Noir & Sexuality (Discussion)
From Screenpedia
Readings
Janey Place
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T440/DoubleIndemnity/thumbnails/Double10_jpg.jpg http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T440/DoubleIndemnity/thumbnails/Double20_jpg.jpg
- Group 3: Place focuses on two aspects of noir narrative structure: the spider woman and the nurturing woman. Discuss the characteristics of each of these character types, drawing examples from the films we've seen.
- Group 4: How is Place using the terms "myth" and "mythology"?
- And what is the "ideological operation of the myth[s]" of film noir? Discuss, with reference to Out of the Past, The Grifters, and Double Indemnity.
- Grad Group: How is the "duplicitous nature" of women expressed in noir, according to Place? Does this play out in the films we've seen?
All Groups:
- Place contends, "The style of these films thus overwhelms their conventional narrative content." Explain, with examples from the films noir we've seen.
- What does Place feel is the "central obsession of film noir"? Do you agree with her?
- Place uses a term rooted in Freudian psychology: narcissism. What does this term mean and how is is important to understanding women in noir?
Richard Dyer
- Group 1: How does Dyer feel film noir can be defined beyond Schrader’s "mood"? What does he mean by the term, "iconography"? Hint: he uses it more broadly than Kitses.
- What, then, are gay iconographic features? He mentions The Maltese Falcon in particular. Have we seen these features in other films shown in class?
- What does Dyer feel is significant about the "luxury milieu" of noir? Explain his comment that "gay men and the femmes fatales share the same decor iconographically."
- Group 2: How does noir imply "male uncertainly about sexuality"? How does this compare with the representation of the male group in Hawks's films?
All Groups:
- What does Dyer mean when he writes, "Gays are thus defined by everything but the very thing that makes us different"?
- Dyer writes that gays can serve the narrative function of the villain, but, besides that, what other function do they often serve within the narrative structure?
Bibliography
- Janey Place, "Women in Film Noir," Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: BFI, 1998), 47-68.
- Richard Dyer, "Homosexuality and Film Noir," The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation (London & New York: Routledge, 1993), 52-72. Originally published in Jump Cut 16 (1977).[1]