Petra Nolan

Hardboiled Heroes, Deadly Dames Petra Nolan

The hardboiled hero and his adversary, the femme fatale, are central tropes in the classic Hollywood films noirs produced in the 1940s. Existing studies of these iconic figures often see them as articulations of a specifically mid-twentieth century mood of anxiety. This book develops a more diachronic and multidisciplinary approach, offering a socio-historical contextualisation reaching back to the advent of modernity in the nineteenth century. By exploring several modernist discourses, this study genealogically connects noir's hero to the fl¿neur, a figure emerging a century earlier as a critical metaphor for the modern subject. Similarly, the deadly dame of noir is revealed to be the cinematic rendition par excellence of the artificial yet highly desirable new woman of the fin-de-si¿cle. Close analysis of Billy Wilder's 1944 masterpiece Double Indemnity forms the foundation of this study, with other 1940s films noirs also discussed. This book provides a fresh, innovative way to approach the noir canon, and to better understand the historical forces that govern it. Moreover, it proposes a template for those wishing to analyse other film styles using the broader matrix of modernity.