Media Comparison – Film Noir In Double Indemnity And Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Essay Samples

The genre or film noir started in the 1940s and 1950s, and in its classic form is shown to have stark Expressionistic black-and-white cinematography, labyrinthine crimes and mysteries and an overall cynical look at the world in which they are surrounded. One of the most prominent noirs of the mid-20th century is Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder in 1944, which follows an insurance investigator who plans a scheme to kill his lover’s husband for a giant payout on his insurance. While these films took themselves deadly seriously, neo-noir plays with these same ideas in a modern setting, often taking a satirical or comedic bend to them. This is the case with 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, directed by Shane Black and starring Robert Downey Jr. as a down-on-his-luck petty thief who finds himself playing the unwitting detective while out in LA to audition for a film. These two films represent two distinctly different contexts – Indemnity showcases the hard-boiled world of detective fiction as represented in WWII-era white America, while Kiss Kiss reflects the self-referential world of modern-day cinema, as well as the Internet age and the shallowness of Hollywood.
The films’ differences are most distinctly characterized in their respective lead characters, the hard-boiled noir protagonists who must navigate the seedy world they are placed in. In Double Indemnity, Walter Neff (Fred Macmurray) is a stoic, masculine man who remains collected and calm with regards to his business; this comes from the need in these kinds of stories to match the traditional masculine values of 20th-century America, in which men were meant to be tough protectors who could never show vulnerability. However, Robert Downey Jr.’s Harry Lockhart is the opposite of that – a twitchy, stammering wimp who is able to quick-think his way out of situations, but frequently makes mistakes. He is hardly ever the brave, masculine hero, always being punished for doing so - one early scene sees him giving a brave, noir-esque speech to a bad guy about taking him on, only for the film to cut to Harry getting brutally, pathetically beaten up. Harry’s character comments on characters like Walter Neff, downplaying the inherent masculinity of these roles.
Usually, these protagonists have a foil as well, and this comes in the form of fellow insurance investigator Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) in Double Indemnity and “Gay” Perry (Val Kilmer) in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Both men are incredibly sharp, but while Keyes ends up being on Neff’s tail for the crime he has committed, Perry is frequently by Harry’s side through his solving of the mystery, though this is also undercut by his constant mocking and deriding of Harry. The post-modernist spin on the sidekick in Kiss Kiss is that Perry is a gay man, which comes up frequently in the story – as a detective, Perry will often use gay panic to intimidate thugs into showing weakness so he can make his move, and is comedically prissy in all the right moments (without overplaying his homosexuality and turning himself into a punchline). In this respect, the self-serious Keyes is commented on with the slightly goofier, irreverent Perry, showing a modern age that is sufficiently aware of film noir tropes to comment upon them.
Given the differing approaches to the film noir genre and stock characters that Double Indemnity and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang showcases, it is clear that mid-20th century America takes its hard-boiled detective mysteries very seriously, while the modern day is much more concerned with issues of commenting on culture and comedically undercutting the seriousness of these tropes. While Walter Neff and Keyes navigate a serious, dark world of intrigue and mystery, Harry and Perry bumble and catfight their way through a mystery that, in the diegesis of the film, is itself culled from dime-store mystery novels. In this way, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a self-referential exploration of films like Double Indemnity, lending new context to an old genre while keeping it fresh.
Figure 1. The noir protagonists of Double Indemnity and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, recording their thoughts for posterity.
Figure 2. Paranoia and darkness are a theme in both classic and neo-noir, with the leads being introspective.
Figure 3. neo-noir adapts the 'sidekick' character from an eqully shrewd best friend to a catty, self-aware gay PI.

References

Black, S. (dir.) (2005). Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Perf. Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle
Monaghan. Warner Bros, Pictures.
Leitch, T. M. (2002). Crime Films. Cambridge University Press.
McNulty, E & Pulham, P. (2011). Crime Culture: Figuring Criminality in Fiction and
Film. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Naremore, J. (2008). More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. University of California Press.
Packer, S. (2007). Movies and the Modern Psyche. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Wilder, B. (dir). (1944). Double Indemnity. Perf. Fred MacMurray, Barbra Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson. Paramount Pictures.