Description

While the femme fatale has attracted considerable scholarly attention over the decades, Samantha Lindop's timely and engaging study is the first to trace the cinematic history of the character by also taking into account the spider woman's lesser known counterparts, the fille fatale and homme fatal. Lindop explores the earliest instances of noir, challenging some of the assumptions attached to the figure of that era, through to the most recent postmillennial phase of neo-noir production. She considers the multifaceted interactions between the histories, origins, and conventions of characters and genres, and the way these interweave into contemporary interpretations. In doing so, Lindop compellingly engages with current critical debates about dominant postfeminist discourse, particularly in relation to sexuality, nostalgia, aging, race, girlhood, and the postfeminist man. These themes are considered through close readings of the films Mulholland Drive, Chloé, Derailed, Sin City, Descent, Stoker, Hard Candy, Brick, Taking Lives, Mr Brooks, and In the Cut.