In film noir, there are two archetypal portrayals of women; the whore and the Madonna. The whore is exposed as the dark, sexual and active spider woman out to seduce every man she meets, while the Madonna is a loving, caring virgin who posses no threat. As explained by Janey Place in Women in Film Noir, film noir is a male’s fantasy where the sexual power and strength of women are visually expressed in film, both through the iconography of the image and through the visual style.
From the emergence of film noir in the 1940s, the dark, strong femme fatale is one of the main characters that is often longing for independence from men. Her world is seen as claustrophobic and hopeless, fashioned by strong contrasts in light and dark, off-skewed camera angels and atypical f
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She is the idyllic, long legged, blonde, Veronica Lake look-alike ‘whore’ of film noir. One example of the beautiful malicious women is shown in Curtis Hanson’s L. In this way, the use of mirrors brings about a film noir icon. In one scene, she is seen dressed up a doll, paint covering her face and a chain around her neck. By the use of composition, camera movement, angle and lighting, the beautiful seductress can be shown as a complete angel with underlying malevolent ideas. Much like Kim Basinger’s, Eve (Eva Marie Saint) in North by Northwest seduces Roger (Cary Grant), only to abandon him later. Al though both Lynn and Eve
The use of mirror is present quite often in film noir, many times in use by the women. In Josef von Sternburg’s Blonde Venus, for example, Marlene Dietrich is portrayed as a sex goddess.
The hero in film noir is almost always fatally attracted to the spider women, who manipulates and betrays him through the use of her sexuality. A strong illustration of the classic spider women is Pris (Daryl Hannah) in Blade Runner. Kim Basinger plays Lynn Bracken, a Barbie-doll prostitute whose main intentions are to seduce Officer Bud White.
Approximate Word count =
520
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2 (250 words per page double spaced)
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