'The Postmodern Always Rings Twice: Constructing the femme fatales in 90's Cinema' by Kate Stables

"Postmodern film...pillages, adulterates and reconstitutes past cinema with extraordinary facility."

• One of the main differences between classic and postmodern noir is the technological advance that has been made in film-making. e.g. Rodriguez's Sin City
• Can use CGI/ Green Screen / Pyrotechnics etc.
• Expressed as 'Noir Lite'
• Using similar thriller scenarios/ expressionist lighting/ 40's styling and a saxaphone soundtrack
• Main difference is the progression of teh femme fatale
• Different branches of the new femme fatale
• Monster villainess mastermind (Basic Instinct & Sharon Stone)
• Unnatural Mothers (The Grifters)
• Postmodern sex toy - woman's body as a deadly weapon
• Deadly retro-noir housewives (The Hot Spot)
• Psycho - femme killer in mainstream slashers e.g. fatal Attraction (Glenn Close)
• Sex is part of the psycho-femme armoury, but they are defined primarily by their psychosis
• HOWEVER - they may be fatal to men but they are not femme fatales (faux fatales)
• The Last Seduction gave us the first fully fatale protagonist
• The ingredients to construct a femme fatale are always based on the time and climate of her creation
• At the same time they are a "timeless fantasy"

Latest Action Plan Review

So far I have been focusing on secondary research, reading essays, articles, book reviews on different takes on the femme fatale. The development (similarities & differences) of the classic & postmodern noir femme fatales has been of particular focus, looking at the common conventions of the fatales in the 40's & 50's crime thrillers and then seeing how they have progressed. I am now looking into the possible methods of primary research & am planning to have watched all of my film texts over the weekend. I will textually analyse each of the films, taking relevant clips and use them in focus groups of separate genders to get useful responses. I have also signed up to a C4 forum to post my questionaires and get a relevant feedback from people with soem knowledge of my area of research.

Posted by Skip to Miss T.

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Break-down of Title

Here are 8 questions/ areas that my research will be focused around, agreed between me & Miss B.

1. The development of the femme fatale - Classic Vs. Post-modern
2. Definition of stereotype - conventions that make a femme fatale
3. Influence/ Importance of the femme fatale
4. Narratice issues - whether her behaviour/ actions drive the narrative. Significance within the narrative, how she affects other characters.
5. Male issues - How they interact - binary opposites.
6. Culture & social context - Gender issues in society.
7. Audience responses - sympathies/ feelings towards the male & female characters?
8. Institutional - popularity at box office/ marketing/ branding/ production & distribution - postmodern advantaged by special effects)

Skipstar8.X

Question Make-over <3

I am currently re-thinking the title of my research slightly. Although I was currently taking a stronger focus on the Classic Film Noir Femme fatales, I am now thinking about a more balanced, comparative title looking at the progression of classic to postmodern femme fatales and theor impact in the film industry.

Skipstar*.X

E.Ann Kaplan 'Women in Film Noir' BFI Publishing, London, 1998

• The Neo Noir heroine is the product of what coud be read as "disappointment at what feminist movements failed to achieve'
• Classic femme fatales must be contained in order for the patriarchal order to be restored
• Most feminist discussion centred on the way in which noir disrupted the patriarchal social order only to emphasise the potential disaster unleashed when women do not know their place.
• Neo fatales vent their angst upon less intelligent, oppressive men
• The Neo-Noirs are not moral tales, nor do they possess

'Shades of Noir' Edited by Joan Copjec

A Question of Genre

• The films are the antithesis of a 'woman's' film
• Although film noir features strong, independent women with determined desires. It is argued that the figure is invariavly destroyed literally/ metaphorically
• Replaced by her inverse the 'nuturing woman'
• Connection of desire & death - central to film noir

E.g. Double Indemnity

• Neff's desire for Phyllisis linked to his knowledge of her desire to kill her husband.

'Writing the New Noir Film' By Sharon.Y. Cobb

Femme Fatale

• She represents a better life: wealthy/ beautiful / intelligent & illusive
• E.g. 'Basic Instinct'
• Dougals risks his life for Stone, knowing she is a murder suspect just to satisfy his obssession with her.
• E.g. LA Confidential
• Basinger is a "victim" of her own beauty, luring Bud into a sexual relationship them betraying him by having a sexual encounter with his fellow detective Ed, photographed by another character to use for blackmail.

Noir Sex

• Protagonist lusts over femme fatale - obssession
• New Noirs - feature more highly erotic 'love scenes'
• Proffessional objectives of the protagonist are compromised (E.g. Basic Instinct -Stone teases Douglas through questioning - distracted away from professional/ obessession over next sexual encounter.

'Today's Femme Fatales - Postmodern make-over' by Laura Schiff

On our visit to the BFI Library I came across a number of interesting books and articles, one of which being this article on the post-modern femme fatale by Laura Schiff.

