THE GRINDHOUSE GIRLS

  
      I have some exciting news - I'm currently writing my first book!  The introduction is officially written, I'm currently researching, watching a ton of films, contacting exploitation actresses, etc.  I'm half way through my first chapter.  The book is called GRINDHOUSE GIRLS: Cinema's Hardest Working Women© .  I'm very excited about this!  My goal is to profile, celebrate and tell the story of – what I believe, are some of – cinema’s hardest working women.   I don’t think these women get enough credit in the film industry – and I believe they are the backbone of the films.  The women are what drew crowds into the theatres.  Without these women, there were no films.   Books on actresses like Audrey Hepburn are aplenty - I’m more interested in the women who took major risks to get ahead in their career.  Who stripped naked, were covered in blood, they took a chance on director’s who didn’t have much money or means to make their films.  My goal is to create a space wherein these women are celebrated and profiled together, in one source.

So, that being said, most of what will be posted on my blog from now until the book is done is articles I write for Fangoria after they've been web-published.   All of my free writing-time is dedicated to the book.

Another exciting bit of news is that my FIRST magazine article will appear in issue #299 of FANGORIA, which should be out later this week (December).  Here is a look at the fabulous new cover - 

Please be sure to pick it up asap!  My article is on Grindhouse Releasing, featuring an interview with founder/owner Sage Stallone! 


I will leave you with a music video that I love - and it's dedicated to a new friend of mine who calls me while at the gym so I can distract him from doing weight-sets.  He also really enjoys emo-ish songs, so this one is fitting. ;)
 

xox
Lianne Spiderbaby 
twitter: @liannemac 

LISA FREEMONT, LAURA MULVEY, REAR WINDOW & THE GAZE

    In the classical Hollywood movie, women have been displayed as erotic objects for both the male characters within the movie and the male spectators in the audience.  At the same time, an active male versus a passive female dichotomy controls the narrative sequence.  In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Jeffries, the male protagonist has a compulsive need to pry into the lives of others.  While watching this film, both male and female spectators are forced to identify with Jeffries’ male gaze, which objectifies several women.  This article will use Laura Mulvey’s interpretation of the traditional Hollywood narrative and the male gaze in her article “Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema” to examine how male spectators can align themselves with Jeffries while the female spectator cannot.  It will apply Mulvey’s ideas on scopophilia, in particular narcissism, voyeurism and fetishistic looking in order to analyze this key difference.  Although male spectators relish Jeffries’ gaze and his sexualization of women, female spectators feel inadequate, saddened and distressed.




    To further engage in how spectators feel when they watch films through the male gaze, it is important to understand fully what Laura Mulvey believes the male gaze to be in Hollywood classical cinema.  The objective in her essay, “Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema” is clear: she wishes to place questions of sexual difference at the center of the debate surrounding the application of psychoanalysis to film studies.  Mulvey is concerned with exploring the representation of woman as image in film in company with masculinization of the spectator position.  Her objective here is also quite argumentative, as noted by herself in her introduction “Psychoanalytic theory is... appropriated here as a political weapon, demonstrating the way in which the unconscious society has structured film form”.  According to Mulvey, mainstream Hollywood film has “coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order”.  Mulvey implies that this coding is the establishment of the “male gaze”. 

The male gaze refers to the act of looking upon women as objects, adopting the role of spectator, and a way of thinking about and acting within society as well.  Although Mulvey’s article covers the male gaze in depth, the female gaze in a position of spectatorship is never covered, which is a limitation in Mulvey’s writing. This analysis will aim to uncover how a female spectator may watch a film such as Rear Window through the male gaze.

    Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window demonstrates the power of the male gaze: spectators watch the women in the film through the eyes of various male actors, in this case L.B. Jeffries, a photographer stuck in his apartment due to a broken leg.  The women are objectified through the operation of his gaze from the opening shots that show Jeffries looking unabashedly at Miss Torso, the female dancer as she displays her body without realizing that she is being watched.  When Jeffries’ fiancé Lisa Freemont is introduced to the audience for the first time, she puts on a show to Jeffries and the audience similar to if she was on a stage.  Lisa walks through the apartment towards Jeffries and a point-of-view shot from Jeffries’ perspective is shown, and thus a close-up of Lisa with a filter over the camera to make her look even more beautiful.  She wakes him up with a kiss that is filmed in a slower speed than the rest of the film, and the moment almost seems magical (to the male viewer).  Lisa twirls around the room, turning on several lights one at a time and reciting part of her name with every light. Male spectators are licensed to look at her through the male gaze, along with the diegetic male protagonist, Jeffries.

       In Rear Window, because the female spectator is also forced to identify with the gaze of the male protagonist, she feels inadequate and unhappy with herself as opposed to the male spectatorial look which enables feelings of contentment and satisfaction. Lisa Freemont is the epitome of the perfect women: she surprises her fiancé and wakes him with a kiss, she wears beautiful and expensive clothing, she eats lobster dinners and remains very thin, and she has high social status.  However Jeffries still treats Lisa poorly, does not give her any attention and belittles her perfect lifestyle, making her feel inadequate.  When the female spectator watches Lisa Freemont in a film that is constructed towards the male gaze, she cannot help but look at Lisa the same way the male spectator does. Accordingly, she compares herself to Lisa and questions the way Jeffries treats her, leaving the female spectator feeling as inadequate as Lisa feels.  The female viewer recognizes how beautiful and perfect Lisa is and while the male spectator feels threatened by this, the female spectator feels like she is not quite beautiful or perfect enough herself.  She feels as though she cannot measure up like Lisa has, and even if she could there are no rewards for being perfect because Jeffries does not pay attention to her anyway.  Thus, as a female watches Rear Window through the male gaze, she feels inadequate and unhappy with herself as the message of how to behave around men in society is being connoted to her.

          Central in Mulvey’s article is the concept of schopophilia, or pleasure in looking, which the cinema offers.  Spectators find pleasure in seeing other people as objects, and a sense of power is obtained from being able to do this.  Mulvey contends that the scopophilic nature is evident in the way films are watched.  Through narrative structure and conditions of screening, cinema provides a perfect climate for looking at another person as an object of sexual stimulation.  In the darkness of the cinema auditorium it is notable that one may look without being seen either by those on screen or by other members of the audience.  In its most extreme form, the pleasure of looking becomes a perversion “producing obsessive voyeurs and Peeping Toms whose only sexual satisfaction can come from watching, in an active controlling sense, an objectified other”.

Mulvey talks about fetishistic scopophilia by which women are constructed as “to-be-looked-at-ness”.  The women in Rear Window, whether it is the heroine Lisa in her fancy dresses, or Miss Torso the beautiful dancer, are all part of this construct.  Jeffries looks at the dancer in a moment of voyeurism, where the woman is constituted as an object of his gaze and the audiences, as they watch her through the eyes of the men in the film.  Jeffries’ nurse, Stella and his fiancé Lisa feel very uncomfortable and accuse him of being an immoral voyeur.  Moreover, when he expresses Thorwald has killed his wife, they do not believe him. The other characters in the movie indeed present Jeffries as a typical voyeur, one who gets much pleasure from scopophilia.




      Since Mulvey’s definition of scopophilia also has sexual connotation, it is important to recognize that Jeffries views mostly women.  There are several women in Jeffries’ life: the slightly overweight woman who lays out in the sun in a white bathing suit, Thorwald’s nagging wife, Miss Torso, Stella, and Lisa.  However, the only women Jeffries looks at sexually are the ones who are beautiful in terms of society’s standards.  Jeffries finds himself compelled with Miss Torso because she is tall, thin, blonde, and appears happy all the time, dancing around in her apartment on display.  However, Stella is the woman who takes care of Jeffries, she takes his temperature, she makes him sandwiches and she is highly intelligent.  The gaze Jeffries directs towards her is not a sexual one and this could be due to the fact that she is happily married but it could be argued it is because she does not look like Miss Torso does.  However, Lisa Freemont distorts this argument because she herself is beautiful like Miss Torso but it is not until she enters the perspective of his window that she becomes sexually desirable to him.  This occurs because when Jeffries sees her through his window, she becomes an object; a physical, beautiful body instead of his fiancee.  Looking through the male gaze and considering what Laura Mulvey says about scopophilia, Rear Window shapes the female spectator’s ideas of what is beautiful.  The ideology that is presented in the film signifies to the female viewer what a beautiful women is, which in this case is lengthy blonde hair and a perfect thin body.  The female spectator
watches women like Ms. Lonely Hearts and Stella and realizes that they are not as beautiful as Miss Torso or Lisa. Thus, it is connoted that women will never acquire enough male attention or be worthy of the male gender.

 

     Laura Mulvey states that the cinema goes one step further and develops scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect. Narcissistic scopophilia is looking at other people and seeing them as surrogates.   Mulvey states that this is essentially passive and developed through identification with the object/image on the screen. The cinema plays a function for the audience similar to the joyous encounter of an infant with their image in a mirror.  This encounter is fundamental to the formation of identity in Lacan’s theories, which are referred to by Mulvey in “Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema”.  The encounter of the child with the mirror involves a process of recognition and misrecognition of ourselves.  Analogous to this is the identification of the ego with the objects or subjects on the screen. Thus, narcissistic identification demands identification with the object on the screen through the spectator’s fascination with the recognition of his/her likeness.  The spectator identifies with the male protagonist and projects his look to this protagonist that he takes to be his life or his screen surrogate.

      Following Mulvey’s idea of cinematic narcissism, Jeffries’ apartment resembles the setting of a movie theater, where the spectators along with him watch the other apartments through his window.  The film begins with a letter to Jeffries congratulating him on his cast coming off in a week.   This constant double-framing with the camera and Jeffries’ window pane makes it easier for the spectator to recognize and identify with Jeffries because they are placed in a position very similar to that of the main male protagonist.  Jeffries has a broken leg that the audience knows will remain for another week, he is stuck, unable to move.  This is similar to the position of the audience watching the film in complete darkness at the theater.  If they get up and walk away, the gaze and their identification with the male protagonist will disappear.  Thus, the spectator is stuck in a similar way that Jeffries himself is, making it easier to identify with him.  Also, through the use of various film techniques, such as shot-reverse-shot, the viewer is led to align themselves with the point of view of the male protagonist.
When watching Rear Window, the viewer also experiences several point-of-view shots from the position of Jeffries, which helps them to align themselves with his character.  Mulvey states that the man controls the fantasy of the film, so as the male spectator identifies with Jeffries, he too projects his look onto the women of the film so that “the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence”.

       Even though the female spectator views Rear Window through the male gaze, she is not able to recognize and identify with Jeffries as the male spectator is able to do.  The curiosity and the wish to look and feel like the characters in the film only depresses the female spectator.  The female spectator becomes depressed at the moment of recognition and identification in the film because she realizes her differences from the characters in the film, rather than her likeness with them.  The dominant ideology in the film has already made it clear to the female spectator that she is not good enough the way she is, nor will she ever reach a state of happiness with herself or be an equal to the male gender.  The female viewer does not experience narcissism and the constitution of the ego that comes from identification with the characters on the screen because she cannot identify with any of the male or female characters in the film.  The female spectator is too different physically from Miss Torso and Lisa Freemont and too different sexually from Jeffries, so she is left alone in the theater forced to watch the film through the male gaze and characters she can not identify with.



        Laura Mulvey distinguishes between two modes of looking for the film spectator: voyeuristic and fetishistic, which she presents in Freudian terms as a response to male castration anxiety.  Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze and Mulvey argues that this has associations with sadism: “pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt - asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness”.  Fetishistic looking, in contrast, involves the “substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous”.  She suggests that fetishistic looking leads to overvaluation of the female image and to the cult of the female movie star.  Ultimately for Mulvey, the “meaning of woman in the cinema is sexual difference”, and her lack of a penis invariably connotes the threat of male castration.  The complete disavowal of castration through the substitution of a phallic fetish object is what eases the tension for the male spectator when he watches women in film.  The male spectator looks away from the genitals (where the female lacks a penis), and begins to fixate upon a fetishistic monument so they will not be subjected to the threat of castration. 

       Fetishism and voyeurism are set to demystify and investigate Lisa as a way to channel male fear in Rear Window.  In the beginning, Jeffries does not really show any interest in Lisa and he is afraid to commit to her through marriage.  Lisa’s display of sexuality, which is a form of exhibitionism accented by her insistence on clothes and jewelry, triggers this sense of fear as a symbol of Jeffries’ castration anxiety.  The female threat has to be eliminated (hence Thorwald’s murdering of his wife) or neutralized (by marriage to Lisa). Subsequently, Jeffries’ anxiety for Lisa’s sexuality can only diminish when she becomes a part of the world he looks at from his window, when she can be gazed at and controlled like the other objects in his gaze.  Jeffries’ submissive gaze at Lisa canalizes and neutralizes his fear.  Lisa only becomes desirable to him sexually when she enters the perspective of his window.

       As the female spectator watches Rear Window through the male gaze and the perspective of Jeffries, she beings to feel uncomfortable as Jeffries watches Lisa in Thorwald’s apartment,
gradually becoming more and more sexually attracted to her.  The parading-around that Lisa Freemont does in the film connotes to the female spectator that she herself need be on display as a sexual object for the male gender as well, making her feel uneasy and uncomfortable.  The way Miss Torso dances around her apartment in front of the window for everyone to see makes the female spectator feel insecure as well.  Miss Torso is always seen dancing around in her bra and a short pair of shorts, again reinforcing the ideology that women should parade and display themselves sexually for men and enjoy doing it.  When Lisa enters Thorwald’s apartment which diminishes Jeffries’ castration anxiety, the female spectator feels threatened: if she does not put herself on display for men, then she will end up in a dangerous situation like Lisa, and in the end she will feel sexualized anyway. 

 

        In conclusion, when the female spectator watches Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, she is forced to watch it through the male gaze due to the way the film is presented and shot. Examining issues such as scopophilia, narcissism, voyeurism and fetishism one can analyze how while watching how these issues make the female spectator feel.  Following Mulvey's theory with Rear Window, the female spectator is made to feel inadequate and unhappy with herself and her place in society.  From the perspective of the male gaze of Jeffries, Lisa Freemont makes the female spectator feel not quite beautiful enough, like she does not receive a certain amount of male attention because she is not gorgeous like Lisa. Due to the fact that females are sexualized by the male gender everyday in their real life like the female characters in the film, it makes her feel uncomfortable and depressed.  In conclusion, classical Hollywood cinema and the male gaze make women feel as though there is no place for them in the world except for the purposes of men.  To solve this issue, the male gaze must be broken and the films need to address the viewer so they are aware that they are watching a film.  For example, if the characters in the film look right into the camera (direct address), the spectator will not be able to watch the film as a voyeur.  The resolution to this problem is the counter-cinema, an alternative cinema as Laura Mulvey herself suggests.

xox

Lianne Spiderbaby

Written in 2006.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS: SCREAM QUEEN (BOOK REVIEW)

            Author David Grove (Making Friday the 13^th, Fantastic 4: The Making Of the Movie) is head-over-oxfords in love with Jamie Lee Curtis, and his new biography Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen is littered with evidence of this crush.  Of course, many of us who grew up watching Curtis in slasher classics like Halloween, Terror Train, and Prom Night feel the same way. 

Since we’re speaking intimately here, what I love most about Grove’s new biography is his extreme and detailed devotion to Curtis, and more broadly to the horror genre.  Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen reads like a series of love letters, praising every inch of Curtis’ being from her unconventional beauty, to her initial insecurities as a working actress.  The book is a specific discussion of Curtis’ work as the scream queen, and it also serves as a behind-the-scenes look at films such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night, and Halloween II. 

Jamie Lee Curtis is special, and this theme runs cohesively throughout Grove’s biography.  She wasn’t the first scream queen (lovely ladies have been running away from monsters on-screen since the early 1900s), but she is the most successful, and Grove attributes this to her work ethic, how she conducted herself on set(s), her indescribable tomboyish beauty, her impact on camera, and her vulnerability.  Grove’s writing style is easy to follow, but his approach to his subject is perhaps too predictable. The book only scrapes the surface of Curtis’ off-screen life; Grove discusses Curtis’ relationship with director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill in great detail, but Curtis’ private life, and the essential aspects of her personhood are kept to a minimum.  For example, Grove only touches upon Curtis’ drug problem, and her bizarre relationship with her father, Tony Curtis.  But, this biography is not only about Curtis - it’s also for Curtis, and we all know that love is blind.

       Although Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen is blatantly biased, Grove does a great job of stressing the fact that she struggled in her career to find roles outside of the horror genre.  He points out that ironically, Curtis’ more mainstream roles required nudity, while her horror films never made such demands.  Grove also argues that Curtis had a flourishing and prolific career after Halloween II, while those of us without Grove’s love-goggles on would argue that Curtis was at the height of her career in Carpenter’s films, and fell into a slump trying to escape her scream queen status.  In Love Letters, Curtis performed sex scenes that left little to the imagination, and she portrayed Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten in the made-for-television flick, Death Of A Centerfold, only one year after Stratten was brutally murdered.  Smells like sweet & sleazy exploitation cinema to me. 

Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen is definitely worth a read, whether you’re a diehard Curtis devotee, or you’re interested in reading about how Halloween came together. The biography is complete with insight from Carpenter, and Grove has included enough detail and perspective to make you feel as though you were part of the action.  Horror fans will feel right at home - Grove has no qualms about trash-talking remakes, Rob Zombie’s Halloween included.  Perhaps Groves’ biography could also serve as a manual for the future of scream queens; Jamie Lee Curtis’ characters were something special – they fought back, they were refined, everyone could identify with her girl-next-door appearance, and she demanded to be taken seriously.  It’s easy to understand why Grove is lovesick over Curtis, and after reading Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen you will be, too.

xox

Lianne Spiderbaby

Follow me on Twitter @liannemac

Read me on FANGORIA

 

THE LOVELY LYNN LOWRY & ‘SCORE’- Metzger’s Porno Chic & Chic-Queen

 

By: Lianne Spiderbaby

 

                  November is here, and so is the release of sexploitation classic, Radley Metzger’s SCORE, starring the lovely Lynn Lowry.  Cult Epics released DVD and Blu-Ray on October 26^th.  SCORE is one of the most pivotal, and downright sexy films of the early 70s exploitation period.

                  The film takes place in a small European town, where married couple Jack (Gerald Grant) and Elvira (Claire Wilbur) set out to seduce the young, beautiful and naive couple Betsy (Lynn Lowry) and her husband, Eddie (Calvin Culver).  Sex drips out of Jack and Elvira’s pores; they have a lot of experience, and they use role-playing, drugs, alcohol, and other sexually tantalizing strategies to get Betsy and Eddie into bed. 

By the end of the weekend getaway, Elvira enjoys a lesbian romp with Betsy, and Jack and Eddie’s desires are fulfilled in a full-blown gay action sequence.  Despite the super-sexed plot, Metzger keeps it classy; the editing, setting, and cinematography are well crafted, eye-catching, and artistic.

                  The most endearing and attractive aspect of SCORE is actress Lynn Lowry.  In the film, Lowry’s dazzling doe eyed face, and waif-like figure define innocence.  She is the perfect prey for seductress Elvira.  Even after Betsy is seduced, there are still traces of innocence and curiosity within her new found sexual nature. Lowry has no inhibitions in front of the camera.  She has also worked with some of the most prominent directors of our time: George A. Romero, David Cronenberg, and Paul Schrader.  I caught up with Lowry recently, to ask her a few questions about working on SCORE, and the longevity of her brilliant career as an actress.

 

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: What attracted you to SCORE? What was it like being on the set?

LOWRY: I wanted an opportunity to work with Radley Metzger.  I had seen THE LICKERISH QUARTEST and THERESE AND ISABELLE and I just felt that he did beautiful work, and all of his films had an incredible, erotic feel to them.  I thought that he would be amazing to work with.  The set was great, other than the fact that I had to work with Clair Wilbur (Elvira), who was extremely difficult.  She really disliked me from the minute that we flew out to Yugoslavia to start filming.  She thought that Radley favored me, and I was getting all of the close-ups.  It made shooting very difficult, because I have all of these love scenes with her; we were both really acting there, because we both didn’t like eachother very much!

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: Did you ever have mixed feelings about the content in SCORE? 

LOWRY: I had done a film with Lloyd Kaufman for Troma films called SUGAR COOKIES, which dealt with a lot of sex and nudity.  I was naked SUGAR COOKIES quite a bit, so when I got to do SCORE, I was much more comfortable. I thought the script was really funny, and I was told at the time that it was going to be an R-rated film.  There wasn’t going to be any explicit sex in it.  Claire and I didn’t do anything X-rated.  However, it turned out that the two lovely men in the film (Grant and Culver) got really excited during their scene, which I was not around to see, and they performed hardcore sex.  When the film came out, I was shocked.  I was doing an NBC soap opera (HOW TO SURVIVE A MARRIAGE) at the time, and SCORE came out in a theatre on 42^nd street in New York City, and I was terrified that the producers of my new show would see it, and I would be fired.  After that, Radley released the soft-core version, so that whole issue was put to bed until very recently, with the release of the uncut DVD/Blu-Ray.  I’m okay with the hardcore version coming out today, and I gotta’ say, the gay sex scene is really hot!

 

LIANNE SPIDERABY: Can you recall any funny, or awkward moments on the set of SCORE that could be used for a blooper reel today?

LOWRY:  [laughs] There was a scene where Claire was supposed to give my character amyl nitrite.  Radley actually had some, so he asked me if I’d like to try it, and he would film it.  I took a whiff of this amyl nitrite and of course, it made me feel really wonderful.  I got really involved with Claire, joking around, and I completely messed up her hair!  She had spent three hours doing her hair and makeup, and she was so pissed at me for messing up her look.  I don’t think she spoke to me after that for about a week!

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: Your first film, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD (1970) is straight-up exploitation: sex, drugs, violence, Satanists, the whole lot.  How did you come across this project?

LOWRY:  I always wanted to be an actress, I went to New York City to pursue that, and I saw the audition listed in a paper called The Back Stage.  So, I went to the audition, and I was the very last person to get there that day.  The director, David Durston (who sadly passed away this past year), was getting ready to leave, and literally he turned to me and said, “my god! You’re gorgeous, I have to have you in this movie”!  Durston had already cast all of the parts in the film, but he made a part for me as a mute hippie.  That film really changed my life because I really had an exciting adventure; I fell in love with the cameraman, and we had a wonderful time together, I was introduced to rock n’ roll music, and things I had never been around before. Everyone was wonderful to work with.

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: Exploitation features, horror films, genre films - it was a man’s world back then, and one could argue that it still is today.  What was it like working with predominantly all-male production crews and directors, especially on films like SCORE that were so sexual in nature?

LOWRY:  Once I had been nude in front of everyone, and the crew has been shooting several scenes for hours, nobody really paid attention anymore.  It was uncomfortable the first time I had to do it, but everyone always treated me like a lady, and with respect.  I’m a good actress, and I give 100%, so I’ve never really had a problem with working in any of the films with anyone.

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: SCORE is very tasteful in terms of how women and sexuality are depicted.  The film focuses on aspects of female pleasure, and perspective. When you were filming SCORE, did you feel that this was important when portraying your character, and important to Metzger?

LOWRY: Jerry Douglas (screenwriter) certainly intended for the film to be empowering for women, and we wanted to show that women could be as free and sexually adventurous as men.  When women have sex, they are often considered sluts, and I think that SCORE really turned that around, and showed that sex is great, and fun, and not a degrading act. 

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: I truly think that it took special, strong, and open-minded women to act in the exploitation films of the 1970s.  Actresses like yourself are truly extraordinary and important in the history and progression of American cinema.   If you could make a list of survival tips for female actresses working in exploitation pictures, what would be included?

LOWRY: The only advice that I would give an actress who was playing in a horror or exploitation film, or any movie for that matter, you have to really own your craft, you need to study, you need to treat it like it’s an art. 

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: Congratulations on your award for your role in BASEMENT JACK!  Tell us about that!

LOWRY: I was really concerned about doing that role (a wickedly evil mother who tortures her son by electrocuting him); I really didn’t have any experience to pull from.   The director, Michael Shelton, was phenomenal, and he trusted my instincts. I wanted character to be sick psychologically, rather than just nasty; I wanted to give her another dimension.  It was really freeing to play a character that was so malicious!   I won “Best Supporting Actress” for that film at the Terror Film Festival in Philadelphia.  I also just won another award for “Best Actress” at the Yellow Fever Film Festival in Ireland for GEORGE’S INTERVENTION as well!

 

 

Lynn Lowry in BASEMENT JACK

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: When you started acting, did you ever imagine that you would be so popular with horror and exploitation fans?  Reflecting back on your diverse body of work, is it what you would have expected?

LOWRY: Not at all.  I wanted to do Broadway.  I had my own theatre company in New York called The Production Company.  I never thought I would be a horror genre star, and I certainly never thought the movies that I did in the 70s would last as long as they have!  It’s a real treat for me that my early films have been re-released and become so popular. 

LIANNE SPIDERBABY: What are you currently working on?  What are your plans for the future?

LOWRY: I am working on a remake of I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, and I think we have a very interesting twist on it that will capture the 70s period.  I’m very excited about that!  I have another movie coming out called THE SUPER, directed by Brian Weaver and Evan Makrogiannis, which is going to have a very gritty, 70s feel as well.  I recently produced a film called SCHISM, which just finished, so it’s playing at festivals now.  I’m very busy, I’m very happy, and I love working!

Also watch for Lynn Lowry in upcoming projects: Dante Tomaselli’s TORTURE CHAMBER, Steven Corron’s PRY TO GOD, and she’ll play a vampire queen in a film by Hernan Hernando in the future as well.

Lynn Lowry would like to thank her fans - whom she loves, and appreciates very much!  Visit her at www.lynnlowry.com, and send her an e-mail; she would love to hear from readers, and she always answers her fan mail!

A Canadian Classic Comes Home: Goin’ Down The Road… Again

  

   

            There are several Canadian films that we northerners are quite proud of; Egoyan’s THE SWEET HEREAFTER, Cronenburg’s DEAD RINGERS, Arcand’s JESUS OF MONTREAL,MON ONCLE ANTOINE, and Donald Shebib’s GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD. Jutra’s

            GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD (1970) holds a special place in the hearts of Canadians who have seen it.  It received considerable critical acclaim for its realistic feel, and true to life, cinéma vérité-like performances and style.

