Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir Ready for Her Close-Up [Hardcover]

In the context of nineteenth-century Victorinoir and close readings of original-cycle film noir, Julie Grossman argues that the presence of the "femme fatale" figure, as she is understood in film criticism and popular culture, is drastically over-emphasized and has helped to sustain cultural obsessions with "bad" women.Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction: 'No One Mourns the Wicked' PART I: FILM NOIR'S 'FEMME FATALES': MOVING BEYOND GENDER FANTASIES 'Well, aren't we Ambitious': Desire, Domesticity, and the 'Femme Fatale' Psychological Disorders and 'Wiretapping the Unconscious': Film Noir Listens to Women PART II: LOOKING BACK - VICTORINOIR: MODERN WOMEN AND THE FATAL(E) PROGENY OF VICTORIAN REPRESENTATIONS Looking Forward - Deconstructing the 'Femme Fatale' Notes Bibliography Index

2010 Outstanding Academic Title, CHOICE

'This is a compelling, informed, well-researched, and deeply original book.'

- G. A. Foster, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Choice

'Rethinking the Femme Fatale poses important questions for feminist work on noir, underlining how the style also remains a contested and rewarding critical terrain.'

- Yvonne Tasker, Journal of Gender Studies

JULIE GROSSMAN is Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English, Communication and Film Studies at Le Moyne College, New York, USA. She is co-editor of A Due Voci: The Photography of Rita Hammond and has published articles on film noir, Francis Ford Coppola, Todd Haynes, Oscar Wilde and Karen Finley, and Thomas Hardy and Henry James.