, the character that represents old world values in Human Desire, Alec Simmons, behaves much differently than Double Indemnity’s Barton Keyes. Simmons is a wonderful mentor to Warren and obviously fulfills a paternal role in the engineer’s life because Jeff chooses to live under his roof. Along with a home, Alec provides Jeff with an example of what the ideal, old-world family looks like. He even has a beautiful daughter to offer Jeff. Unlike Warren, Walter is not so fortunate. His mentor offers no such example of what the private eye should strive for in a relationship. Instead, he shares his one attempt with Neff: “Even had the church picked out, the dame and I. She had a white satin blouse with flowers on it. I was on my way to the jewelry store to pick out the ring when suddenly, the little man in here started working on me” (Double Indemnity). To Keyes, all women are crooked and cannot be trusted. Not only does he caution Walter against seeing “Margie,” but preaches against all women. Unlike Keyes, when Alec Simmons realizes what is happening between Jeff and Vicki he offers some age-old, straightforward advice to his beloved tenant, “You shouldn’t fool around with a married woman. No good. Ain’t right” (Human Desire) to which Warren responds coolly, “Sunday is my day for preaching” (Human Desire). Initially, viewers believe Jeff does not heed his mentor’s counsel when directly after this line they see a train race through a tunnel and then the camera cuts to show Jeff and Vicki alone in an apartment. It is only later that Warren is able to take Simmons’ words to heart, “It’s all wrong Vicki. The whole thing has been wrong since the beginning and I feel dirty” (Human Desire). Unlike Keyes, Simmons is a successful mentor because his words end up saving Jeff from the femme fatale Carl has created and from being involved in a murder. It is the successful transmission of old-world values to Warren’s character that keeps this film from becoming a classic noir. Jeff and Walter not only get different counsel throughout the films, but they also behave differently because everything Neff does is a product of his ensnarement by a femme fatale, whereas Warren is still able to act on his own volition throughout the film. Consider, for example, the two interactions both characters have with their love interest’s husbands. The first time Walter is with Mr. Dietrichson he deceives him into signing an accident insurance policy. The second time they meet, Walter murders Phyllis’ husband. But in Human Desire, Jeff behaves differently. Both times he encounters Carl outside of work Mr. Buckley is drunk, but, instead of using his inebriated state as an advantage, Jeff helps Carl get to a safe destination. Furthermore, the two men even get involved with their respective women under different pretenses. When Walter leaves Keyes his confession, he reveals the motives behind his behavior, “Yes I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman” (Double Indemnity). Neff has murdered Mr. Dietrichson in the pursuit of two things: cold hard cash, and a dame he saw only as a must-have commodity. In contrast, Jeff’s relationship with Phyllis starts under completely different circumstances. Steve Neale’s article “’I Can’t Tell Anymore Whether You’re Lying’: Double Indemnity, Human Desire, and the Narratology of Femme Fatales,” comments on the carefree nature of Warren’s first encounter with Vicki: “After an initial exchange of remarks, Jeff invites her into an empty compartment. He tries to kiss her. She resists and walks away. He merely smiles and shrugs his shoulders” (Neale, 191). Unlike Walter, he is not haunted by her scent or enslaved by her jewelry. When he does start becoming serious about Mrs. Buckley, viewers will notice that his intentions are still honorable. He gets close to her because she needs him; he pities her situation and asks Vicki to leave her husband, even offering to explain things to Mr. Buckley. Vicki, however, throws him a curveball and asks for something he is not capable of doing: murder. Jeff agrees in the spirit of helping her, but as he goes in for the kill he simply cannot do it. When he returns to the Buckley house with no blood on his hands, Vicki is furious and insults his masculinity. He offers her this explanation of a murderer: “It takes somebody who doesn’t think about anything but himself. It takes somebody who has no conscience, and no decency” (Human Desire). Unlike Walter, a woman does not blind Warren; he realizes the moral implications of what Mrs. Buckley has asked him to do. Although Vicki is initially furious with his lack of follow-through, her anger fades as she realizes Jeff is going to leave her. She begs him not to go and claims with tears in her eyes that she loves him. While she is talking her hands move down his shoulders, onto his chest and by the time she is finished they are gripping his jacket in tight fists. This body language symbolizes her effort to regain the tight clench she thought she had on his heart. However, he is strong in his resolution and firmly severs her grip along with any influence she has over him. Neale comments on the clean nature of the breakup: “Jeff drives on unaware and untroubled” (Neale, 193). This is something Walter could not do because he is never in control. The most obvious example of his lack of power occurs on the night of the Dietrichson murder. Phyllis drives the car while Walter crouches down in the back seat. He is the one that does the killing and the audience does not even get to see the murder. Instead, Wilder chooses to display a headshot of Phyllis with a diabolical look on her face, a clear statement that she is in complete control of their relationship. In Human Desire the femme fatale’s spell is only temporary but in Double Indemnity, this bewitching temptress ensnares Walter and leads him straight to his grave. Although the differences between the three main characters in Double Indemnity and Human Desire foster very different endings, both movies are classified as noir. Interestingly, Wilder’s story of manipulation, murder, sexual immorality and mass bloodshed is the more famous of the two. This is curious because Human Desire should be the more satisfying of the two films as its main character breaks away from the his temptress’ hold, follows the advice of his paternal mentor, and ends up with a girl who represents old world values. Perhaps Lang opens his film with twisting railroad tracks to reflect the distorted and disturbing nature of the noir audience. Works CitedDuvillars, Pierre, “She Kisses Him So He’ll Kill,” Perspectives on Film Noir. R. Barton Palmer, editor (New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1996) pp. 66-67.Neale, Steve, “’I Can’t Tell Anymore Whether You’re Lying’: Double Indemnity and Human Desire and the Narratology of Femme Fatales,” The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts. Helen Hanson and Catherine O’ Rawe, editors (London: Pargrave Macmillan, 2010) pp. 187-198.Gallagher, Brian, “Sexual Warfare and Homoeroticism in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity,” Literature/Film Quarterly (Vol. 15, No. 4; 1987) pp. 237-246. ................
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