The Lethal Film Noir Femme Fatale : A Precursor to Bond Girls in James Bond Films

Abstract

Film noir as a film making style gained prominence in a post world war II world. The filming style of noir with its unique americanization became a force of sorts in the mid 1940’s and in much part of the post war booming decade of 50. One of the interesting contribution of film noir apart from aesthetics of visual and lighting techniques is the depiction of female characters which came to be known as femme fatale. Femme fatale in its synonyms and various contours came to be recognized as a character with its diabolical charm and fatal attraction became the reason for the ultimate demise of the male protagonist. The development of femme fatale chracters also paved way for future fetishization of female characters in cinema. The highly popular 007 Bond series is an excellent nursery of sorts where the female characters often found themselves to be either femme fatale or femme atrappe. The paper aims to establish some of the occurrences of this sort of character in Bond films and how their resemblance with the ones in the film noir era was an experiment in creating fierce female characters on the celluloid. The depiction and celluloid portrayal in a way helped establish and explore the various contours of female characters.