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In the context of nineteenth-century Victorinoir and close readings of original-cycle film noir, Julie Grossman argues that the presence of the "femme fatale" figure, as she is understood in film criticism and popular culture, is drastically over-emphasized and has helped to sustain cultural obsessions with "bad" women.
"In the context of nineteenth-century Victorinoir and close readings of original-cycle film noir, Julie Grossman argues that the presence of the 'femme fatale' figure, as she is understood in film criticism and popular culture, is drastically over-emphasized and has helped to sustain cultural obsessions with 'bad' women"--Provided by publisher
"The femme Fatale takes a long view on the figure of the femme fatale, exploring her style, language, and stories from silent cinema to contemporary television. Author Julie Grossman provides a history of some of this dynamic figure's eruptions in film, TV, and culture generally, exploring the notions of female ambition, frustration, and intelligence that undergird the power and fascination of the femme fatale across time and media. We see how the fatal woman often mediates contradictory views on women's lives and their desire to gain fulfillment in a hostile or otherwise challenging environment. Embodied by some of the most charismatic female performers in Hollywood history, from Theda Bara and Barbara Stanwyck to Hedy Lamarr, Reese Witherspoon, and Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh, the femme fatale remains an active source of pleasure and subversion. Femmes Fatales pays particular attention to performance not only as a prominent feature of these works' production-established in part through references to studio press books and popular reviews--but also as a theme within the narrative (in, for example, the idea of the deceitful, untrustworthy, or "performing" woman). Focusing on expressive moments and scenes in texts that are celebrated and also those that are lesser known, this volume attends to the variety, trauma, wit, and transgressions of the femme fatale, emphasizing how this figure continually provokes us to reflect on rigid conventions and social roles. Femmes Fatales generates questions and analysis that speak to why stories about gender and criminality featuring tough and smart women are so endlessly thrilling"--
This dissertation, "Returning the Gaze: the Femme Fatale in the Film Noir of the 90s" by Wai-yee, Wong, 黃慧儀, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3195288 Subjects: Femmes fatales in motion pictures Film noir - History and criticism
Author : Jans B. Wager Publisher : University of Texas Press Page : 203 pages File Size : 17,89 MB Release : 2009-03-06 Category : Performing Arts ISBN : 0292773870
With its focus on dangerous, determined femmes fatales, hardboiled detectives, and crimes that almost-but-never-quite succeed, film noir has long been popular with moviegoers and film critics alike. Film noir was a staple of classical Hollywood filmmaking during the years 1941-1958 and has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity since the 1990s. Dames in the Driver's Seat offers new views of both classical-era and contemporary noirs through the lenses of gender, class, and race. Jans Wager analyzes how changes in film noir's representation of women's and men's roles, class status, and racial identities mirror changes in a culture that is now often referred to as postmodern and postfeminist. Following introductory chapters that establish the theoretical basis of her arguments, Wager engages in close readings of the classic noirs The Killers, Out of the Past, and Kiss Me Deadly and the contemporary noirs L. A. Confidential, Mulholland Falls, Fight Club, Twilight, Fargo, and Jackie Brown. Wager divides recent films into retro-noirs (made in the present, but set in the 1940s and 1950s) and neo-noirs (made and set in the present but referring to classic noir narratively or stylistically). Going beyond previous studies of noir, her perceptive readings of these films reveal that retro-noirs fulfill a reactionary social function, looking back nostalgically to outdated gender roles and racial relations, while neo-noirs often offer more revisionary representations of women, though not necessarily of people of color.
While connections between the femme fatale in film noir and 1930s hard-boiled fiction exist, noir critics have claimed that the femme fatale has historical specificity to postwar America. Andrew S. Wiecek summarizes criticism on the femme fatale in film noir and proceeds to underscore the significant contributions to made by the hard-boiled tradition to noir. He believes that these contributions point to a pre-war male anxiety about female independence that he traces to the economic instability of the Great Depression. From this pre-war anxiety came the femme fatale of hard-boiled fiction. Using the James M. Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity," the author shows how the femme fatales in these novels are identical to their film noir counterparts. Furthermore, he discusses the difference between popular fiction and hard-boiled fiction, contrasting Cain's novels with Sinclair Lewis' Ann Vickers. In the end, he concludes that noir critics have not adequately taken into account the history of American working women and have privileged the historical weight of film over literature.
The author of Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir introduces readers to the genre's sizzling femme fatales, from Jane Greer and Claire Trevor to Ann Savage and Evelyn Keyes.