I was first introduced to James M. Cain's "Double Indemnity" my second semester at SUNY New Paltz in a called "Fiction into Film." It's one my favorite courses taken at New Paltz. We read book and watched their films. I was taking Digital Storytelling that semester too, so it felt like all I really did was watch movies and short videos. Fiction into Film was a really cool class and introduced me to some great books and films. Overall, I enjoyed the film lectures the professor gave, the films we watched, the novels we read, as well as the discussions we had. It was cool to look at films with a critical lens and explore the world of books that took on the big screen-- the differences between books and their films, as well as the unique approaches directors took to put those words into practice, or images shall I say. In the class, we had to analyze shots on our exams. It's really not as easy as it sounds. One of the great things I took from the class was "Double Indemnity." I thought I was going to go crazy when I first looked at the course syllabus and saw the amount of books required for the course. I was lucky to have found Cain's novel in the campus library. It was a hardcover, short yellow book that contained some of his other works (I think...my memory seems a little shot.) The class was three days a week as I remember it, lecture two days a week and films screenings on Wednesdays. "Apocalypse Now" book we read and watched the film for.
I grew a passion and love for film, because I started to truly see it as art.
I remember learning about Film Noir and German Expressionism. I fell in love with Double Indemnity -- it's a classic film, directed by Billy Wilder. I was also intrigued by the femme fatale character role in the movie, and another film we watched I can't catch the name of at the moment.
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