            The film tells the story of Peter (Doug McGrath) and Joey (Paul Bradley) who move from the Maritimes (Nova Scotia) to the big city of Toronto in Ontario; full of promise, beautiful women, and job opportunities.  The men find jobs at minimum wage, which is still more than what they were making back home.  At first, success seems possible for the two men, and they spend their evenings cruising bars and records stores on Toronto’s most famous Yonge Street strip.  Both men start relationships, and Joey decides to get married, despite Pete's advice not to.  Expenses start to add up, and disaster strikes when both Joey and Peter lose their jobs.  Unable to find work, they attempt to rob a Loblaw’s Supermarket, and Joey ends up seriously injuring the store’s clerk.  Caught between a rock and a hard place, the two men take off in their 1960 Chevrolet and head for Vancouver, and the West coast.

            I had seen this film in university, but had forgotten all about it until a friend recommended it to me recently.  Discussing it over dinner with my family, I discovered that my super cool Mom had a really neat GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD experience while she was growing up.  Her father (my movie-star-like grandfather) wanted to see the film, so he went to the library and picked up the film – which was on a reel, and he rented a projector.  My grandfather, my mother, and her best friend (Leah Anne, whom I was named after) watched GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD in the living room, on a projector, in their own home.

     

My Momma around the same time she would have seen the film.  She was - is a mega-hottie. Stop staring.  :)

My grandfather, around the same time.

 New audiences will get to experience this Cancon classic with the release of its sequel, DOWN THE ROAD AGAIN, written and directed by Shebib himself.  In the new film, Joey dies, and he leaves a bequest to Pete to take his ashes back to Cape Breton, and to stop in Toronto to see Betty, who he left behind. 

Shebib on set:

Pete sets out with Joey's now-grown daughter, Betty-Jo (90210’s Kathleen Robertson). She's the child of Joey's former flame Betty, whom he abandoned when she was pregnant in the first film.   In an article from InMovies, Shebib states that the paternal relationship that develops between Pete and Betty-Jo is the core of the film, but the tale also delves into the backstory of Pete and Joey, the story of another woman Pete was involved with in Nova Scotia 40 years ago, and the real reason Pete left home in the first place.

"It wasn't just to get a better job, - That all is revealed.”

McGrath is reprising his role as Pete, while original cast members Jayne Eastwood, who played Betty, and Cayle Chernin, as Selina, also return.  However, missing from the cast is Paul Bradley, who died in 2003.

I think several generations of movie-fans and Canadians have something really special to look forward to…  the film is expected to hit theatres in 2011.

xox

Lianne Spiderbaby

Twitter: www.twitter.com/liannemac 

The Prince of Puke Introduces SALÒ or 120 DAYS OF SODOM

                  John Waters is more than just a filmmaker.  He’s an innovator, a subversive spit in the face, a wickedly talented screenwriter, novelist, and the self-proclaimed “Prince Of Puke”. He’s my hero. Since the 1960s, John Waters has written and directed some of the world’s most transgressive cult films.  His movies have featured repulsive bodies and dazzling drag queens, squalid sexual acts and shit eating.  Yes, in PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) the lovely Divine (born Harris Glenn Milstead) proves that she is the filthiest person alive, by following a poodle through the streets until it finally takes a sh*t.  Then in one fell swoop, free of edits, Divine scoops up the poop and slathers it all over her tongue, swallowing while going down in cinematic history.  The film also features a singing asshole (I didn't believe it until I saw it, either). 

                  Waters’ FEMALE TROUBLE (1974) was dedicated to the Manson Family and Charles ‘Tex’ Watson, and POLYESTER (1981) featured a gimmick known as ‘Odorama’ where spectators could experience the scents seen in the film via their scratch-n-sniff card.  Scents like rotten egg; nothing pleasant here, kids. In his 1981 novel, SHOCK VALUE, John states that bad taste is what entertainment is all about.  However, John has very specific opinions on bad taste; to fully comprehend bad taste, one must have good taste.  

 

“I’ve always tried to please and satisfy an audience that thinks they’ve seen everything. I try to force them to laugh at their own ability to still be shocked by something” (Waters in Shock Value). 

                  On October 23^rd, John Waters presented perhaps the most shocking film of all time at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox Theatre: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s SALÒ or THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM.  It’s safe to say that the audience was shocked by at least something in the film.

“SALO is right up my alley, I think it’s a very good film, a beautiful film, and yes – it is a shocker.  I saw this film when it first came out at the New York Film Festival and I remember being amazed at the stunned reaction by people in the audience.  The film is still far out there – it hasn’t mellowed in the can in the last twenty years. I’m a huge fan of Pasolini”, admires Waters during his introduction.

                 

                  SALÒ was Pasolini’s final film; 17-year old hustler, Giuseppe Pelosi, ran over Pasolini with his own car several times before the film was released.  However, there are conspiracy theories that an extortionist, and/or politicians and the secret service killed Pasolini.  Whatever really happened to him, we may never know, but SALÒ was screened here at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Theatre in Toronto because it is #47 on the “Essential 100 Films” list, and it also is part of the Criterion Collection, verifying that Pasolini’s SALÒ will never be forgotten.

                  SALÒ is based on a story called 120 DAYS OF SODOM by the Marquis de Sade, a French aristocrat and writer famous for his sexually charged lifestyle.  Pasolini’s adaptation is so graphic, violent, sadist, and sexual that it was banned upon it’s release, and remains banned in several countries today.  

 

 

                  Set in 1944 during the Fascist occupation in Italy, the story centers on four men who are drunk on power.  The Duke (Paolo Bonacelli) the Bishop (Giorgio Cataldi), the Magistrate (Umberto Paolo Quintavalle), and the President (Aldo Valletti) lead us through four segments, each worse than it’s predecessor: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit, and the Circle of Blood.

                  The powerful men flaunt their evil nature as something ingrained in the human spirit, as this desensitized group of sadists organize the kidnapping of young virgin men and women and imprison them in an isolated villa. They subject them to various forms of torture, humiliation and perversion. One boy is shot dead trying to escape, and one girl commits suicide. The victims are put on leashes and made to behave like dogs, an eyeball is gouged out, a girl is made to urinate on one of the men, and victims are made to feast on feces.  Yes, all of that.  Then, the victims are then raped, tortured further and eventually murdered.

                  Although the film depicts hell on earth, it is hard to ignore how visually beautiful it is: the cinematography is wonderfully crafted, highly composed, and stylistically balanced. The musical track is all at once uplifting, frightening, yet soothing. 

“The sound effects in this movie are absolutely beautiful: the bomber planes, and the music by Morricone… it’s all really beautiful and simple” gushed Waters to the audience.

The sets and costumes, especially the ball gowns worn by the aged whores who tell sexually explicit stories to arouse are magnificent; one dress is reminiscent of Grace Kelly’s in Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW:  stunning.

                 

                  There is a lot more going on in SALÒ than what initially meets the eye (the horrors, the sex, the asshole contest); it is a commentary on fascism, the powerful, and the rich.  Pasolini dives into the terrors of the upper class feasting on the less fortunate. When SALÒ touches on the relationship between the victims and the possessors, it creates a disgusting and unsettling example of people turning on one another.  If you want to break things down to a primal level, SALÒ is to sexual horror what Umberto Lenzi’s CANNIBAL FEROX is to violence; an epic of antipathy that revels in its own disgust to reveal the truth about power and humanity, and how we allow things to happen, even if we aren’t committing the crimes. Pasolini also claimed that parts of the film (the shit eating, for example) were also a commentary on the consumption of mass produced food, so if you’ve ever eaten preserved food, you’re just as bad.

                  Over 20 years later, SALÒ is still relevant.  One of the most powerful quotes in the film is, “When men are of equal power, they cannot be happy”, something that we all can relate to, living in a capitalist system everyday.

 

 

“Could this film be made today”? John asks himself during his introduction, “I don’t think so, because all of the kids that play the kidnapped teenagers were all between 14-18 years old, which is highly illegal in any country in the world”.

SALÒ screened to a completely sold-out audience, and not one person walked out of the theatre.  At the end of the film, the men of power in the film watch the murders of their victims from a window inside of the house, looking through binoculars. This surprised me at first, because SALÒ does not hold back at any moment in the film: we are privy to all.  During the Q&A session, I asked Waters why he thought Pasolini made this stylistic choice:

“I think that through the binoculars the violence at the end is more about voyeurism, and it’s more evil because you’ve ordered this, but you’re not there.  You get to watch it truly as evil voyeurism, masturbatory, pornography; rather than having to do it.  If you were the killer, this is one move that you’re setting up to watch, which is even more evil, and why Pasolini did that”.

