Film Noir

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“I never told you I was anything but what I am – you just wanted to imagine I was.” – Kathie Moffett (played by Jane Greer), Out of the Past (1947).
Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur, featuring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, presents a quintessential example of the femme fatale character in film noir, one who challenges the idealistic portrayal of the traditional woman; “Noir films create this image of the strong, unrepressed woman, then attempt[s] to contain it by destroying the femme fatale…” Kathie Moffett the femme fatale, is thereby the archetypal image of this sexually driven and independent woman. Underscoring this assertion is the essay Femme Fatale written by John Blaser, featured in the essay collection No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir.
In Out of the Past, the intense sexual presence of the femme fatale, Kathie Moffett, lures the protagonist, Jeff Markham, in as an accomplice to her mischievous plans by asserting her sexuality. In other words, the femme fatale refuses to define herself as a sex object in this male-dominated world – rather, she uses ...

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