Classic French Noir: Gender and the cinema of fatal desire Event as iCalendar

(School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics)

07 May 2019

4:30 - 6pm

Venue: Pat Hanan Room, Te Puna Reo / Cultures, Languages and Linguistics Building (207-501)

Associate Professor Deborah Walker-Morrison | Book launch and discussion

French film noir has long been seen as a phenomenon distinct from its Hollywood counterpart. This book – an innovative departure from conventional noir scholarship – is described by distinguished professor of French, Richard Neupert, as “a fresh biocultural perspective” which “forces us to reassess many classical-era films, their transnational contexts, and especially their narrative functions in relation to gender, desire, and, of course, death."

Walker-Morrison addresses Gallic noir as a product of the social and cultural factors at play in occupied, liberated and post-war France (1944-59): marked by malaise at military defeat, Nazi collaboration and the impact of rapid industrialisation. Furthermore, the book looks beneath the national context to uncover the evolutionary mechanisms of sexuality and reproduction that drive gendered behaviour on screen.

The book focuses on the dangerous, often deadly, desires of an array of male and female character types: moving past the celebrated, fatal ‘femme’ to tragic heroines, psychopathic narcissists, fatal ‘hommes’ and gangster anti-heroes.