How sound contributes to aesthetics in Double Indemnity and Do The Right Thing

Compare how sound contributes to the aesthetics of one film from 1930–1960 and one film from 1961–90 that you have studied. Give detailed examples from both films. [35]

- Double Indemnity and Do The Right Thing

The sound in both Billy Wilder's 1944 film noir 'Double Indemnity' and Spike Lee's 1989 film 'Do The Right Thing' (DTRT) are incredibly important in guiding the spectator through each film's narrative and contextual ideas contributing to each visual and thematic aesthetic: the seedy, criminal, and deceptive atmosphere of film noir externalised through its sound and visuals, and the hyperbolic, politically-charged sound of DTRT contributing to and externalising the saturated mise-en-scene and tension of thematic discourse in the narrative. 

Both films significantly use audio codes in the form of leitmotifs to represent thematic ideas directly expressed in DTRT and indirectly expressed in Double Indemnity to relate to each contrasting aesthetic quality and context. Lee's use of the Public Enemy hip-hop song 'Fight the Power' as a recurring motif of racial tension within the film contributes to the politically-charged aesthetics, externalised and explicitly anchored within the film's opening. The character Tina dances provocatively to 'Fight The Power' in the foreground to an urban New York street, with flashes of red and blue lighting connoting police sirens. Preceding this, Lee places smooth and lyrical saxophone jazz - a genre rooted in African-American culture - before a disruption of hip-hop sound, a fractured edit of silhouetted poses edited across the screen in time to the beat before the camera moves to Tina's thrusting dancing. Such imagery connotes conflict, passion and serves as a provocative perspective on racial issues, pushing the film's ideology to the spectator through the intense combination of lyrics like 'I'm black and I'm proud' and saturated mise-en-scene. The track becomes diegetic in the film as it is shown to be the recurring audible expression of Radio Raheem's identity as he blasts it from his boombox across the Bed-Stuy streets. Racial and cultural dominance is emphasised as he drowns out a group of  Puerto Rican's salsa music, the volume synchronously changing as each side battles for musical dominance, asserting each identity. At the film's climax, the film's sound builds and culminates into a melting pot of racial tension as Raheem and Buggin' Out confront Sal's Pizzeria - captured in extreme CU Dutch angles to construct this tumultuous  mood - to advocate for African American pictures on Sal's Italian-American 'Wall of Fame'; ultimately this conflict is about the systemic inequalities between each racial group, Raheem's refusal to turn off his music a symbolic expression of  his community' s unwillingness to back down in the face of injustice. The explicitly racially charged lyrics add to the constant volume with a matched edit of 'racist' onto a cut of Sal, anchoring a preferred reading from Raheem and Buggin's perspective (a Stuart Hall theory). Thus, this leitmotif becomes hugely significant to voice the film's ideology which is externalised within the saturated mise-en-scene, habitual canted angles, and clustered shot compositions simmering with activity and a visual noise. This constant familiarisation and identification with 'Fight The Power' therefore has extreme impact when the boombox is destroyed and silence is distributed for the first and only time in the film; this acts as an attack on black culture and fuels the apotheosis when Raheem is murdered via police brutality. Ultimately this audio-visual combination suggests that Lee is more interested in showing the film's discourse around racial tension and violence as contextually sparked from the various racial attacks on black youths in New York during the 1980s, most prominently the 'Howard Beach' incident, as verbalised by protagonist Mookie and other ethnic members of the community at the film's climax,  symbolically expressed and enhanced by the film's unique aesthetics. 

Wilder similarly utilises a dramatic leitmotif within Double Indemnity, though uses its in a less explicit way throughout the film as a haunting non-diegetic backdrop against the narrative rather than a foregrounded reality as is the case in DTRT. Recurringly, the leitmotif is used as a representation of protagonist Neff's fatal doom and a reminder of his inevitability of failure teased to the spectator in the opening credits. The seedy, criminal, and uncertain mood of the film is present as a silhouetted Neff - an example of chiaroscuro lighting - walks slowly towards the camera on crutches - introducing the idea of a 'broken man' - against the steady low-pitched brass instrumentation of the leitmotif, a constant beat constructing connotations of a heartbeat and thus crafting a mood of uncertainty and urgency furthered in the following sequence. This leitmotif recurs again in the ending for example, as Neff loses his ability to stand after his attempt at fleeing from his crimes, the motif a cyclical closure of the flashback narrative. This tragically heroic scene uses sound to act as an externalisation of the characters' fate, with a rising and falling legato chord, offscreen sound of Keyes phoning the police, and the re-emergence of the leitmotif as Keyes lights Neff a final cigarette finalising his arc. The combination of such noirish imagery with an impending and haunting sound derives from Hays Code restrictions, and this leitmotif in combination with shadowy, dark, and concealing aesthetics a way of communicating the film's subtext of criminality, corruption, and extreme violence unable to be explicitly shown; filmmakers had to be creative in how they got these ideas across without offending the production code, and thus the noir aesthetic is fuelled. This is prominent in Double Indemnity when Neff murders femme fatale Phyllis' husband from the back of a car, Phyllis' three diegetic horns signalling the deed. The music culminates to a crescendo while the camera remains at a close-up on Phyllis' sadistic expression, this sound therefore a crucial indicator of the violence while showing Phyllis' dark character role as the femme fatale: her depraved satisfaction in murder. The leitmotif emerges during the cross-fade as Neff and Phyllis arrive at the train station to deposit the body, reminding the audience that Neff cannot back out of his decision and is now an irreparable man. This is significant because during the first act, the recurring music is a high-pitched and simmering tune which connotes a sense of anxiety and occurs after Neff leaves Phyllis in their first two meetings, and therefore this music can been seen as a warning in its building tension. The leitmotif is heard in the flashback for the first time after Neff kisses Phyllis and has committed to her schemes of murder, and like after he has murdered, there is no backing out; he is within her grasp and already a corrupted criminal in the eyes of the audience. Thus, the music externalises the film's aesthetic corruption. 

