This shot is classic film noir with shadows from the blinds being cast across the main character and the room, the low-key lighting, the slight wide-angle shot, and the actor’s face in almost all shadow. The chiaroscuro and hazy lighting gives off the dark, criminal feeling of film noir. It gives a sense of foreboding and plays into the terrible lives of the main characters in the movie, adulterers and murderers.
The wide-angle shot allows us to see into the lifestyle that Phyllis lives, one of money and nice things. This gives us our first glimpse into what she is like she likes being well-off, having money to blow, and living in a mansion of sorts; she is shallow and will do anything to have these things, even if she has to use and hurt other people to get them.
Another thing about this shot that lends to film noir is the way the protagonist is seemingly telling a story into the recorder, while we see the story as a flashback with him narrating. Here, we can see his expression in deep thought while he waits for Phyllis to come down. It’s almost as if he feels contempt or something close to that for her from his facial expression, and maybe it’s foreshadowing into how he should have continued feeling for her, if he had wished to stay out of trouble. Instead, he falls for her and becomes an adulterer and a murderer for her only to lose everything in the end.
Not quite sure what you're saying in the last paragraph, but it seems like an interesting direction. I like what you have to say about the luxury of the room, but I think the lighting adds another layer to this image, maybe suggests a kind of corruption or stuffiness, something less than luxurious even so.
ReplyDelete