                  While I loved meeting the lovely John Waters, and hearing his introduction to probably the most horrifying film I’ve ever seen (and as you might have guessed, I’ve watched a lot of fucked up shit as a horror fan) was a pleasure, I doubt I will be watching SALÒ again anytime soon.

Pick up John Waters’ latest book, ROLE MODELS for more delicious insight from the wonderful Prince of Puke.

John And Lianne Spiderbaby:

 xox

Lianne Spiderbaby

Add Lianne Spiderbaby to Twitter: @liannemac

 

 

Evil As Admirable : The Femme Fatale In The Eyes Of The Contemporary Female Spectator

 

The audience watches in awe at the first glimpse of her image: she wears a satin dress, she holds a cigarette in hand.  Everyone around her is treated with a look of disdain and distracted amusement.  She stands alone in the shadows.  Both spectators and the protagonist in the film cannot look away:  she is the femme fatale and she will play a major role in the film.  She will dominate the plot, the conflict, the crime, and several male minds and motivations in the film.  The femme fatale character in 1940s/1950s noir films uses her sexuality and cunning to manipulate men in order to gain power, money, and independence.  She often feels trapped by husbands or lovers, and she associates these relationship with boredom, unhappiness, and the absence of romance and sexual desire.  She transgresses social norms which usually lead to her own destruction and the destruction of the men who want and love her. 

 

At first, the portrayal of women in film noir might seem to support the existing social order, building up in image of a strong woman, only to punish her in the end.  However, film noir also portrays these women as confined to certain social roles, thus their reckless behaviour in search of independence is simply a response to the restrictions placed upon them in society.  As Janey Place points out, the femme fatale remains fiercely independent even when faced with her own destruction.  In spite of her death, she leaves behind the image of a strong, exciting, and sexual woman who defines the control of men (Place, 1998, 63).  

Over the course of history since the 1950s, the idea of how a women should live, act, and function in society has drastically changed.  Since the 1950s, there have been two major historical feminist movements, and feminist theorists have published a wealth of material on film and female representation. I would also argue that contemporary female movie spectators are now more inclined to critically examine the filmic material that is proposed to them on screen.  My aim in this analysis, then, is twofold: I intend to examine the femme fatale in film noir in terms of how female spectators in the present relate to such representations from the past.  I will then demonstrate and explain why these representations are pleasurous to the contemporary female spectator.  I will make use of historical data, feminist film theory, and I will refer to six noir films in terms of their narration and style: The Lady From Shanghai, Gilda, Gun Crazy, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Out Of the Past.  I will not be making use of any neo-noir films from the 1970s onward.  My interest in this research initially was based on feminist film theory that was produced in relation to popular Hollywood films of the studio era.  In particular, film noir has been central to the developments within feminist film criticism.  Thus, I will focus strictly on film noir from an earlier time period.

            For contemporary female spectators, the construction of the femme fatale in film noir can be read as positive and progressive, thus rendering her as a feminist symbol and icon.

 

“All Women Are Wonders, Because They Reduce All Men To The Obvious”

            In order to further discuss how female spectators are effected by film noir and the femme fatale, I will briefly give an explanation of each.  Film noir refers to a collection of Hollywood films that were made during the forties and fifties, although some films produced later, and even today, follow the style guidelines commonly recognized as film noir (Crowther, 9).  Film noir focusses on the breakdown of society through corruption and crime, while increased violence is depicted in a culture that appears to be unraveling and deteriorating. This loss of control and structure is visually depicted in the films through salient stylistic properties such as low-key lighting. The majority of scenes are shot at night and actors are often found standing in shadows.  Noir employs strong camera angles, the shots are tightly framed, and the denial of panoramic or cinemascope landscape shots add a feeling of claustrophobia. Noirs often take place in large urban settings, and the streets are wet and slick with rainfall (Schrader, 10-11).  The characters in noir challenge the traditional representation of good and evil, family in society, and crime and punishment.  Characters are generally cynical about life, particularly their own.  Noir characters cheat, lie, steal, kill, and double-cross to achieve their own selfish desires. They are usually motivated by money, greed, fame, and ambition (Biesen, 2-3).   Naremore suggests that the "'vocation' of film noir is to reverse conventional norms – thus creating a specific tension which results from the disruption of order and 'the disappearance of psychological bearings or guideposts'" (Naremore, 19).  Film noir aims to challenge stereotypes in society and representations of both male and female.  Therefore, film noir threatens the most fundamental aspects of American society: optimism, and freedom from fear (Snyder, 2001).

            The figure of the femme fatale is a representation of the darker side of life. The visual style associated with the femme fatale is immersed in shadows and silhouettes.  The femme fatale is manipulative, smart, powerful, and she demonstrates overt sexuality.  She knows what she wants and she will carry out her plan until her goal is achieved.  The femme fatale understands that while society has laid out specific gender roles for her, she can use her manipulative demeanor and her body to gain independence and wealth (Crowther, 115).  The iconography of the femme fatale is identifiable in film noir and although variations exist across different films, the dominant reading is almost always understood: long hair (blonde or brunette), perfect make up, jewelry elegant and expensive, and eroticized costume.   The femme fatale is usually a smoker, and the iconography of guns produce a symbol of unnatural phallic power (Place, 1998, 54).  The femme fatale is obsessed with herself and her own image.  In several noir films, the femme fatale will gaze at her own reflection in the mirror, even when she is carrying on a conversation with the male protagonist in the film.  This symbolizes her self-interest over devotion to a man.  Janey Place states that it could also signify the woman’s self duplicitous nature, “they are visually split, thus not to be trusted” (Place, 1998, 58).  There are certain filmic techniques which are used when the femme fatale is shown on camera.  The techniques are used to reinforce the construction of the femme fatale and her dominance in the film.  The lighting, camera angles, and movement all work towards this goal.  In all camera shots were the femme fatale is shown, she becomes the main focus of the viewer’s eye regardless of whether or not she is centered in the frame.  Janey Place states that the femme fatale controls camera movement, "seeming to direct the camera and the hero's gaze, with our own as they move" (Place, 1998, 56).  When the true nature of the femme fatale’s character is still in doubt, her face will often be covered in shadows caused by back lighting.  The use of the close-up on the femme fatale allows the spectator to read facial expression that is not privy to the male protagonist in the film.  "The face is the most readable space of the body" but it says nothing without the reading of the spectators in the theatre. Therefore the use of the close-up allows for a critical reading on behalf of the audience that can become significant to the message of the film (Doane, 1987, 47-48).  

            As I mentioned earlier, I will be drawing upon six different film noirs for the purpose of my analysis.  These films were chosen because of the femme fatales in them, and the prominent and diverse roles they play.  I will introduce and discuss each femme fatale briefly before comparing them to other types of women portrayed in noirs (women I will refer to as ‘domestics’).

            In The Lady From Shanghai (Orsen Welles, 1947) Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) is the ultimate femme fatale.  Other than being beautiful, Elsa Bannister is manipulative and mysterious.  She yearns for freedom from her husband, who is handicapped with leg braces and walks with a cane.  Elsa was blackmailed into her marriage and she will do anything for a way out.  She meets Michael O’Hara (Orsen Welles), and identifies him as an easy target for her plans. Michael is hired by Elsa’s husband, Arthur, to work as a deck hand on his yacht (Elsa convinces her husband to let Michael work for them).  Michael can not tear himself away from Elsa's dangerously seductive & corruptive charms and he willingly and perhaps willfully misinterprets her as innocent and helpless.  In a quest for money and Arthur’s wife, Michael is framed for a murder (Arhur’s partner Grisby) he did not commit.  It is Elsa who commits the murder and Michael discovers this towards the end of the film. In a hall of mirrors, Elsa holds a gun and tells Michael she had to kill Grisby. Arthur enters the funhouse, holding a gun as well. Elsa and Arthur shoot at eachother, and both are shot and killed. Elsa begs Michael not to leave her to die, but he walks away.  In a voice over, Michael states that he will spend the rest of his life overcoming this experience and getting over Elsa.

            Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) also stars Rita Hayworth.  The character of Gilda complicates the notion of the femme fatale, because Gilda is not actually bad, nor does she commit murder.  However, Gilda is punished and is thought of as bad by the spectators and the men in the film until the movie’s conclusion.  The film is set in Buenos Aires, where American Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is taken in by gambling casino owner Ballin Mundson. Johnny becomes Mundson's suave right-hand-man. Before long, Mundson returns from a trip with Gilda, his new wife.  However, Johnny and Gilda have already met, they used to be romantically involved. To make Johnny jealous and earn back his love, Gilda dates and flirts with other men in front of Johnny (and behind Ballin’s back).  Ballin is forced to fake his death in order to get out of trouble due to his Nazi ties. Johnny remains loyal to Ballin and although he marries Gilda right after Ballin’s “death”, it is only to keep her under control.  Johnny psychologically abuses and punishes Gilda in order to tame her strong persona.  In the conclusion of the film, Johnny gives in to Gilda and admits that he loves her.  Ballin reappears from the dead and attempts to kill Gilda and Johnny, but fails, getting himself killed in the process.  Gilda and Johnny leave for America as a happy couple.

