German Studies Review · 2001 · 12 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesFilm StudiesGender StudiesFeminist TheoryFilm CriticismFilm TheoryFeminist Film CriticismFeminist Film TheoryFilm GenresMasculinity In FilmRepresentation In FilmWomen In Film HistoryCinematic StyleFemale CharactersFilm NoirGender In CinemaMasculine EmbodimentMasculinity In Postwar FilmWeimar CinemaWeimar Thought
Film noir and Weimar street film continue to fascinate scholars, with particular attention to female characters such as the femme fatale. Dangerous Dames examines the femme fatale and her antithesis, the femme attrapee, from a female spectator’s perspective, challenging the view that these archetypes merely represent unstable postwar masculinity. The book analyzes these archetypes by studying key Weimar street films—The Street, Variety, Asphalt, and M—and classic film noir titles such as The Maltese Falcon, Gun Crazy, and The Big Heat. Wager argues that women in the audience have always interpreted these characters as reflecting complex aspects of their own existence, thereby opening new cinematic pleasures beyond traditional masculine categorizations.
Both film noir and the Weimar street film hold a continuing fascination for film spectators and film theorists alike. female characters, especially the alluring femmes fatales, remain a focus for critical and popular attention. In the tradition of such attention, Dangerous Dames focuses on the femme fatale and her antithesis, the femme attrapee. Unlike most theorists, Jans Wager examines these archetypes from the perspective of the female spectator and rejects the persistence of vision that allows a reading of these female characters only as representations of unstable postwar masculinity. Professor Wager suggests that the woman in the audience has always seen and understood these characters as representations of a complex aspect of her existence. Dangerous Dames looks at the Weimar street films The Street, Variety, Asphalt, and M and the film noir movies The Maltese Falcon, Gun Crazy, and The Big Heat. This book opens the doors to spectators and theorists alike, suggesting cinematic pleasures outside the bounds of accepted readings and beyond the narrow categorization of film noir and the Weimar street film as masculine forms.