Noir & Sexuality (Discussion)

Readings

Group 3: Place focuses on two aspects of noir narrative structure: the spider woman and the nurturing woman. Discuss the characteristics of each of these character types, drawing examples from the films we've seen.
Group 4: How is Place using the terms "myth" and "mythology"?
- And what is the "ideological operation of the myth[s]" of film noir? Discuss, with reference to Out of the Past, The Grifters, and Double Indemnity.
Grad Group: How is the "duplicitous nature" of women expressed in noir, according to Place? Does this play out in the films we've seen?

All Groups:

Place contends, "The style of these films thus overwhelms their conventional narrative content." Explain, with examples from the films noir we've seen.
What does Place feel is the "central obsession of film noir"? Do you agree with her?
Place uses a term rooted in Freudian psychology: narcissism. What does this term mean and how is is important to understanding women in noir?

Group 1: How does Dyer feel film noir can be defined beyond Schrader’s "mood"? What does he mean by the term, "iconography"? Hint: he uses it more broadly than Kitses.
- What, then, are gay iconographic features? He mentions The Maltese Falcon in particular. Have we seen these features in other films shown in class?
- What does Dyer feel is significant about the "luxury milieu" of noir? Explain his comment that "gay men and the femmes fatales share the same decor iconographically."
Group 2: How does noir imply "male uncertainly about sexuality"? How does this compare with the representation of the male group in Hawks's films?

All Groups:

What does Dyer mean when he writes, "Gays are thus defined by everything but the very thing that makes us different"?
Dyer writes that gays can serve the narrative function of the villain, but, besides that, what other function do they often serve within the narrative structure?

Janey Place, "Women in Film Noir," Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: BFI, 1998), 47-68.
Richard Dyer, "Homosexuality and Film Noir," The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation (London & New York: Routledge, 1993), 52-72. Originally published in Jump Cut 16 (1977).[1]