The Representation of Women with Particular Reference to Women in Film Noir
...ilm’, French film critics coined the term soon after the end of WWII. Film noir (peak period mid-1940s through mid-1950s) is a type of movie made in America, especially popular during the post-World War II Period (in full swing n during 1946–1951). “Its style is typified by low key lighting, dark interiors, night exteriors (shot night-for-night), wet streets, a brooding mood, a hard-boiled and independent hero with an ambivalence towards or dislike of authority, cynical dialogue, villains who prefer greed and lust, a femme fatale (the sexually aggressive woman who lies), and implications of illicit sexuality.” (Film Noir) Its roots are in German Expressionism which is a movement in painting during the ‘30s depressions (many of the directors are Germans or Austrians who immigrated to America after Hitler came to power). “Its impetus seems to come from the pervasive insecurity and confusion of the postwar period.” (Film Noir) It is also a result of improved technology in lighting and film stocks. The stylistically dark of film noir expressed as follows: low-key lighting which casts up shadows, harsh lighting contrasts, bizarre camera angles, scenes at night (in which pools of darkness are broken up by pockets of light), dark streets, , clouds of cigarette smoke swirling in dimly lit cocktail lounges; symbols of fragility such as window panes, sheer clothing, glasses and mirrors. Characters are imprisoned behind ornate lattices, grillwork, drifting fog and smoke. The focus is on human depravity, violence, lust, greed and betrayal. (Ibid) Neo noir The femme fatale disappeared too, until the 1970s, with the much greater gender challenge of feminism, saw film noir’s first true revival. Like the 1940s, this era’s uncertainty in the areas of changed social roles, questionable government morality and foreign involvement (not to mention drugs, the Generation Gap, etc) showed a society in crisis. Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) explicitly revived film noir visual motifs, voice-over narration, urban claustrophobia, This 70s revival is often termed ‘neo-noir’. How women represented in film noir Film noir does not only feature the darkness stylistically, but also on its theme. In the film, there is full of fear, anxiety, dissatisfaction, revenge, crime, murder, sexual obsession and alienation. Well, the generic problem of classic film noir concern to the economic hardship. “The underclass status woman answered sex-based inequity with sexual manipulation in order to get economic independence.” ( Straayer) And femme fetal is described as mysterious, unknowable, dangerous, and evil. They are the women whose sexuality masks her true motivations and desires. But there is another female in film noir, dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir has to inevitably choose (or have the fateful choice made for him) between the women - and invariably he picks the femme fatale who destructively goads him into committing murder or some other crime of passion. The source and the operation of the sexual woman’s power and its danger to the male character is expressed visually both in the iconography of the image and the visual style. The iconography is explicitly sexual and often explicitly violent as well: long hair (blond or dark), make-up. And jewellery. Cigarettes with their wispy trails of smoke can become cue of dark and immoral sensuality, and the iconography of violen...