Projecting Trauma: The Femme Fatale in Weimar and Hollywood Film Noir

This article challenges recent scholarship on German exile directors by suggesting that the context of Weimar culture is relevant to understanding the work of these directors in Hollywood. I propose that film noir of the 1940s and 1950s conveys the crisis of male identity resulting from World War I by way of the femme fatale character. The paper begins with an examination of the traumatic conditions of post-war Weimar that constructed the woman as criminal and double and then proceeds to an analysis of filmic depictions of the femme fatale in Hollywood and Weimar. (BH)