Dames in the Driver's Seat: Rereading Film Noir

Jans B. Wager

Published by University of Texas Press 2005

Dames in the Driver's Seat

Rereading Film Noir

Jans B. Wager

https://doi.org/10.7560/706941

Overview
Contents

About this book

With its focus on dangerous, determined femmes fatales, hardboiled detectives, and crimes that almost-but-never-quite succeed, film noir has long been popular with moviegoers and film critics alike. Film noir was a staple of classical Hollywood filmmaking during the years 1941-1958 and has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity since the 1990s. Dames in the Driver's Seat offers new views of both classical-era and contemporary noirs through the lenses of gender, class, and race. Jans Wager analyzes how changes in film noir's representation of women's and men's roles, class status, and racial identities mirror changes in a culture that is now often referred to as postmodern and postfeminist.

Following introductory chapters that establish the theoretical basis of her arguments, Wager engages in close readings of the classic noirs The Killers, Out of the Past, and Kiss Me Deadly and the contemporary noirs L. A. Confidential, Mulholland Falls, Fight Club, Twilight, Fargo, and Jackie Brown. Wager divides recent films into retro-noirs (made in the present, but set in the 1940s and 1950s) and neo-noirs (made and set in the present but referring to classic noir narratively or stylistically). Going beyond previous studies of noir, her perceptive readings of these films reveal that retro-noirs fulfill a reactionary social function, looking back nostalgically to outdated gender roles and racial relations, while neo-noirs often offer more revisionary representations of women, though not necessarily of people of color.

Author / Editor information

Jans B. Wager is Associate Professor of English and Literature at Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. This book continues the investigation of film noir she began in Dangerous Dames: Women and Representation in the Weimar Street Film and Film Noir.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction. DAMES AND DRIVING Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1: Contents and Contexts
1. Manning the Posts: Classic Noir, Postclassic Noir, and Postmodernism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. Sexing the Paradigm: Women and Men in Noir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
3. Racing the Paradigm: The Whiteness of Film Noir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Part 2: Prototypes in Classic Noir
4. The Killers (1946): Quintessential Noir? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
5. Out of the Past (1947): Passive Masculinity and Active Femininities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
6. Kiss Me Deadly (1955): Apocalyptic Femmes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Part 3: Return of the Repressed in Retro-Noir
7. L.A. Confidential (1997) and Casablanca (1942): Does Anything Change as Time Goes By? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
8. Mulholland Falls (1996): Nuclear Noir as Numbskull Noir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
9. Fight Club (1999): Retro-Noir Masquerades as Neo-Noir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Part 4: Revision of the Repressed in Neo-Noir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
10. Twilight (1998): Age, Beauty, and Star Power—Survival of the Fittest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
11. Fargo (1996): A Woman Who Is Not Herself Mean— Snow-swept Highways and Margie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
12. Jackie Brown (1997): Gender, Race, Class, and Genre Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
Conclusion. Doing It for bell: Cultural Criticism and Social Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 202

eBook

Published: March 6, 2009
ISBN: 9780292796843