A Femme Fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman who charms her lover, which often leads them into dangerous and compromising situations. Her ability to hypnotize her victim with her beauty and flirtation, means that she is sometimes described as a witch or demon.
IMDB description:
“an irresistibly attractive woman, especially one who leads men into danger or disaster”.
IMDB examples of films containing a Femme Fatale character;
- black widow
- blue velvet
There are two types of Femme Fatales:
1 - a dutiful, reliable loving women
2 - mysterious, double crossing, manipulative women
Sometimes the male has to choose which path he will take, or have the fateful choice made for him.
An example of a Femme Fatale is Rita Hayworth in Gilda - Put the blame on men:
Another good example would be the character Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman) in pulp fiction;
The blood red nails and dark black hair are great examples of her danger and lust.
Film Noir is a Cinematic term, it is not a genre but more of a mood, style or point of veiw. IMDB's examples of film noirs are; The Third Man, The Killing, Gilda and Sunset Boulevard. They are a cycle of mainly American films of the 1940s and 50s, usually set in a criminal environment or exploring the consequences of a criminal act.
The moods of a classic noir thrillers are bleak, melancholy, evil, depressing and desperate.
Film noir films are mainly shot in gloomy, dark, black and whites. They emphasis the dark and inhumane side of human nature, and the unhealthy and brutal sides of a human experience. There is a constant atmosphere of anxiety, suspicion and the idea that anything can go wrong.
* Because the driver of the car changes (from Robbie to Jackson), the audience must know that Robbie is no longer driving the car, the best way to do this is through the clothes he is wearing, we suggested that Robbie wore bright colors, as this will make the audience more aware of the fact that the driver has changed. The color could emphasis that he is an innocent man, and he is no danger to the girl. The group thought that the use of a tie dye top may be a good idea, because it is casual, and fits the idea for this character. He must be wearing casual clothing that a young adult would normally wear to a party.
*He must not wear a cap or hat of any sort, because the audience must see his face clearly, so they can immediately tell that the driver has changed.
Zoe - [CHARACTER NAME UNKNOWN]
*As a group we decided that I should play the young women,
* As she is going to a party, she will be dressed up, which is perfect to indicate to the audience that she is a femme fatale; Her face will be heavily made up, with bright red lips, red nails and red shoes, this will then indicate that she is deadly; when people think of the color red, they think of blood, death, fire, lust and danger.
A good inter textual reference for this would be in the book 'Of Mice and Men', the description of the "Curley's Wife" is this:
'She had full, rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters.She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.'
This fits perfectly with our Femme Fatale character, at the end of 'Of Mice and Men' Curley's wife is murdered, which is exactly what the audience could assume happens to the girl in our thriller opening. She is a manipulative women and she attracts danger.
Jackson - [MR X]
*To show the enormous difference between Robbie and Jackson's characters, Jackson will be wearing a black/brown suit with a large overcoat, this will emphasis that he is a shady perculier man. To inter textually link this, a good example of what our aim for Jackson to look like is through the character of Holly Martins in 'The Third Man'.
We also are going to try and shoot the whole opening with the audience never actually seeing Jackson's face, we thought the best way to do this was for him to wear a hat, that way when shooting we will always make sure that there will be a shadow over his facial features. This will be very effective for the audience as they will be wandering what it is he actually looks like, also it will entice them to watch the rest of the thriller as they may ask the question 'Do you ever see the creepy mans face?'. A good example of never seeing the villains face at the opening of a thriller is in Pulp Fiction; Marsullus Wallace is a true villain for the first half of the film you never see his face the only image you have of him, is the back of his head and with it, the signature plaster. When watching the film I constantly asked the question "What does he look like?", as a result doing the same sort of thing in our thriller opening will be very effective.
