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Projecting Trauma: The Femme Fatale in Weimar and Hollywood Film Noir

2007; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wgy.2008.0002

1940-512X

Barbara Hales,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

This article challenges recent scholarship on German exile directors by suggesting that the context of Weimar culture is relevant to understanding the work of these directors in Hollywood. I propose that film noir of the 1940s and 1950s conveys the crisis of male identity resulting from World War I by way of the femme fatale character. The paper begins with an examination of the traumatic conditions of post-war Weimar that constructed the woman as criminal and double and then proceeds to an analysis of filmic depictions of the femme fatale in Hollywood and Weimar. (BH)