This film is also different from classic neo-noir because of the time period that it has been made in. The lifting of the production code allows for extreme violence, as well as glorifying bad people. From the beginning of the film Llewelyn shows no remorse for not helping the dying man he finds, and instead he steals the money. He talks crudely to his wife, and is disliked by her mother. He is by no means a good person in the film, but at the end the audience finds themselves rooting for him because he isn’t as bad as the psychopathic killer Chigurh. Chigurh is a new kind of character because we see no motivation for why he does what he does other than he enjoys it. This is different from classic film noir because under the production code there was more of a moral standard, the bad guys didn’t always get away with it.

The end of this film is not a happy one, leaving the audience feeling a lot like the disenchanted Sherriff. There is no way to explain the things that he has seen, and at the end of his career he remarks that the God he thought would eventually make things clear to him never came. The neo noir leaves us with an unfinished and unsatisfying ending where the bad guy gets away, and the good people suffer. In classic film noir we would most likely see the bad guy or girl get what’s coming to them like in Gilda or Double Indemnity.

Nolan also hints throughout the film that Leonard’s memories of his life before the accident may not be completely clear either. There is a shot where he replaces Sammy in the mental institution, and shots of the night of his wife’s “murder” that change and don’t always add up. We see one shot of her dead with her eyes closes, and then the shot repeats multiple times where her eyes are open and she is clearly still alive. In the final scene, which is the first line of events because the film is played backwards, we learn from Teddy that Leonard’s memory was even more unreliable than we had thought. Leonard’s wife had survived the attack, and he had made up the story about Sammy to take away the hurt from the real life events that occurred.

This shows how much memories can be interpreted and changed in people’s heads, and that memories are really subjective to whose point of view you are listening to. This makes the film even more unsettling because we see that even Leonard’s real memories that he should have been able to retain have been tampered with. He has gone along killing people for who knows how long because he has chosen to believe what he wanted. Memories are important in our everyday lives, but we can manipulate them to allow us to act the way we want.

César is charming and good looking, and his life revolves around being able to sleep with a different woman every night. He claims to be Pelayo’s best friend, but then hits on the girl that his best friend likes. The voiceover where he admits to falling in love with Sofia, come while he is looking at photographs of her, not while he is talking to her. People perceive him as beautiful and important for superficial reasons. When he loses his good looks, he goes crazy because he has nothing to offer anymore and the people who once envied him begin to pull away. In the scene where he is watching Sofia perform her mime act, she will not look him in the face because he no longer impresses her. It is symbolic that the rain makes her painted on face wash off, revealing her true colors. Was she really ever in love with César, or was she just infatuated with his charm and other superficial elements?

When César goes to the board of doctors to plead with them to come up with a new way to fix his face, he says, “I am not just any client,” which shows that he had thought of himself as better than the rest because of his privileged life. César’s character parallels the thought pattern of Clay Arlington at the end of “Suture,” because he believes that who you are comes from how people perceive you. Losing his looks, and in turn the attention and opportunity that he once has eventually leaves César with nothing to live for. This film comments on how materialism and others perception of who you are can influence the way you act, and how you are treated. If César had “opened his eyes,” like Nuria had warned him to in the beginning things might not have turned out the way they were. She attempts to teach him the lesson that thinking you are better than others does not allow you to treat people as less than you.

The style that the movie is shot in also adds to the commentary on race. The director chose to shoot the movie in black and white, and most of the sets are also decorated in black and white or neutral colors. All of the furniture in Vincent’s apartment is covered with white cloths, and he only dresses in the color white. When Clay arrives, Vincent picks him up in his white car and symbolically gives him a white suit to wear. After the accident Clays face is covered in white bandages for most of the movie as well. The whole storyline also involves plastic surgery which comments on the themes of appearance, change, and conformity.

The conclusion of the movie is also quite peculiar because of the choice that Clay makes in the end. Although he remembers who he is he chooses to take on Vincent’s life. He does this, but lives Vincent’s life better than Vincent did. Despite being a minority from a lesser part of town he has a better character than Vincent. The end of the film shows pictures of his happy married life surrounded by people that love him, as opposed to Vincent who was alienated and unhappy.  Again this tells the audience that race does not count for anything.

All of the main characters in the film are far from upstanding citizens, and they seem to represent the unconventional and criminal acts that go on right in the middle of our society. Vincent and Jules carry on normal conversations that any person would have with their friend, and then in the next scene carry out a mass murder. Mia although slightly different seems like a regular girl who would order a burger and a shake at a diner, until we realize that she is a drug addict and we see her overdose. Butch is a boxer, quiet and alienated but seemingly stable who we learn has a short trigger, and ultimately fights almost to the death with a gangster.  All of these characters show a different side of society, and as the narrative comes together at the end we see them find redemption in one way or another. Vincent finds God, Mia overdoses but survives with a sense of humor, and Butch goes back to save his mortal enemy. The way in which Tarantino examines the others in society, and the nature in which the story is told make “Pulp Fiction,” both a cult classic and a neo-noir film.