The use and delivery of dialogue in both films is also significant in contributing to each aesthetic, crafting the tone of each film and in DTRT's case, commenting on contextual issues fuelling its turbulent aesthetic. Lee embraces racial stereotypes in order to criticise them, with a multitude of accents, dialects, and vocal attitudes (most prominently an urbanised accents relative to each racial group) within the relatively compact community; this effectively showcases the diversity of the setting  and allows for the exploration of racial tension to be explicit. In many instances, the characters are hyperbolic in how they converse, address, and solve, issues, the film's narrative largely constructed through its constant dialogue between characters. Lee contrasts the ways in which race culture can be approached through editing and its relationship with sound as characters verbally express their opinions. This is shown in the provocative montage of a character representative of each ethnic group breaking the fourth wall in an unbroken stream of direct racial slurs; until this point the spectator remains a passive onlooker and witness within the community, and now they are directly involved in an abrasive confrontation of racial biases which provokes active spectatorship in relation to Stuart Hall's reception theory. These epithets are broken by smooth talking Mister Senor Love Daddy shouting 'Hold up, time out...y'all need to chill' and is the only character where the camera remains static as he moves towards the frame. This shows he is willing to change his attitudes to restore peace within the community, which also serves to direct the spectator's attention to this attitude. This montage greatly contrasts to the scene previously in which the topics of racism were discussed between Mookie and Pino so casually rather than something active and violent, which is what is shown in the montage. As Pino and Mookie talk, the sound breaks in J and L cuts mid-sentence to the other's reaction, representing how though they seem to hear each other and talk about their differing stances on race, they don't truly listen. This shows two sides to how racism is and can be approached - the passive, calm discussion and the violent slurs. In a combination of these two approaches, Lee shows Pino and father Sal discuss similar issues, though on a much more racist topic directly concerning the black people they live among. Uncommon in the film, the pace remains still and uncharged as they sit opposite each other in their store window. Pino tries to convince his father to move the business through his racism against black people, the dialogue remaining at a quiet discussion. Sal explains he's proud of his business and it's going to stay; at this point non-diegetic subtle jazz music appears in conjunction with Pino's disappointment and growing anger in an array of  steadily chaotic jazz instrumentation which increases in volume and becomes parallel to the chaos that ensues as Smiley taps on the window and ignores Pino's shouting for him to leave. The camera remains inside as Pino argues with those outside and Sal has seemingly lost faith and stays away from the conflict. The scene ends with this unresolved and thus adds to the melting pot of simmering tension within the community, the combination of dialogue and music contributing to the film's turbulent aesthetic. In applying Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction, the film through such varied and unresolved examples of naturalistic interactions is open to a multiplicity of interpretations governed by context in the language used to understand Lee's ideology which correlates to a spectator's situated culture which determines how they would react or perceive such interactions and form a negotiated reading (Hall). 

Double Indemnity's use of dialogue contributes to the aesthetic style and tone of the film from the typically noirish 'hard-boiled' Raymond Chandler screenplay. For example, a subtext of sexuality is constructed in Neff and Phyllis' first introduction through a back and forth sexual metaphor: 'There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff, forty-five miles an hour'. It is clear that by the end of this interaction Neff is taken by Phyllis, and commonly throughout the film, this is externalised in the low-key lighting as he walks away to retrieve his hat, the venetian blinds casting a shadow upon Neff connoting a split identity, prison bars, as well as aesthetically restricting him now he is compulsive to Phyllis. As he leaves, his shadow lingers on the wall which relates back the film's opening as Neff follows his shadow towards Keyes' office, constructing the idea that he is walking into darkness as well as being followed by it. This is followed by Neff's voiceover narrating this flashback - another trope of film noir, usually from the perspective a dead or doomed man - as he remarks, 'murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle', with the emergence of high pitched orchestral 'warning' music. Such visual and aural metaphors combine to craft the thematic and tonal aesthetic of noir crafted from the restrictions of the production code. 

In conclusion, both Wilder and Lee use stylised sound to contribute to their respective aesthetics and tone. Wilder through dramatic music and hard-boiled language to imply instances of prohibited behaviour, constructs the muted deceitful, cynical, and criminal intensity of film noir. Concurrently Lee uses provocative and socio-politically charged music and hyperbolic dialogue respective to its represented cultures to depict the intensity of racism in 1980s America which accentuate the chaotic saturation of the aesthetics.