            Peggy Cummins plays Annie Laurie Starr, the femme fatale in Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949), and John Dall plays the poor male protagonist, Bart Tare.  Since his childhood, Bart has always taken a liking to guns.  After leaving army school (he was sent there as a boy when he tried to steal a gun), his friends take him to a carnival where he encounters a  beautiful girl, Laurie Starr.  Laurie is a sharp-shooting performer who loves guns just as much as Bart does.  The two fall in love and get married, but Laurie soon tires of their financial situation and tells Bart that she wants more out of life. She wants to live like the rich and powerful.  Bart agrees to commit robberies with Laurie and although he was never one to use guns for killing, he is dragged into the murderous nature of his gorgeous wife.  Bart never commits murder himself, but due to the murders and burglaries Laurie commits, the two are forced to go on the run.  In the end, Bart is forced to shoot Laurie and then he too is shot and killed by the police.

            The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) is about a drifter named Frank (John Garfield) who stops at a rural diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora (Lana Turner), and her much older husband, Nick, who is from a foreign country.  Frank and Cora end up romantically involved.  Cora, the leggy femme fatale, is tired of her situation, she is married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve.  She wants more out of life. She has ambitions and goals, and she is not going to allow any man to get in her way, especially not her husband.  Cora and Frank murder Nick in order to start a new life together.  The local prosecutor suspects foul play but is unable to acquire enough evidence to convict Frank and Cora for the crime.  The prosecutor attempts to get Cora and Frank to turn against one another, and he tries only Cora for the murder.  The plan does not work and Frank and Cora put the pieces of their relationship back together. However, Cora dies in a car accident that could or could not be unintentional on Frank’s part.  Thus, Frank is convicted of murdering her and is sentenced to death.

            In Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944), femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) seduces insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) into murdering her husband to collect his accident policy. The murder goes as planned, but after the couple's passion dissolves, each becomes suspicious of the other's motives. The plan is further complicated when Neff's boss and best friend Keyes, a brilliant insurance investigator, takes over the investigation.  In the end, Phyllis ends up shooting Walter, and then falls into his arms, claiming that she really loves him. Walter, having been manipulated and lied to throughout the proceedings says nothing and shoots her as he holds her. Then he limps back to the office and records the truth for Keyes to find and hear.

            Out Of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) beings in California where Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) owns a gas station and is dating a local woman named Ann.  However, Jeff has a criminal past.  His former boss, Whit, hires Jeff to find his girlfriend, Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer). She ran away after shooting Whit and stealing money from him. He wants her and the money returned. Jeff finally locates Kathie and falls in love with her. The two become romantically involved and Jeff tries to convince Whit that he cannot find Kathie or the money. However, Fisher, Jeff’s old partner, spots him at a race track. Tracking the couple to a cabin in the woods, Jeff’s partner demands $40,000 in return for his silence. A fist fight breaks out that is ended by Kathie fatally shooting the would-be blackmailer. She then drives off, leaving Jeff behind. Jeff finds her bank book and discovers a statement saying that Kathie did steal the money and she has been lying to him about it.  By the end of the film, Kathie has also killed Whit and she demands that Jeff leave with her, or be arrested for the killing.  Jeff agrees and makes a quick phone call before departing with Kathie.  They leave together, but soon come to a police roadblock. Kathie realize Jeff has double-crossed her. She shoots and kills him and then the police fire and kill Kathie.

“Was He Going Away With Her? I Have To Know. Was He Going Away With Her?”

            The images of conventional women compared to the femme fatale in film noir are often bland to the point of parody.   Parallel to the image of the fearless and independent femme fatale, the domesticated housewife and/or girlfriend is depicted as uncomplicated, controllable, and boring.  The themes of household life, children, and family are constantly challenged due to the role of the femme fatale.  As Sylvia Harvey suggests, the figure of the femme fatale feels trapped by romantic relationships and resorts to murder as her only means of escape, which challenges the traditional family and the woman’s role within it (Harvey, 37).  For example, in Double Indemnity, Phyllis’s family home is the place where three people (Phyllis, her husband, and her step daughter Lola) who hate one another spend boring evenings together.  The husband does not pay much attention to Phyllis and he blatantly ignores her strong presence and sexuality.  Double Indemnity exemplifies both types of women with Phyllis and Lola.  Phyllis is sexy and strong, while Lola is innocent.  Phyllis inspires Walter to murder, while Lola inspires moral regret.  Walter is drawn to Phyllis right away and even Lola’s boyfriend, Nino, finds himself attracted (and possibly even involved) with Phyllis.  Male characters in the film and spectators in the audience are drawn to the femme fatale because of her costume, her persona, and the way she is shown on camera.  The femme fatale is a much more attractive character than the domestic women: visually, and in terms of the plot.  In The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cora feels trapped by her marriage to Nick, and the pair seemingly have nothing in common.  Nick encourages Cora to spend time with Frank as if he does not care if the two have an affair.  Elsa Bannister in The Lady From Shanghai has the same problem with her older, unfit husband.  In Out Of The Past, Jeff Bailey is in a relationship with Ann, who is stable domesticated, and from the country.  Ann demands little and forgives all.  We rarely see her out of the sunlight.  On the contrary, Kathie lives in the shadows of low-key lighting.  Ann serves as a foil for Kathie, her goodness seems out of place in noir, while Kathie belongs in this world.  Nurturing women in film noir offer security, love, and forgiveness.  Janey Place argues that the context for these female characters differs radically.  The nurturing woman is surrounded by light, natural settings, and high-key lighting (Place, 1998, 60).  The femme fatale is much more exciting than the domesticated women who lives in the pastoral suburbs and devotes herself to the (often pathetic and weak) male protagonist.  The femme fatale stays up late in bars in the big city, while the domesticated women lives at home with her parents in the country.  Both the mise-en-scene and film style work to promote the femme fatale as more beautiful, exciting, and intriguing than the domestic woman.  During World War II, several women entered the work force and experienced making their own money and being away from the home.  After this, several women were reluctant to go back to the role of domesticated happy homemaker.  This considered, the ambitious and goal-oriented femme fatale is a more admirable figure than the domestic woman characters.  In the present day, a woman’s ambitions aremore  similar to the femme fatales’ (not to assume that woman commit murder for money and career success), rather than the homemakers in noir. 

“You Bet I'll Get Out Of Here, Baby. I'll Get Out Of Here But Quick”

            Femme Fatales represent a direct attack on traditional womanhood and the nuclear family.  They refuse to play the role of devoted wife and loving mother that mainstream society prescribes for women.  She finds marriage to be dull and confining.  Cora from The Postman Always Rings Twice Cora is a restless beauty stuck in a roadside diner married to mundane, older fry cook.  In the film, Cora says, “I want to make something of this place, I want to make it into an honest-to-goodness...”, and Frank replies to her, “Well, aren't we ambitious.”  Cora tells Frank her goals about wanting to make something of her life. She wants to earn more money and forward her career as a business women.  In Gun Crazy, Laurie Starr says to Bart, “I want things, big things, I want a guy with spirit, with guts”.  Laurie wants to live the good life with nice possessions, money, and a strong man who can provide this kind of lifestyle.  During World War II when women began to take jobs that were usually held by men, they discovered that they too wanted more from life than cooking dinner and having babies (Haskell, 194).  Previous to the 1940’s, the Great Depression had fostered a wave of reaction against any change in woman’s traditional role.  Legislative bodies enacted laws restricting the employment of married women.  Labour, government, and the mass media all joined in the campaign urging females to refrain from taking jobs outside of the home.  In 1940, the percentage of females working was almost exactly what it had been in 1910, and there seemed little reason to expect anything about this to change (Chafe, 135).  However, within five years, World War II had radically transformed the outlook of women.  The eruption of hospitaltities generated a demand for new workers, and as a result six million women took jobs, increasing the size of the female labour force by 50%.  The number of wives holding jobs doubled, and the unionization of women grew (Chafe, 136).  Within a few months after the United States declared their involvement in the war, millions of men left their positions in factories and offices to take up arms.  The United States Employment Service concluded that women could fill these positions with only a brief training period.  “Women maintained roadbeds, greased and fixed locomotives, and took the place of lumberjacks in toppling giant redwoods” (Chafe, 138).  serves as the best example of rebellion against the perfect wife and home life.

            Female employment provoked opposition as well as praise, especially as it affected the stability of family life and the household.  The war by it’s very nature had disrupted the established order, and forced an adjustment in the patterns of everyday living.  When the soldiers returned, the content of women’s lives had changed, and an important new area of activity had opened up to them.  Women wanted to stay in their jobs instead of going back to the home (Chafe, 194).  World War II represented a watershed event and women in the workforce constituted a event for women in America (Chafe, 194).  Once women had established themselves in the workforce, feminism became a more popularized idea.

