Editing Double Indemnity (section)

==Film noir==
''Double Indemnity'' is a seminal example of [[film noir]]. It is often compared with Wilder's other acclaimed film noir ''[[Sunset Boulevard (film)|Sunset Boulevard]]'' (1950). Film scholar [[Robert Sklar]] explains, "[T]he unusual juxtaposition of temporalities gives the spectator a premonition of what will occur/has occurred in the flashback story...Besides ''Double Indemnity'' and ''[[Detour (1945 film)|Detour]]'', voice-over is a key aspect of ''[[Mildred Pierce (film)|Mildred Pierce]]'', ''[[Gilda (film)|Gilda]]'', ''[[The Lady from Shanghai]]'', and ''[[Out of the Past]]''...as well as many others."<ref>Sklar, Robert. ''Film: An International History of the Medium''.  London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.  p. 309</ref> Critic and writer [[Wendy Lesser]] notes that the narrator of ''Sunset Boulevard'' is dead before he begins narrating, but in ''Double Indemnity'', "the voice-over has a different meaning. It is not the voice of a dead man...it is...the voice of an already doomed man."<ref>Lesser, Wendy. ''[[iarchive:hisotherhalfmenl00less/page/245|His Other Half: Men Looking at Women Through Art]]''. [[Harvard University Press]], 1992. 245.</ref>

Wilder claimed that "I never heard that expression film noir when I made ''Double Indemnity''...I just made pictures I would have liked to see. When I was lucky, it coincided with the taste of the audience. With ''Double Indemnity'', I was lucky."<ref>[[Charlotte Chandler|Chandler, Charlotte]], (2002). ''Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder, A Personal Biography''. New York: Simon & Schuster. {{ISBN|978-0-7432-1709-5}}. p. 114</ref>