Heroes And Femme Fatales In Film Noir

There are many factors that make up a film noir, be it setting, props or lighting, but one of the features that jumps out most is the sheer flaws in the characters that are in them. In many films today the characters are too polished, either good or bad, when in reality dealing with dark situations like the scenarios in film noir can give anyone two sides to their moral psyche. It is this edginess and unpredictability that make the characters in film noir so memorable and interesting to watch.
The male heroes in film noir are almost always flawed in some way, they often display connotations of alienation and moral ambiguity often because of the events that they experience or have experienced in the film. Some of the examples these flawed heroes are characters like Walter Neff from Double Indemnity, although this character is the hero of this film noir we find out that he has helped kill the husband of the woman he is having an affair with to claim his accident insurance money. When we think of heroes and protagonists in film noir we strong images come to mind, they are usually seen in suave suits and jackets and often portrayed with cigarettes which have more metaphorical connotations with the idea of anti-heroism because they are classy yet destructive.


We can see from Double Indemnity that the situation to cause Walter Neff to turn to the dark side was a woman; this is true to many films and especially with film noir. The seductive yet destructive women seen in film noir are known as femme fatales; the phrase itself comes from France and means literally a fatale woman. A femme fatale is a woman of great seductive charm who leads men into compromising or dangerous situations. The femme fatale in Double Indemnity is called Phyllis Dietrichson; her raw seductive charm affects Walter Neff in such a way that he is compelled to join her in the act of killing her husband. Femme fatales in general are pictured to be very sexually attractive and in film noir you will see them depressed stereotypically in 40’s and early 50’s clothing styles as this was the time period that classic film noir was filmed in. The way that the heroes and femme fatales of film noir perceive the dark situations give the film a afar more edgy appeal, they allow the story line to be dark and twisted while maintaining the classy slickness that everyone associates the films with.