Butch and femme

Noir injected a bleakness into American cinema, a desolate quality that distinguishes it from the optimistic Hollywood productions of the 1930s, with their flat lighting, tidy narratives, and satisfying conclusions. In Hollywood Genres, Thomas Schatz attributes this bleakness to social condition in World War II America: “This changing visual world . . . reflected the progressively darkening cultural attitudes during and after the war. Hollywood’s noir films documented the growing…

audiences know the fact that she shots Whit and ran away, they cannot associates this woman with cold, bloody crime. Like Helen Grayle from Murder, My Sweet, she bleaches her hair from red to blond. The idea of pretending is one of the characteristics of femme fatale. She says she is taller than Napoleon, when Jeff says she is such a small woman. Compare to what Eunice, the woman at the Harlem bar, says, Eunice says she weights exactly like Kathie’s suitcase, Kathie does not like being looked…

the film places her under the femme fatale category. Doll and Faller explain that “Rachel’s clothing identifies her with the spider women of film noir who attempt to destroy the hero.” (p. 93) The fact that she wears her hair up, and is often wearing jackets with padded shoulders, makes her suitable for the spider women role. However, this changes as the film progresses. Rachel suffers a physical and emotional transformation. Suddenly, she transitions “from a femme fatale, a Fallen Woman, into a…

the bottom of his partner’s murder. Spade later struggles with the decision of wether he should report the film’s Femme Fatal, whom he loves, to the police. Being one of the first Noir movies, it is evident that the style was not yet fully developed. Though many signature features of Noir film are present: a detective, fast dialogues and ambiguously malign characters, including a Femme Fatale, in my opinion, the aesthetics are not as characteristic as in later Noir films. For example, the play…

Pan’s Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo (gill-yea-mo) Del Toro, is a visually striking, dark fantasy film compiled of a range of equally gruesome and intriguing scenes that address the grim realities of 1944 fascist Spain through a child’s perspective. Del Toro does not delude nor pacify the cruel reality of the narrative where he displays a society that glorifies a corrupted male-dominated society. In the ‘Final Task’ scene, Del Toro’s intertwining of the camera techniques, colour scheme,…

Film noir, in the most traditional sense, is a genre of cinematographic film notable by a tone of pessimism and fatalism. From the forties and fifties - when the genre was first identified with American detective or thriller films - film noir has since experienced a resurgence at the dawn of the new century, often dubbed as “neo-noir” films. One film in the neo-noir category is Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino. The title, “pulp fiction,” owes itself to the “cheap fiction magazines…

neglected wife in a plot with passion, adultery and murder. With powerful performances by both actors, Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff, the tall, handsome insurance salesman who is enamored by Barbara Stanwyck, whose portrayal is one of the greatest femme fatales of all time, cold and calculating Phyllis Dietrichson. Along with Edward G. Robinson as Keyes Keyes, who plays the keenly, suspicious insurance investigator making Double Indemnity one of the best film noir movies of all time (Top 10,…

argument is sometimes lengthy and complicated, thus resulting in confusion to the readers. Although the text "Double Indemnity's Fatal Woman" is a careful analysis of Phyllis Dietrachson, it does not provide the readers with a clear definition of "femme fatal". The book chapter presents an excellent overview of women in film noir, but it lacks a deep investigation…

Film noir, a genre of darkness, of shadows, of hardboiled loners and bottom-feeders. The term noir was coined by French film critic Nino Frank in 1946 that literally means “Black Film”. This essay will discover how film noir is affected by the context of history as well as its course of evolution to reach its state nowadays. This would collectively enhance my degree of understanding of this influential genre of filmmaking. The origin of film noir dates back to the 1930s, the great depression…

shares archetypes and themes with the classic film genre of film noir. Both Greek tragedy and film noir feature femme fatales, women portrayed as devilish or in the role of a killer, the topic of the inevitability of fate is highly prevalent, and both genres incorporate mystery into their stories. “[Film noir is] a low-key black-and-white visual style, with a hard-boiled detective, a femme fatale, rainy streets, murder, and a downbeat ending” (Jukes). The genre of film noir is a cinematic genre…