He argued that the sign, or linguistic unit, is a “double entity” made up of two components: a signifier, which is the actual appearance of the sound, word or image, and a signified, which can be defined as the concept or meaning attached to a signifier (Saussure 49-50 Lapsley and Westlake 34). Saussure was concerned with how words produce meaning and argued that meaning exists within a system. Ferdinand de Saussure is considered by many as the father of linguistics and semiotics. In other words, theories of film as a construction of reality or a reflection of a director’s personal vision, were supplanted by the idea that everything within a film could be explained through pre-existing meanings in society and culture. Ideas of art as organic unity … as the communication of inspired vision were discarded and replaced by the supposition that all meanings and aesthetics were explicable in terms of determining structures and mechanisms” (32). Lapsley and Westlake claim that semiotics signalled “the end of all traditional aesthetics.
Initially, there was a pessimistic attitude towards semiotic film theory. Semiotic film analysis emerged in the 1960s when film theorists were interested in studying film as a language system. A semiotic analysis of techniques used in Double Indemnity such as high-contrast lighting, the frequent use of shadows, close-ups, and point-of-view camera shots, as well as an awareness of the film’s relationship to other texts and social-historical context, allow us to understand the hidden nature of Phyllis and the significance she has in the film. With reference to Double Indemnity and the two main characters in the film, Phyllis Dietrichson and Walter Neff, this essay will argue that although the first impression, or the iconic view, of the female character in film noir, in this case Phyllis, is that of a charming, beautiful and passive object of desire, there are several stylistic techniques used by the filmmaker to connote something completely different. However, many female characters in film noir have been given the label of a “femme fatale,” which means “deadly women” in French. One of these is the sexually attractive, desirable female character. Film noir is very distinct with its reoccurring stylistic and narrative elements.
The film has been categorised as a film noir, which was an influential film movement during the 1940s and 1950s. Double Indemnity is a 1944 film directed by Billy Wilder, based on the 1943 James M.
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