In this particular scene of Double Indemnity, the characters Phyllis and Walter secretly meet up and converse over grocery store aisles. The mis-en-scene in this shot is very interesting. Without even seeing this movie you know that they are inside a grocery store. The background has numbers of different cans each with their own label and stacked very neatly together. There's a tomato sign to the left of Walter's dark hat, which almost blends into the actual wall of the store. The background is darker than the foreground, and it makes the actors the more central focus of the picture. They're illuminated by a white light, but they both still have dark eyes. Walters are shielded from the light from the help of his hat and Phyllis is wearing sunglasses, in fashion of being incognito, inside a store. Phyllis and Walter are both dressed according to their wealth, and are fashioned to the 40's, when this film was released. In this moment, Phyllis is grabbing on and pleading with Walter to help her kill her husband, and I think serves as a good still to summarize their relationship.


In this scene of L.A. Confidential it depicts an intimate moment for Lynn and Bud. Hence, why there is little in the background except for a hallway exampling the rules of thirds. The mis-en-scene in this shot is pretty bare, with the exception of a piece of art on the right side of this narrow hallway and light from outside on the left side. The two actors are dressed in white or creams, much like the walls on either side of them. The coloring is warmer from the light and makes it seem soft and intimate. Yet the character's actions in this still say otherwise, Bud looking away from Lynn. The positioning of these two individuals is very interesting - its such a narrow hallway, yet, they seem to have a distance between them, with Lynn looking at Bud from farther back and him simply looking forward. This shot makes it seem like a tense, yet vulnerable, moment.

What made me connect these two shots from these two movies together is that I felt like they both said something about the characters' relationships with one another. Phyllis and Walter, where Phyllis seduces and uses Walter to kill off her husband and how Lynn tries to help Bud out of his shell and open up to her. These two stills, with their own respective mis-en-scenes really capture each of their relationships.