Let us get down to the nitty gritty of this project. First, I got a super crappy grade on my Article Review. It was totally deserved. Although I spent a lot of time attempting to write it, it was crap. I got a C+ which was totally deserved. I am not one to get bad grades, but this review grade was totally warranted. It sucked to be perfectly honest. I went back and re-read it after I got it back, with a glass of wine in hand, and was extremely embarrassed. It was so incoherent it was ridiculous. My ideas were scattered, the summary was decent, but I did not accomplish anything other than making sweeping generalizations. This was totally due to the fact that I have not had a clear path towards where I was starting and where I was attempting to go. First, just looking at the femme fatale in film noir is so large that I could spend a lifetime just looking at that. I also had no overall ideas as to where I wanted to end up. This was all reflected in my craptastic review.
In revision, I settled down on one femme fatale. Phyllis, the blonde murderous wife in Double Indemnity my target. This woman is evil. Pure and simple. She plots and uses her sexuality to seduce Neff, an insurance salesman, to take out a life insurance policy on her husband , and then proceeds to have Neff kill him. Poor pitiful Neff is the pawn on the story. He does what Phyllis wants just because he believes they are in love. In actuality this woman uses her overt sexuality to seduce Neff into a lustful state and then uses his weakness for her to her advantage. Pathetic.
Anyways, this woman is my new focus. Her characterization of a strong, sexually charged woman with purely greed and lust on her mind is the ultimate Femme Fatale in a classic Film Noir feature.
Don't beat yourself up so much! We all produce craptastic work from time to time, especially as we are beginning to write on a subject we have never written about before. Grammatical incoherence occurs when we push ourselves to explain something complex that we are still working out in our brain. Seriously. There are studies on this! So take solace in the fact that you are engaging in some heady ideas that are challenging your writing. This is how we grow as writers. Painful, huh?
ReplyDeleteYAY!
ReplyDeleteSorry about the grade. Tough Love, homegirl. Mark Twain once said in one of his speeches: “What is the greatest law of our being? Growth.” I’m sure you’ve grown as a writer in the last few weeks that we’ve been in class. I know I have. And that is not a suck-up statement: I actually feel I’m a better writer, at least in a research setting.
So, you’ve found two characters to focus on! Awesome. This is great progress. Phyllis...hmmm, who seems strangely reminiscent of a Mormon girlfriend I once had...I’m intrigued. And Neff...which is also the name of a prestigious snowboarding headwear company based in Utah. Coincidence?
Please disregard the last few sentences. I’ll leave that stuff out next time.
Well, how will these two characters serve as examples in your argument? I’m guessing they are Noir-archetypes, but is there another reason you are choosing them? How much scholarly work have you found on this film, Double Indemnity? Are you sure you can find enough to make it your sole artifact, granted that’s your goal?
Have you talked to Jill Newby? She is certainly no “newb.” In fact, she is my hero. I think I want to hang out with her––we could crochet in the ILC or something.
Yeah.