A lusty insurance agent, Walter Neff, goes to renew a car policy for a certain Mr. Dietrichson. At his house, he meets Mrs. Dietrichson and is instantly inflamed. The beautiful woman makes Walter an offer he can’t refuse.
4k movies reviews
The great classic of Hollywood, Billy Wilder is a separate history of cinema. He had his directorial heyday in the 1940s-50s of the twentieth century. It was in 1944, far away for us, that he wrote the screenplay of Double Indemnity. This brilliant film by Billy Wilder is not only a classic representative of the genre, but also one of the milestone works in creating the inimitable style and atmosphere of the black film.
The film is based on the story by James M. Kane. The story of ‘Double Indemnity’ tells us about an agent named Walter Neff who becomes embroiled in a dangerous and confusing game. Together with a beautiful blonde, Phyllis Dietrichson, they want to get rid of the latter’s husband, and spin the case in such a way as to get double insurance. However, following the unshakable canons of the genre, not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance.
The film was a real revelation, very many of the director’s findings were used for the first time. Even the narrative structure is quite original, and there is not a little space for the director’s open plot maneuvering. Billy Wilder understood that in a story in which the main character confesses to murder in the very first minutes, it is necessary to set plot traps so that the viewer can’t take a breath. The magnificent script hits the mark. We witness the planning and execution of a ‘perfect’ crime, one single mistake in which leads to disastrous consequences. The magnificent acting by Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck allows the audience to feel the absurdity and hopelessness of the situation on the part of McMurray’s character, and the impeccable human acting on Stanwyck’s part. Every time we see the two actors in the frame, there is a frenetic tension between the two characters, forcing the audience to meekly watch this game of ‘cat and mouse’.
By constructing his picture on the principle of the ‘voice-over narration’ of the main character, Wilder has grasped another feature of the genre. He introduces his viewer into the dystopian, full of the strongest depressions in the life of the characters of the picture. This allows you to build an excellent depressing atmosphere, the director works brilliantly with the plot tools, not forgetting, of course, and visually increase the ‘gloom’.
Practically a perfect representative of noir, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity features an excellent script, excellent acting and a fantastically recreated atmosphere of despair and oppressive existence. This is a case where the director was able to reach a brilliant compromise between plot twists and visual style, building a perfect ‘black’ construction, where it is the plot details that matter. With this film Wilder has written his name in gold letters in the history of the genre, and left future generations a masterfully made picture, to which every self-respecting director who begins to make a ‘black’ film, simply must pay attention.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (73.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Audio
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital Mono
English: Dolby Digital 1.0
Subtitles
English, English SDH.
