Welcome

From "Double Indemnity" (Billy Wilder, 1944)

Welcome to the seminar, everyone! The four films we will watch together are all in a certain sense neo-film noir movies that are preoccupied with the figure of the femme fatale (which in French means 'fatal woman'). But so that we have some context for them, we need to get a basic grip on what film noir (French for 'black film') and the classic femme fatale character that is so central to it are. In order to get this context, you should do two things:

(1) First, read the following two short essays. You can click the links below or visit YSCEC site for PDFs:

"Towards a Definition of Film Noir" by Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton

This is from near the beginning of the very first book on film noir - Borde and Chaumeton's Panorama du Film Noir Américain (1955). It was French film critics in the mid-40s that began grouping together certain American films using the term film noir, and this essay is a classic statement of why they thought these films belonged together and represented a high water mark in American cinema.

"Women in Film Noir" by Janey Place

This is from one of the most important books in the history of American film criticism: Women in Film Noir (1978), edited by E. Ann Kaplan. This book set the agenda for feminist film criticism in the 1970s, and transformed the study of film noir in particular. It's a classic examination of the character type of the femme fatale.

I'll have more to say about these essays in the Blog Response posts I'll put up after the first class meeting.

(2) After you read these essays, watch Billy Wilder's 1948 film, "Double Indemnity". This is perhaps the purest use of the femme fatale character type in classic film noir.

I've put the DVD on reserve in the UML Multimedia Center (on the 2nd floor). Alternatively, you can watch it for free at the following link:

http://putlocker.is/watch-double-indemnity-online-free-putlocker.html

If you have trouble with this link, try Googling "Watch Double Indemnity online" and following the links: it's available online on many websites. Please do yourself a favor and don't watch this movie on your phone: to do so would be like covering a gourmet meal at a Michelin star restaurant with ketchup.

When you watch the movie, try to identify the hallmarks of film noir described by Borde and Chaumeton, as well as the remarks about the femme fatale by Place.