Visual and Performing Arts
Some like it cold: Fetishism in Billy Wilder's double indemnity
Abstract
This essay employs psychoanalytic theory to identify a fetishistic imperative in the perfect crime that Walter Neff endeavors to commit in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. By favoring ongoing manipulation over goal, attainment and satisfaction, Walter Neff engages in a virtuoso cover-up that represents a paradigmatic noir deception, inviting viewers to fantasize that there may always he "more than meets the eye." © 2005 by the University of Texas Press.
This paper has been withdrawn.
