Femme Fatale: Cinema's Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies PDF
Preview Femme Fatale: Cinema's Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies
B. B. in all her iconic glory. Copyright © 2009 by Dominique Mainon and James Ursini All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review. Published in 2009 by Limelight Editions An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation 7777 West Bluemound Road Milwaukee, WI 53213 Trade Book Division Editorial Offices 19 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10010 Printed in China through Colorcraft Ltd., Hong Kong Book design by Damien Castaneda Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mainon, Dominique. Femme fatale : cinema’s most unforgettable lethal ladies / by Dominique Mainon and James Ursini. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 9780879107253 1. Femmes fatales in motion pictures. 2. Sex in motion pictures. 3. Feminism and motion pictures. I. Ursini, James. II. Title. PN1995.9.F44M35 2009 791.43’6522-dc22 2009018618 www.limelighteditions.com Table of Contents Chapter One Pre-Code Femmes Fatales In The Early American Cinema: From Liberation To Repression Chapter Two Film Noir’s Deadly Female: Subversion And Transgression Chapter Three The Femme Fatale Is Silenced In The U.s.: The Rise Of The International Femme Fatale Chapter Four The Post-Feminist Explosion: The Femme Fatale Comes Into Her Own Angelina Jolie emits the femme fatale aura in this publicity photo. Introduction “As this man has done to me, so I will henceforth to all men. My heart is ice, my passion consuming fire. Let men beware.” —La Giocanda (Theda Bara) in The Devil’s Daughter THE FEMME FATALE is such a quintessential part of our collective imagination expressed in art, literature, and media that some of her earliest appearances can be found as far back as the Judeo-Christian Bible. The very first woman, Eve, is a femme fatale herself as she entices Adam to sin, and Adam becomes the first man to begin making excuses to God that SHE made him do it. The early Christian “father” of the Church Tertullian would later condemn all women as the first sinners, proclaiming to them: “You are the devil’s gateway.” The French phrase “femme fatale” literally means “deadly woman,” which understates the human embodiment of lust and peril, that intoxicating allure of sex and death that makes these creatures so fascinating. The femme fatale is a sleek and sensuous creature, dangerous either physically or emotionally to her victims. Unlike the more overtly aggressive warrior-woman archetype (see our book The Modern Amazons), the femme fatale’s weapons are more covert and elusive. She would often use poison instead of a knife and employ intelligence and sexual prowess to further her quest for power. But although femmes fatales differ from warrior women, at times they overlap in that they too assault the patriarchy, albeit from behind the scenes and more to fulfill their own personal needs or transgressive desires rather than any ideals. They are Mata Haris, as opposed to Boudiccas. A femme fatale slowly drains her victims of their morals, values, their friends, and often their money. She is sexually insatiable, and may even love her victims in her own way, but it doesn’t stop her from driving them to obsession. The male’s resulting exhaustion leads to confusion and inability to make sensible or rational decisions. Men who pursue the femme fatale risk being cuckolded, humiliated, and driven to poverty and despair in the pursuit of her attention.
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