The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts

These essays trace the femme fatale across literature, visual culture and cinema, exploring the ways in which fatal femininity has been imagined in different cultural contexts and historical epochs, and moving from mythical women such as Eve, Medusa and the Sirens via historical figures such as Mata Hari to fatal women in contemporary cinema.

These essays trace the femme fatale across literature, visual culture and cinema, exploring the ways in which fatal femininity has been imagined in different cultural contexts and historical epochs, and moving from mythical women such as Eve, Medusa and the Sirens via historical figures such as Mata Hari to fatal women in contemporary cinema.

List of Illustrations Introduction: 'Cherchez la femme '; H.Hanson & C.O'Rawe Ecoutez la Femme : Hear/Here Difference; G.Pollock   PART ONE: LITERARY AND VISUAL ARCHETYPES  The Mother of All Femmes Fatales : Eve as Temptress in Genesis 3;  K.Edwards  Challenging the Stereotype: The Femme Fatale in Fin-de-Siecle Art and Early Cinema; J.Sully   Silent Divas: The Femmes Fatales of the Italian Cinema muto; J.Ramirez  You'll be the Death of Me: Mata Hari and the Myth of the Femme Fatale; R.White   PART TWO: FILM STARS  Diabolically Clever - Clouzot's French Noir Les Diaboliques (1954); S.Hayward  Fatal Femininity in Post-War British Film: Investigating the British Femme; M.Bell Put the Blame on…Mei: Zhang Ziyi and the Politics of Global Stardom; O.Kourelou Gender, Genre and Stardom: Fatality in Italian Neorealist Cinema; C.O'Rawe PART THREE: FEMME FATALES IN EUROPEAN AND WORLD CINEMAS  The Femme Fatale of Spanish Retro Noir : the Recuperation of a Repressed Voice; A.Davies Chiaroscuro : the Half-glimpsed Femme Fatale of Italian Film Noir; M.Wood A Myth is Born: The Femme Fatale in the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema; M.Rinka & J.Marambio PART FOUR: HOLLYWOOD 'I Can't Tell Anymore Whether You're Lying': Double Indemnity, Human Desire and the Narratology of Femmes Fatales; S.Neale 'Well, aren't we ambitious', or 'You've Made up Your Mind I'm Guilty': Reading Women as Wicked in American Film Noir; J.Grossman The Big Seduction: Feminist Film Criticism and the Femme Fatale; H.Hanson Notes Bibliography Index