Neo-Noir Releases & Unsurpassed Femme Fatales of Noir

Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena and Giovanni Ribisi stars as a special unit of the LAPD tasked with taking down notorious mob boss Mickey Cohen, played by Sean Penn, in this neo noir true-crime thriller from director Ruben Fleischer. Co-stars Nick Nolte and Emma Stone, opens Sept. 7.

"Gangster Squad" boasts about as good a cast as you could hope for: Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena and Giovanni Ribisi. Surely you can find a few names on that list that will pique your interest in this true-crime actioner set in post-WW II Los Angeles about the LAPD's war with East Coast gangster Mickey Cohen.

Still of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in "Gangster Squad" (2012) directed by Ruben Fleischer

And in true noir fashion, Stone appears to play the femme fatale, a gangster's girlfriend who catches Gosling's eye. If Stone and Gosling keep falling into bed together, people are gonna talk.

Based on the book by Paul Lieberman, the screenplay was adapted by Will Beal for director Ruben Fleischer, of "Zombieland" fame. "Gangster Squad" opens Sept. 7. Source: www.nbcnewyork.com

Emile Hirsch and Matthew McConaughey in "Killer Joe" (2011) directed by William Friedkin

In recent years, Matthew McConaughey has become the go-to guy for bland romantic-comedy, making impressionable girls go weak at the knees in the likes of Failure to Launch, Ghosts of Girlfriends Part and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

His army of adoring female fans will be somewhat shocked by his latest effort however, a gothic neo-noir in which the Texan charmer commits some truly despicable acts, including one particularly nasty party piece involving an innocent KFC drumstick. The film is Killer Joe, with McConaughey playing the title character, though Joe is far from the lead.

That honour goes to Emile Hirsch, who plays Chris Smith, a low-level drug dealer who owes $6,000 to some very bad people when proceedings commence. Source: uk.ign.com


Following (1998) directed by Christopher Nolan (starring Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw and Lucy Russell) - Burglary scene

Chris Nolan’s Following: Fascinating Neo-Noir That Plants Seed For Later Masterpieces: In terms of establishing character, this is a great scene for both Cobb and the film’s protagonist, as it shows their true colours. One is a heartless sociopath who relishes in people’s sadness (rationalizing it as a form of rejuvenation for them), and the other is an ambling loner willing to be led down dangerous roads.

Nolan on "Following": “The script was written along the lines of what I see as the most interesting aspect of film noir and crime fiction; not baroque lighting setups and sinister villains, but simply that character is ultimately defined by action. In a compelling story of this genre we are continually being asked to rethink our assessment of the relationship between the various characters, and I decided to structure my story in such a way as to emphasize the audience’s incomplete understanding of each new scene as it is first presented.” Source: whatculture.com

Ella Raines plays a courageous secretary in "Phantom Lady" (1944) directed by Robert Siodmak

“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.” ―Hermann Hesse

The conventional view of the “hard-boiled” form is that it attempts to uncover truths about American reality, what David Smith calls the “tarnished metal beneath the glittering paint.”

Linda Fiorentino as Bridget Gregory in neo-noir "The Last Seduction" (1994) directed by John Dahl

The movie features Linda Fiorentino as the femme fatale, Peter Berg as a small town man whose one night affair turns into more than he wanted, and Bill Pullman as Fiorentino's husband who is chasing her and running from loan sharks at the same time. Fiorentino's performance generated talk of a possible Oscar nomination but she was disqualified because the film was shown on cable television (HBO) before it was released to theatres.

In The Last Seduction, Bridget is not a woman; she is the woman. "Verbally as well as visually, Bridget is presented as an almost supernatural femme fatale." William Covey explains in his essay Girl Power: Female Centered Neo-Noir, "woman centered neo-noirs intermingle both new and old noir themes within new critiques of patriarchy and analyses of female identity." The Last Seduction takes this critique and recombination a step further, uniting two key character types of film noir: the justifiably violent, isolated detective and the sexually empowered but brutally violent femme fatale.

She, Bridget, personifies the individual style of the isolated detective hero while clearly remaining the femme-noire antihero. (Even her name, "Bridget Gregory," symbolizes her dual female and male identities.) While it is her stoic detachment that enables her to survive and continue self-sufficiently, it is her dark, seductive nature that empowers her to work for her own good which is, essentially, evil. As Thomas Schatz explains in Hollywood Genres, "as a form," like film noir, "is varied and refined, it is bound to become more stylized, more conscious of its own rules of construction and expression." It is this fusion of the unstoppable detective with the irrepressible seductress into one ultra-anti-heroine that makes The Last Seduction refreshing." Bridget's does indeed feel like the 'last' seduction, a final turn of the narrative screw for a noir icon." Source: www.girlsaresmarter.com

Mary Astor as femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) directed by John Huston

Still of Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer in "Out of the Past" (1947) directed by Jacques Tourneur

Evelyn Keyes and Charles Korvin in "The Killer That Stalked New York" (1950) directed by Earl McEvoy

As much as I admire the redefinition of the femme fatale in the modern noir films I feel their neo femme fatales lack the fugacious but inescapable charms of their predecessors. Despite of the physical salvation of modern spider women on the screen (they don't usually die in the end unlike their older sisters), I envisage they cannot beat the indurated delicacy of the classic dames: Claire Trevor (The Queen of Noir), Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Greer, Audrey Totter, Marie Windsor, Ann Savage, Jean Gillie, Mary-Beth Hughes, etc.

Despite of accusations of misogyny in some classic noir tales, I actually find a rare philogyny beneath the incomparable splendor from such timeless characters as Kathie Moffat, Jane Palmer or Lilith Ritter: they remain unsurpassed (and exceedingly so in the lesser neo noir efforts) by most of modern actresses who recreate these mythological creatures revelling excessively in their hard-boiled qualities more than in the erratic torments the classic muses inflicted on their male suitors after a dark apogee.

Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford in "Human Desire" (1954) directed by Fritz Lang

Although Bosley Crowther of The New York Times panned Grahame's performance in "Human Desire", saying her portayal of Vicki Buckley was "as wholly devoid of fascination as a lush on a stool in a saloon", the film's director Fritz Lang took a far different view: "Gloria Grahame is definitely on the way up. Like all stars, she is a personality with her own individuality. She represents today's femme fatale". -"Femme Noir, Bad Girls of Film" (1998) by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry