Cherchez la Femme: The Evolution of the Femme Fatale

The term femme fatale is synonymous with a very particular type of character from the silver screen – the mysterious and deadly spider woman that graced so many noir classics – but this enigmatic figure has endured through the decades, transforming in response to changing social climates and masculine anxieties. David Crewe traces her fascinating journey, and finds that her relevance to cinema remains as complex and powerful as ever.

Additional keywords: senior secondary, Screens in the Classroom, Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder, The Killers, Robert Siodmak, Barbara Stanwyck, The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, Hays Code, classical Hollywood cinema, Douglas Keesey, sex, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Tay Garnett, Lana Turner, Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock, Raw Deal, Anthony Mann, Out of the Past, Jacques Tourneur, The Woman in the Window, Fritz Lang, Joan Bennett, Ava Gardner, Mildred Pierce, Michael Curtiz, Ann Blyth, Joan Crawford, Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich, The Big Sleep, Howard Hawks, Gilda, Charles Vidor, Rita Hayworth, Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson, Janey Place, feminism, feminist film theory, Julie Grossman, Touch of Evil, Orson Welles, Klute, Alan J Pakula, Chinatown, Roman Polanski, Night Moves, Arthur Penn, Jane Fonda, Christine Gledhill, Faye Dunaway, Bob Rafelson, Jessica Lange, Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan, Kathleen Turner, Blood Simple, The Coen brothers, Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, Against All Odds, Taylor Hackford, Angel Heart, Alan Parker, Lisa Bonet, erotic thriller, Fatal Attraction, Adrian Lyne, Cruel Intentions, Roger Kumble, Basic Instinct, Paul Verhoeven, Wild Things, John McNaughton, Sliver, Phillip Noyce, Disclosure, Barry Levinson, Glenn Close, Laura, Otto Preminger, Bound, The Wachowskis, Jennifer Tilly, Dressed to Kill, Brian De Palma, The Crying Game, Neil Jordan, The Last Seduction, John Dahl, Slavoj Zizek, Lost Highway, David Lynch, Linda Fiorentino, Patricia Arquette, neo-noir, postmodern, The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman, Curtis Hanson, L.A. Confidential, Brick, Rian Johnson, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shane Black, Eva Green, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Mullholland Drive, Femme Fatale, Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, Gone Girl, David Fincher, Rosamund Pike, Pam Cook, Molly Haskell, Helen Hanson, 1940s cinema, 1950s cinema, 1960s cinema, 1970s cinema, 1980s cinema, Hollywood, 1990s cinema, film history