welcome to los angeles megan lent
*** There’s this great moment in Double Indemnity where Barbara Stanwyck’s character is driving to the railroad tracks to assist in enacting the murder at the center of the film’s plot (one of those movies where murder can’t not be essential to the story, an atmosphere of smoky jukebox joints and dark corridors, world where men say “doll” and every other line is an innuendo), and her eyes narrow, and she begins to smile, and her grayscaled face takes up the entire screen, and when you’re watching that, you get this feeling at the roots of the hairs in your arms, almost like she’s there in your house, on your bed, waiting to plot out your death, too; but, you are also her, in that moment, you feel what she feels, she is horrible for you, bad candy, alcohol, possibly evil, you hate her, but you are connected to her, you are one, she is you, and you register an almost intrinsically awful love. *** 75