            Early feminism is often called the first wave, and feminists after about 1960 are called second wave feminists. The second wave of feminists were concerned with gaining full social and economic equality, having already gained almost full legal equality in many western nations (Ruth, 12). There is also a third wave, but some feminists disagree as to its necessity. Third wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse areas of feminism and it is said to have began in the early 1990s. The movement arose as a response to perceived failures of second wave feminism. It was also a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave.  Ideals and debates associated with third wave feminism were reflected in popular culture of the 1990s. Some feminists see it as a cultural movement and trace its origin to the early 90's riot grrl movement.  Within this movement of third wave feminism, the written work of Valerie Solonas became very popular (Ruth, 47).  Valerie Solonas wrote and published the SCUM Manifesto which is a call for destruction of men and men-loving women, as well as the liberation of women. In the third wave of feminism, anti-men attitudes were prominent, and popular culture of the movement reflected this idea.

            After two major feminist movements and their widespread popularity, female spectators are able to reflect back on noir films and see the figure of the femme fatale as a positive representation.  The most recent feminist movement and it’s notions of anti-men/anti-patriarchy have made it so that when the male protagonist in noir films is tricked, lead on, and even killed by the femme fatale, the contemporary female spectator feels little remorse.  In order for the femme fatale to accomplish her goals, she will go as far as murdering her husband, which in the context of the film seems necessary for the femme fatale.  In The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cora’s husband Nick wants to move to Canada to care for his invalid sister. Cora feels trapped by this decision, so she plots to do away with Nick.  In the film, Cora has to kill her husband, it is represented as the only possible way out for her. In the context of the film, the murder is portrayed as morally wrong, but absolutely necessary in order for the femme fatale to accomplish her goal.  After two major feminist movements, the contemporary female spectator can relate to the femme fatale’s desperate situation, where she will stop at nothing to be successful and happy.  Although murder is the ultimate extreme and spectators realize the moral dilemma and wrongness of the killing, the contemporary female spectator will still view the femme fatale as heroic and strong within the context of the film.

“All Those Things I Did Were Just To Make You Jealous, Johnny. There's Never Been Anybody But You And Me”

            Several film theorists have written on the topic of female representation in film and how spectators in the theatre view and understand these representations.  In this section of my essay, I shall restrict my analysis to theories of spectatorship within feminist film criticism.  Several feminist film theorists have debated on the power and pleasure of the cinema.  Central to this debate is the critique of the Hollywood studio system, and the ways in which visual pleasures address a male spectator.  The most famous and well known of these theorists is Laura Mulvey and her critique of the male gaze and its visual pleasures for the cinema spectator.  I shall begin with a brief discussion of Mulvey’s theory, since, without it, many of the debates following would lack context.  Film theorist Laura Mulvey published her article “Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema” in Screen journal in 1975.  According to Mulvey’s paradigm, the threat of castration (as absence and lack) posed by the image of the female form in hollywood cinema is contained through a sexualized objectification of that form, whether fetishistic-scopohphilic (woman displayed as erotic spectacle, rendered through unthreatening by the aggressive, controlling male gaze) or sadistic-voyueristic (woman investigated and eventually controlled through punishment) in nature (Mulvey, 58-70). According to Mulvey’s theory, the figure of the femme fatale and women in film noir cannot be read as positive female subjects.  The femme fatale is present for male pleasure only.  When considering Mulvey’s theory and it’s implications for film noir, there is little possibility of the female spectator reading Hollywood films critically; of seeing more than one meaning in a film text, or of understand masculinity and femininity as subjective aspects of spectators’ identities.  Due to these facts (in terms of the femme fatale and film noir), I completely disagree with Mulvey’s theory.  A rethinking of male and female audiences offers a more mobile model of cinematic spectatorship.  

            Other feminist film theorists have come up with ideas on how Hollywood studio era films can be read by female spectators as oppositional to the male gaze and the ideology of patriarchy.  I will now apply these theories to film noir and the femme fatales I have discussed thus far.  Mary Ann Doane argues that femininity self-referentially comments upon its status as image.  In her article, “ Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing The Female Spectator,” Doane focuses on male/female spectatorship revolving around questions of proximity and distance (Doane, 1999, 45).  This is especially problematic for the female spectator because she is the image, she is the woman and the object to be viewed on screen.  Thus, women are only given three options: she can masochistically over-identify with the female that is being portrayed on screen, she can narcissistically become their own image of desire, or she can partake in what Doane calls the masquerade (Doane, 1999, 48-49).  The masquerade is essentially a mask of overt femininity.  In relation to film noir, I would argue that this excess feminine is always present in terms of the femme fatale:  in her hair styles, her costume, her jewelry, and the way her body is filmed (close ups of Phyllis’s ankle in Double Indemnity, or Cora’s legs in The Postman Always Rings Twice).  Doane’s masquerade theory constitutes an acknowledgment that is femininity itself constructed as a mask.  The femme fatale can exaggerate gestures of femininity due to the theft of masculinity that has been denied to her.  Gilda is probably the best example of this, especially with her costume and singing/dancing.  Doane assumes that a man does not need to engage in the viewing practice of the masquerade.  He does not need to use his body for a certain gain in the cinema.  The masquerade instead carries out a threat to the male spectator because it breaks down the system of the male gaze and how male spectators watch a film (Doane, 1999, 48-49).  Therefore, the exaggeration of femininity of the femme fatale poses a threat for the male spectator. However, the femme fatale’s over femininity gives her and the female spectator a sense of power and control.

            Doane goes further to say that the female character who wears glasses in a film possess an intellectual stance, and the glasses signify her ability to have an active gaze.  With her glasses on, the female character is a threat to the system of the male gaze (Doane, 1999, 50-51).  In a few of the film noirs I’ve discussed in this analysis, the femme fatales are seen wearing glasses.  In Double Indemnity, Walter arranges to secretly meet with Phyllis at a local market.  Phyllis enters the store wearing sunglasses.  In Gun Crazy, Laurie Starr also wears glasses.  Both figures wear glasses at different parts of the films, so they deny the male spectator of her “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 63).  

            Jackie Stacey’s book, Star Gazing is a feminist analysis of Hollywood stars and how women look at images of femininity and stardom on the cinema screen.  Stacey’s book consists of letters and questionnaires from several female filmgoers, and it investigates the significance of Hollywood stars in the 40’s/50’s.  Among the stars discussed by Stacey and the filmgoers are Rita Hayworth (who played femme fatales Gilda and Elsa Bannister) and Barbara Stanwyck (Phyllis Dietrichson).  One female spectator said of Barbara, “she always shone in diaphanous creations, I was always intrigued by how dressed up she was” (Marie Burgess in Stacey, 198).  Rita Hayworth was also extremely popular according to the responses recorded by Stacey.  In her book, Stacey identifies three different types of female spectatorship: escapism (the desire to submerge oneself in an imagined ideal), identification (devotion, adoration, recognizing likenesses and differences between spectator and star), and consumption (how Hollywood stars are connected to the consumption practices of female spectators) (Stacey, 80-224).  Several female filmgoers state that they wanted to be like Rita Hayworth, or that she had admirable qualities that they tried to emulate.  Many female spectators state that they could relate to stars like Stanwyck and Hayworth in several of their films, and their multiple personalities (including their personas outside of film in the real world) were appealing regardless of the characters they played on screen (such as the femme fatale) (Stacey, 125). When played by a famous star (such as Rita Hayworth, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner) the femme fatale posses a history and star power outside of the film. Therefore, the female spectator does not render the femme fatale as all evil.  The female spectator will take into consideration several of the actress’s filmic personalities, and her star power outside of the film in which she is not a murderer.

            The last theory I would like to discuss in relation to the femme fatale and noir is that of cinema and ideology by Jean Narboni and Jean-Louis Comolli.  Narboni and Comolli argue that “every film is part of the economic system it is also part of the ideological system, for ‘cinema’ and ‘art’ are branches of ideology”(Narboni, Comolli, 60). They state that the “cinema is one of the languages through which the world communicates itself to itself.  They constitute its ideology for they reproduce the world as it is experienced when filtered through the ideology” (Narboni, Comolli, 60).  Narboni and Comolli then list seven film categories in which every kind of film can fit into.  The “fissure film” is a film that results in tensions between competing discourses.  Moments of “fissure” indicate that a film, though it reinforces the patriarchal status quo in the end,  still contains the seeds of its own criticism, when read symptomatically (Comolli, Narboni, 62). Consequently, (to put this theory to work in film noir) the femme fatale is open to counter-hegemonic interpretations, or to readings conducted against the grain. The femme fatale in film noir can fall into the category of the “progressive text,” which defines a film that “at first sight seems to belong firmly within the dominant ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (Narboni, Comolli, 62).   Such films follow the conventions of classical Hollywood cinema, which Comolli and Narboni argue perpetuate bourgeois ideology. However, noir films still possess “an internal criticism... which cracks the film apart at it’s seams,” (Narboni, Comolli, 62) exposing the dominant ideology’s weak points from within. Within the context of feminist readings, such “progressive” films render the work of patriarchal ideology visible and refuse easy closure, leaving the films open for interpretation.  Thus, it is the femme fatale in film noir that expose the film’s patriarchal ideology and crack the film apart “at the seams” (Narboni, Comolli, 62).