• Cinematic femme fatales came around with the Weimar street films of the 20's and the Film Noirs of the 40's and 50's.
• The 40's crime thrillers of the WWII era = the Golden Age of the femme fatale
• These films led to the sexual revolution of the 70's breaking the conventional American family with women as subservient.
• Modern femme fatales are more calculation, less emotional and more apologetically successful --> Also more likely to succeed in her villainous schemes
• The common ground between classic femme fatales of the 40's and 90's:-

1. An Archetypal character
2. Beautiful
3. Hides corruption behind respectability
4. Motivated by an isatiable desire or greed
5. manipulates men into committing evil deeds
6. duplicitous/ Self-absorbed

• Representative use of mirrors - revealing the true nature of the femme fatale
• E.g. 'Out of the Past' - Mitchum sees th femme fatale in the reflection of the mirror framing him for murder on the phone - revealing her evil scheme.
• 'Basic Instinct' - Stone begins seduction by letting Douglas see a refelction of her naked body - successful
• 'Double Indemnity' - Stanwyck first meets MacMurray while wearing only a towel and primping herself in the mirror while he watches her reflection - This shows her self-absorption and vanity yet also the start of ehr seduction.
• Shared traits of 40's and 90's femme fatales

1. The rejection of the so-called 'normal' sexual roles placed upon her by society
2. She is neither a virgin/ mother/ loyal Gf
3. Uses her charms to advance her own personal interests

Differences

1. Classic fatale - entices her men through playing up her vulnerability
2. Post-modern fatales - emphasises her strength.

• Jans. B. Wager - Book 'Dangerous Dames - Women and representation in the Weimar Street film and Film Noir.'
• Identifies film noir between 1941-58
• Women during this time were not a strong presence in the workforce
• 33.9% in 1950 - United States Department of Commerce Statistics.
• [Back to Schiff article]
• Reflecting Society - femme fatales of the 40's and 50's usually depended on money from their husbands.
• Their motivation for financial freedom and autonomy were the factors by the classic femme fatales crooked scheme.

E.g.

1. 'Double Indemnity' - Stanwyck seduces MacMurray (playing an insurance salesman) after her sob stroy about her mean husband, macMurray sells him accident insuranceand plots the murder(wanting to be the great protector of the besautiful woman) = gets caught.
2. 'Out of the Past' - Jane Greer kills gambling B/f Kirk Douglas & runs to Mexico with his money - seduces detective Robert Mitchum & frames him for murder = He ends up dead aswell.
3. 'Maltese Falcon' - Private Eye Bogart falls for O'Shaughnessy (a client asking him to find her (non-existent) sister) - Story unravels - Elaborate plot of O'Shaughnessy to find relic Maltese Falcon but Bogart comes out on top.

• Post-Modern femme fatales - prouder & more independent from men (esp financially)
• Less desperate & more calculated than the classics.

E.g.

'Basic Instinct' - Sharon Stone, calm, aloof manneris impenetrable (fools a lie detector) - Picks her moment to turn on the tears ( when her lesbian lover dies in a car accident) unlike the classics, the post-modern fatales pick there moment carefully as not to look desperate & vulnerable. Stone can be seen as independent from men financially & sexually with her lesbain lover.

• The Murder
• the cassics are less physical than the modern fatales
• Classic femme fatales use handguns - creating distance between themself & the victim
• Post-modern fatales are alot more hands-on/ physical - Stone uses an Ice pick in the neck
• In 'Romeo is Bleeding' - attempt of strangulation with thighs

" Even deade the post-modern femme fatale gets the last laugh."

Woman's Place: The Absent Family of FIlm Noir - Sylvia Harvey

"Film Noir offers us again and again examples of abnormal or monstous behaviour, which defy the patterns established for human social interaction, and which hint ata series of radical and irresolvable contradistions buried deep within the total system of economic and social interactions that constitute the known world."

• This essay by Sylvia Harvey attempts to understand the depictions of women in Film Noir as reflecting the changing social attitudes with increasing number of women's entry into the Labour market.
• The importance of the woman's position in the family & how it determines her place in society
• Film Noir acts as to challenge the hierarchical structure of the family - father as head, mother as subservient & children as totally dependant - acting as a meaphor for a repressive and authoritarian society.
• The family also acts as the only legitimate arena for the fulfillment of sexual needs/ marriage sanctifies sex - clearly challenged by the femme fatale & her openly sexual nature, linking to Kaplan's theory that Film Noir is a "male fantasy".
• The concept that the family is inevitably linked to marriage & the seek for eduring love of a lifetime - in contrast with absence or dectruction of romantic love and the family of the film Noir structure.
• Visual style - landscape/ lighting/ camera angle/ framing - adds to the absence of romantic love e.g threatening. disturbing mis-en-scene etc.
• The absence of family in Film Noir = absence of a happy -ending

Film Noir's Progressive Portrayal of Women

Here is a link to a Academic essay by the researcher John Blaser, the author of the essay 'No Place for a Woman: The Family and Film Noir'. It gives an interesting angle ont he progression on women in noir and the different ways in which they can be portrayed.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/pp-all.html

C4 Forum

I just signed up with the C4 FilmFun foum to use as a platform to post my questionnaires and get some valuable feedback from people who are interested in film and will hopefully be quite knowledgable in the area of noir.

Here is the link!

http://community.channel4.com/eve?s=162603557&ORIGINAL_REFERRER_URL=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.channel4.com%2Feve