Film Noir - Femme Fatale

Film Noir - Femme Fatale

The femme fatale in Film Noir movies are one of the most important characters when developing the story around the Film Noir genera. There are seen as quite mysterious and devious characters and have the same transition between films of them becoming evil or being bad from the beginning and all of the film was a roughs for her to get her own way. Here are some of the main characteristics a femme fatale has to make her what she is and even some on the newer takes on the femme fatale character.

In a Film Noir there a number of cliche characters, the hard-boiled detective who is the one who finds out the information and keeps the story going, the murderer who committed the crime which the detective would investigate and the femme fatale, who usually persuades the detective to help and in turn ends up twisting his fate in attempting to kill him but is ultimately doomed from the beginning and karma ends up catching up to her with imprisonment or death. The femme fatale character usually has a distinct visual appearance when on screen. She looks pretty, covered in makeup especially with usually bright red lipstick, hair that reaches her shoulders and in a long dressed looking dressed for a special occasion but rather uses it as daily wear coming off as quite posh and rich. She is also given quite an English accent making her foreign and a threat but ultimately being liked by the detective.

How the femme fatale builds this character over time is by being sweet and innocent before things starts to go her way. This character first becomes a nice and trust worthy character by coming off as an innocent rich flirt who wants the help of this detective specifically, trying to create a romantic connection between the two so that the detective feels obligated to help this woman in the upcoming crimes ahead. She then uses this crime, usually the crime aimed at herself through family members mostly common in fathers dying that owned a lot of money, and makes this detective get involved waiting for him to discover who did it. After which is revealed that the femme fatale was involved in some way however the romantic bond between the two characters has grown so much that the detectives begin to try and protect her in some way, usually in running away together or pinning it one someone else. This is where the femme fatale tries to change the game to play in her way and tries doing a number of things to remove or even kill of the detective and gets rid of him forever but in the end it isn't successful and ends up dead. All though these Film Noir movies, the femme fatale starts to become more defensive, trying to control the detective and starts acting needy to keep him around. She is rather fearless and would do anything to get her way and this is the main core of her personality.