Femme Fatale And Her True Color Noir means black in French. Noir is a genre of typical crime dramas. Protagonists of noir fiction are either victims, suspects, or perpetrators. They either victimized other people or have been victimized by others. Unlike traditional women who playing virtuous wives and mother, the type of women in noir fiction acts the role of what a good woman shouldn’t be, selfish, psycho, crazy. We define them as femmes fatales. No matter what consequences are, femme fatale doesn’t care about it as well as other people. Thinking people should do what they want them to do, those women are their self-catered. The classic femme fatale obsesses with money, power, and freedom. Usually using their sexual attractiveness as weapons …show more content…
Why femmes fatales are femmes fatales, they have their difficulties. On the basis of “No Place For A Woman: The Family In Film Noir” by John Blaser, “This attitude is not lost on the women themselves. They feel trapped by husbands or lovers who treat them as "standard equipment" and by an institution -marriage - that makes such treatment possible. Marriage for the femme fatale is associated with unhappiness, boredom, and the absence of romantic love and sexual desire.” It’s right when women have been treating like a piece of property, they are suffering. Once femme fatale cannot suffer anymore, she bursts using her own way. However, is that an reasonable excuse of killing? In another word, if a woman kills a man, the man’s daughter must kill the woman for revenge. Does that sounds logical? If so, this society order would be disrupted. Due to no place for femme fatale in the family, she murders or manipulates men to murder. No matter how beautiful the excuses are, excuses are still excuses. The inside of femmes fatales are heartless, selfish, and cruel, that’s their nature. Giving vent to emotion, or their unfair treatment, femmes fatales need an excuse to make them seem not that guilty. In addition, once traditional women have been treated unhealthy, they would find a way to change their husbands’ attitude and perspective rather than just killing the
Though “conservatism” and “conformity” were the catchphrases of the period there were nonconformity too. Dysfunctional families were there. Youth who were not satisfactory revolted against norms.
The French term, ‘Noir’ translates to ‘Black’ in English however we also use it describe a genre of film
The phrase ‘femme fatale’ originated during early twentieth-century in the English language but existed as an image during the nineteenth-century in French literature, it implied that women consciously seduced and ruined men by using their potent sexual charms for evil. The ‘femme’ was given more distinct qualities by Virginia M. Allen in her book The Femme Fatale. The ‘femme’ is described as a beautiful, erotic, seductive, destructive, exotic and a self-determined independent who is cold hearted, immortal and less of a human. The females portrayed in the noir were primarily of two types - either projected as ethical, loyal loving woman or as ‘femme fatales’ who were duplicitous, deceptive, manipulative and desperate yet gorgeous women. In Her motivation to hire Marlowe was only because she felt that he could help find Roger.
‘L.A Confidential is in the film noir genre. Other films in this genre are ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Double Indemnity’. Lighting is very important in film noir. It uses techniques such as chiaroscuro to give the film a darker, more obscured feel. The characters are often similar in film noir. The main protagonist is always some hard boiled cop or investigator who doesn’t always play by the book to get his desired results. There is often a femme fatale; a very pretty woman with whom the main protagonist has a love interest. There will always be bad guys who will try and stop the main protagonist from completing the case.
Film Noir is a fairly self-explanatory name. French for “Dark” or “Black Film”, this style (not genre) of film is pretty much summed up in those two words. These films started being made in a 1940’s, Post WWII paranoia, with the threat of nuclear missiles looming over the heads of all United States citizens, Hollywood included. This paranoia led to disillusioned attitudes and existential feelings, which in turn were reflected in Film Noirs through things such as characters, with the two most prominent types being hardened male protagonists and femme fatales. Also, the “Darkness” of Film Noirs was not just a metaphor for the content of the film, but also a fairly literal description of the visual style was like. Taking influence from German Expressionism, among other things, the visuals of film noirs were often of gritty city streets, dark alleys, or smoky, cramped-looking rooms. To add to the dark appearance, the lighting included heavy use of chiaroscuro, a style that is characterized by a dark environment with single-source, high contrast lighting on the subject. While many film noirs fall into the crime genre, as well as detective, there are some exceptions, such as the drama/black comedy Sunset Boulevard. Despite it’s setting and characters being a bit unconventional for the Film Noir style (the film was a fairly realistic account of what goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood), Sunset Boulevard is definitely a Film Noir, due to it’s use of an archetypal Film Noir hero, a femme fatale, and conventional film noir cinematography and storytelling.
The term film noir means, “black film” and was originally coined by French critic Nino Frank in 1946.. The author of “Film Noir”, Bruce Crowther, points out that “in some cases, the movies were based upon the work of such novelists and short-story writes as James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The work of these and other American writers of the tough-guy and hard-boiled schools were published in France…The prevailing atmosphere of pessimism and doom in these new romans noire translated with ease to the medium of film and prompted the coinage of the term film noir.
Film noir (literally 'black film,' from French critics who noticed how dark and black the looks and themes were of these films) is a style of American films which evolved in the 1940s. " The Internet Movie Database LTD. Film noir typically contains melancholy, and not so moral themes. Another characteristic of film noir is just because the main character has the title hero, that does not mean that he will always be alive at the end of the book, or that the hero is always "good." Marlowe in The Big Sleep is a prime example of this concept.
The genre film noir has some classical elements that make these films easily identifiable. These elements are displayed in the prototypical film noir, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. These elements include being filmed in black and white, a morally ambiguous protagonist, and a prominent darkness. However, the most striking part of a film noir is the femme fatale, a woman who craves independence through sexual and economic liberation. In his film, Chinatown, Roman Polanski uses many of the classic elements of a film noir, however he twists many of them to reflect the time period. This is particularly evident in his depiction of his “femme fatale,” Evelyn Mulwray.
The FBI has defined serial killing as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s) in separate events” (Farrell, Keppal, & Titterington, 2011, p. 231). While individuals who partake in such activity do receive a large amount of attention, the female parts of this population are vastly under recognized. Female serial killers receive little academic attention, even though they are a complex and dynamic group to study (p. 229). Women make up 15% of American serial killers, with 36 known to be active in the last century (p. 230). It is speculated that at any given time there are 50-70 serial killers in the United States, and approximately 7-8 of them are female (Schurman, 2000, p. 12). Moreover, females acting alone manage
... throughout her killing spree. This proves that not all serial killers can be classified with all the same characteristics. Vera was paranoid by the idea of her lovers losing interest in her (Vera Renczi – The Black Widow Serial Killer Who Killed All Of Her Lovers). This fear drove her to kill the moment she had the slightest insinuation of infidelity.
In the film Double Indemnity (1944) film noir also portrayed the gender roles (femininity) introducing a charming woman who got her ways into men’s life leaving him devastated, confused etc. women with these qualities are often called femme fatale. Women in general have a larger corpus callusum, that helps them transfer data through the left and right hemispheres faster then men that made it easy for her to achieve her aim, also women in the other head have a more limbic brain
portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time
Films that are classified as being in the film noir genre all share some basic characteristics. There is generally a voice-over throughout the film in order to guide the audience's perceptions. These movies also involve a crime and a detective who is trying to figure out the truth in the situation. This detective usually encounters a femme fatale who seduces him. However, the most distinctive feature of the film noir genre is the abundance of darkness.
While there are many different ways to classify a Neo-noir film, Roman Polanski’s, Chinatown captures many. The 1974 movie consists of many of these elements, including both thematic and stylistic devices. One of the main themes of neo-noir film that is constant throughout the film is the deceptive plot that questions the viewers’ ideas and perceptions of what is actually happening in the film. Every scene of Chinatown leads to a twist or another turn that challenges the practicability of the film’s reality. All of the never-ending surprises and revelations lead up to the significant themes the movie is trying to convey in the conclusion of the film.
However, the lives of these women were not as easy as it may have seemed. In retrospect, their roles, although seemingly wonderful, were actually oppressive. They were taught to be obedient and loyal to their husbands . Their opinions were devalued, and they were thought of as nothing more than an accessory to their husbands.