            When the femme fatale effectively undermines the supremacy of the traditional roles laid out for them, they offer a far more enduring image than their final punishment, and narrative resolutions cannot recuperate their subversive significance (Harvey 44-45).  In the case of film noir and the femme fatale, it would at first appear that the dominant ideology is well in place: the femme fatale lives in a patriarchal world, she rebels against it, and she is punished in the end of the film.  However, it is the image of the powerful, independent femme fatale that sticks in the minds of the spectators when the film noir ends. She remains true to her destructive and ambitious nature and refuses to be changed, caged, or captured, even if it means that she must die.  Film noirs seemingly belong within the dominant patriarchal ideology at first, but the power of the femme fatale cannot be denied even though she is killed at the end of the film.  Thus for the contemporary female spectator, film noirs can be read as fissure films as the femme fatale read as positive.

Come On Bart, Let's Finish It The Way We Started It: On The Level

           In the films I have been referring to thus far, there are several narrational aspects that can be interpreted to posit the femme fatale figure as a feminist symbol and icon.  For example, in Out Of The Past, Kathie kills her husband Whit, a gambler and genuinely bad person to get out of a confining marriage.  Kathie, independent and defiant, exerts a powerful hold on the spectator and the viewer’s memory.  Even when she is killed at the end, she appears to be in control.  Kathie chooses to die rather than to be captured by the police.  Her death involves murdering Jeff, and a suicide of her own.  Kathie remains true to her nature, refusing to be converted by the police, even when the only alternative is death. 

            In Gun Crazy, Laurie Starr is portrayed as dangerous and worthy of destruction.  However, the film also shows that Laurie is confined by the roles traditionally set to her, and Laurie’s destructive struggle for independence (from her carnival agent) is a response to those restrictions placed on her.  Laurie breaks free from the carnival/gun show life but she is not totally evil.  She falls in love with Bart even though she uses him to achieve money and power. However, Laurie is only able to fall in love with Bart because he is totally passive to her.  Her strong and aggressive demeanor crushes and dominates his personality, and Bart allows her to make decisions for him.  In Laurie, Bart desires the phallic power she possess (which is shown in the representation of guns).  At a very young age, Bart is stripped of his masculinity and this is shown in a flashback at the beginning of the film.  The film begins with an account of Bart’s deviance, and he is caught in the act by a policeman while trying to steal a pistol.  Once out of boarding school, Bart tries to reclaim his masculinity and uses Laurie to do so.  Laurie wants to live the rich life and own materialistic things, and Bart needs to go along with this on his journey for phallic power.  He is only redeemed when he finally uses his gun to shoot and kill her in the end, thus his masculinity is returned.  He is unable to shoot his gun at anyone until this point in the movie, and even after he shoots Laurie, he is killed as well.  Bart needs Laurie, the phallic woman who serves to shape the course of Bart’s future.  The woman with the gun represents a disturbance in the hands of the male: she is a woman who has usurped the male right.  Bart’s attraction to Laurie seems motivated by his desire to find someone who can embody his lost masculinity and thus allow him to find his place in the world. (Krutnik, 221). 

            Over time, the moral code of violent acts depicted on-screen has loosened and become more arbitrary.  Spectators are more desensitized to violence.  Today, the gun violence in early noir is rendered as tame compared to contemporary representations of violence.  Hilary Neroni’s book, The Violent Woman, states that outbreaks of violent women in film, (the femme fatale) occur at moments in history when a clear difference between genders ceases to be operative.  There are many different characteristics that we associate with maleness and femaleness, but one of the most significant is the “identification of violence with masculinity... if gender difference becomes elided, then there is nothing to stop a woman from taking up violence as well, from being as violent as a man” (Neroni, 20). 

            In Gilda,  Rita Hayworth’s character is a different kind of femme fatale.  Gilda does not actually do anything wrong, but she makes Johnny believe that she is evil and manipulative.

Thus, Johnny punishes her brutally.  However, it is interesting that Gilda chooses to use her sexuality to manipulate Johnny even though it is not really in her nature.  She makes situations look one way (sexual) in order to manipulate a reaction on Johnny’s behalf.  She is not really a femme fatale, but she plays the part in order to accomplish her goal. The woman has to take on femme fatalish qualities to achieve her desires.  After Gilda’s striptease on stage, Johnny’s desire and anger peaks (he slaps her across the face), but he confesses his love to her afterward.  Only then can Gilda return to her true self of domestic woman (similar to the non-femme fatales of other films).  To get what you want in society as a woman in film noir, you have to play the part of femme fatale rather than wife and mother.  Gilda  However, Richard Dyer states that as compelling as this convention is, it is not so easy to identify with Johnny as the hero or to assent to his view of Gilda.  This is because Johnny is oddly placed in the film in relation to both Gilda and Ballin, and partly because Gilda is Rita Hayworth (Dyer, 118).   The film becomes all about her and therefore the female spectator is more inclined to cheer for Gilda in the film, taking her side over Johnny’s. is also set up stylistically and narratively to be a film about Johnny (the use of voice over signifies this to the viewer).

            I will not go too much into detail about passive male protagonists in film noir (the problem of masculinity in film noir is another paper entirely) but I will say that in relation to the contemporary female spectator, these male protagonists are often unattractive in the way they handle situations, their personality, and their physique.  Richard Dyer argues that the heroes of film noir are for the most part undynamic characterizations, the men lack the virtues of the ‘normal’ man.  The fact that most film noir heroes are rootless and unmarried, and the implication of quasi-gay relationships in certain films (Walter and Keyes in Double Indemnity, Ballin and Johnny in Gilda) all serve to rob them of the attributes of masculinity and normality (Dyer, 115-116).  Thus, these men are unattractive to the contemporary female spectator.  In Double Indemnity, Walter Neff’s approach with Phyllis is uneasy and embarrassing.  The pick-up lines he uses on her are inappropriate, and they are delivered in an awkward manner. This makes the female spectator uncomfortable, and it makes Walter an unlikeable character.  The female spectator will not align herself with the male protagonist as such, but with the femme fatale instead.  The femme fatale is attractive to the contemporary female spectator because she is dynamic  and the men portrayed in the films are undesirable; they have nothing to offer the femme fatale characters except a helping hand in crime.  For example, in Gun Crazy Bart agrees to do everything Laurie says so that she can acquire wealth when all Bart wants is her.  Laurie’s power derives from her ability to represent, for Bart (the weak male), a solution to the problems of identity and sexual difference, for she embodies “not merely a masculine power (through the gun) but she can also manipulate her femininity, by playing upon Bart’s emotions” (Krutnik, 224).

“Therefore, One Who Follows His Nature Keeps His Original Nature, In The End”                  Angela Martin argues that there had to be something in film noir that was appealing for female spectators in the 1940s/1950s (Martin, 210), and I have argued that the figure of the femme fatale from that time period is even more appealing for the contemporary female spectator. Martin states that whether it was the “treat of seeing women giving as good, if not better, than they got; the idea that men and women can be equally evil or equally innocent; confirmation of the existence of masculine perversity; or simply, the refreshing life-size image of male fallibility” (Martin, 210-211).  For the female spectator in the present, all of the things Martin listed above are pleasures that women are already aware of today.  I have argued that there are different factors for this new awareness and how it effects how women watch films today: theory (whether the spectator has read feminist theory or not, the popularity of psychoanalysis and feminism alters how women perceive the world), history, the star system, and popular feminism.  The femme fatales I have discussed in this analysis are women who in the films, are aware of society’s ideas about femininity and women.  In the present day, female spectators are aware of these ideas aswell.  The femme fatale in film noir in the 40’s/50’s are characters who actively challenge accepted conventions in society. Femme fatales are able to control their own sexuality and use it to their own ends, thereby separating themselves from traditional patriarchal society.  The creation of the femme fatale in film noir was visually explicit, utilizing not only film style but also specific narrational techniques, which unintentionally makes femme fatales endearing to contemporary viewers.  Film noir is one of the few historical periods of film where women are active, intelligent, and powerful. Thus, it is not surprising that film noir is so popular with feminists and female spectators today.  It is not the destruction of the woman in film noir that viewers remember, but rather "their strong, dangerous and, above all, exciting sexuality" (Place, 1998, p.48).  Although the femme fatale may be destroyed in several film noir narratives, the character of the femme fatale is alive and remains important today.  For female spectators in the present day, the femme fatale of the forties and fifties is a positive representation, a symbol, and an icon.

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xox

Lianne Spiderbaby