In his relationship with the two female characters of the film we see how he is longing for some sort of connection to society, or some sort of way to fix it. He seeks out what seems like the perfect woman in Betsy, but cannot really relate to her in anyway. When he feels that she has “tricked” him by pretending to be an upstanding person, he says really she is “cold hearted like the rest of them.” This is similar to how Peter Cable, anther maladjusted individual, justifies the murders of the prostitutes in “Klute.” He then tries to save the young prostitute Iris, even though she is more part of the seedy underbelly than Betsy. He connects to her more because she doesn’t have real relationships with people either. The strange pace, and almost lack of plot at times in the film adds to the feeling of alienation in Travis’ character, as well as the feeling that he is unstable.

Bree has had a rough life, and her manipulation of men stems from the fact that it makes her feel as if she has a bit of control over her life. It is not sexual deviance or a lack of caring for other people that makes her want to turn tricks, but more a lack of self confidence.  Spicer says “the good-bad girl has both masculine and feminine qualities and although appearing to be duplicitous, like the femme fatal, proves herself to be loyal.” She does have a bit of a duplicitous nature at times, and even seduces Klute for the first time just to prove that she can do it. This is more of a defense mechanism than it is motivated by greed or another motivation that is common to a classic femme fatal. Ultimately Bree does prove herself to be loyal to Klute despite her pimp, and her fear of having a commitment.

From the very first time we are introduced to Matty, she is dressed to look like the classic film noir femme fatal. She sashays down the aisle with flowing blonde hair, and a skin hugging white dress right into the eyes of the waiting male protagonist and unknown fool. Right away the first two conversations that Matty and Ned share have the same double entendre dialogue that “Double Indemnity” had, but they are far more blatantly sexual. This along with the passionate and highly visual sex scenes that follow, change the tone of the movie, but also the way the relationship is perceived by the audience compared to the couple in “Double Indemnity.” The explicit sexual relationship makes the relationship feel more real, and in change Matty’s feelings for Ned more sincere. It also makes her dubious nature that much more shocking and lethal.

The director uses shadows like in the classic film noir that we have seen, but also adds different elements to the production because the film was shot in color. Matty is shown wearing white, or a light color in every scene except when Ned starts to realize that she may have been playing him. White is often associated with the innocent and pure, and her dress only switches to black when we realize that she has gone behind Ned’s back to change the will. Also, the setting of the film gets increasingly foggy when there is high drama or things start to go bad. These devices were implemented to give the film the classic mysterious and sinister nature of film noir but in a revisionist style.

According to Spicer, the title character of Gilda is one of the finest examples of the good-bad girl. Gilda is both loved and hated by the two men in the film, and can be looked at as both their savior and their downfall. The central device that characterizes the good-bad girl is the way that the character combines the sexuality and danger of the femme fatal, with the love and security of the more modern characterization of the romantic female lead. From the first time we are introduced to Gilda, she pops onto the screen with her full hair, charming smile and bare shoulders alerting us to her overwhelming sexuality. The photo below is a shot of our first introduction to Gilda.

The fact that she has been able to get Ballin Mundson to fall in love with her and marry her so quickly despite his feelings that “women and gambling don’t mix,” shows that she has great power over men. From the first time she meets Johnny Farrell as well, the audience is also clued into the fact that there is some back story between them, and that she is not the loving wife she is pretending to be. When we learn that Johnny is her real love she attempts to use her feminine wiles against him as revenge for the way their relationship had ended. But in the end we see that she really did love him despite everything, and we are left thinking that they will have a happy life together despite her dubious nature.

When she does her second sultry dance, and even goes so far as to begin to strip for the audience, we see that she is capable of being the femme fatal, but at the same time her motivation for the performance is the fact that she is a real person who cares for Johnny.  Because Johnny is able to cause instability in her character, we can see that she is not just the straight laced femme fatal but a person who loves and hurts like a real woman would.

From the very beginning of the movie, the audience knows that they are about to hear a story that  will end badly. The movie opens up on a dark night following an erratic car driving to an unknown destination. We follow a man into an office after hours without being introduced to him, and without seeing his face for an extended period of time. The set is dark and shadowy, which lends to the eerie and almost criminal feeling of the actions of the unknown man. The use of chiaroscuro lighting  coupled with the camera angle solely from behind foreshadow the mystery that lies ahead.  When we see the mans gunshot wound, and when he admits to a murder in his first few lines of dialogue, my first reaction was to wonder what the mystery will be if we already know who the murderer is.

Through flashbacks we are told the story of the macho protagonists ultimate downfall. Phyllis Dietrichson is introduced as the femme fatal who is both sexy and dangerous for Neff. We are lead to believe that Neff and Phyllis are in their crooked plot together, until we learn that Phyllis is lethal and has killed before. This plot twist is the mystery that we were looking for in the very beginning. Phyllis’ double-dealing nature elicits compassion from the audience for Neff’s character although he is now a criminal himself. This idea shows influence from Gangster films where the hero is sometimes pulled into mischief and is portrayed as sympathetic.

The title “Double Indemnity” itself also helps to create the feeling of mystery so popular in the Film Noir style. Many would not understand the title at first glance, but after viewing the film realize its double meaning. It is taken from the tax term used in the movie, but also relates to the two faced nature of many of the characters in this seedy city.  The complex and successful use of many of the features associated with Film Noir are what make “Double Indemnity” the finest example of the genre.