Women and German expressionism in film noir

Women in film noir 

There are usually two types of women in film noir; the femme fatale and the traditional housewife.


The 'femme fatale' in film noir uses her sexual appearance and bright nature to manipulate men in order to gain power or money. Femme fatals often reject the conventional roles of a woman, in the 1940s, that society ahs placed upon them .The traditional housewife/mother and often in the end her rejection leads to her own death and the death of the men she comes into contact with. Her rejection of societal norms further reiterates the support for the existing social norm and order for the male dominance.
This shot shows this over sexualisation of women in film noir as well as perfectly portraying the power the femme fatale holds over the protagonists in the film. Smoking was also seen to be highly glamourised and femme fatales would often smoke as it was seen as something only those with status or power could afford to do.Femme fatales will often wear dark clothes, such as black dresses, and heavy makeup to present their attractiveness but also to portray their darker side.

The traditional housewife completely contrasts the femme fatale, and is seen as naive and innocent. 

Often the traditional housewife's role in film noir is to romanticise the idea of the stay-at-home woman, and to create a character to which the audience can feel for. They were portrayed as pure, often placed in light coloured clothes with little makeup  and light fair hair. The lighting used in the scenes that show the traditional housewife are usually backlights, or hair lights, to present the innocence and delicate nature of them, in comparison to the dimly lit hard lights used for the femme fatale to create shadows and highlight feminine features such as the cheekbones or eyes.

For our thriller opening we may use the conventional gender roles presented in the housewife role- the antagonist being a man and victim a woman. This not only incooperates the film noir genre but also is a common feature in most thriller films, making it clear which character is which.

German Expressionism

German expressionism was a movement to describe manipulation in

art, architecture and film. Many feel there is a link between the architecture at the time(1920s)and cinema, the artwork and scenes in expressionist films often feature sharp angles, great heights and distorted geometric shapes in buildings, by reflecting these features in film, directors could manipulate scenes to add feeling or a characters thoughts to the mis-en-scene.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. (IMDB)
It is one of the most influential films of the German Expressionist movement.   

The sharp lines and geometric patterns closely resemble the architecture at the time and present a sense of distortion and a twisted atmosphere, an important feature to film noir in helping to immerse the audience in the plot.

This theme continued in theater and painting and rejected realism, giving the creator the power to present inner thoughts through the scenes and allowing for a darker more in-depth film. Some classic examples of films that clearly show German expressionism are 'Nosferatu 1922', 'Faust 1926' and  'The Last Laugh 1924'.

The confusing nature of German Expressionism is an interesting feature I would like to include in our thriller opening, possibly through broken glass place on the floor, although this may prove difficult due to the geometric angles used.