Film Noir's Take on Femme Fatale in "Detour"

Typically, the female character in films who fills the stereotype of "femme fatale" serve to obstruct the protagonist from achieving his goal. She possesses a power role in which she strategically manipulates the protagonist and exploits his weaknesses. Her mysterious and seductive qualities make her a "siren" of cinema. Within Detour, Vera is the femme fatale character and certainly has all of those specific traits. But because Detour is a film noir, there is a twist to Vera's stereotype. The difference being that women with that manipulative power are considered to be attractive within the film noir style. She will be a tall slender women much like the dark city skylines that characterize most film noir. It is clear that Detour applies this twist on femme fatale because even though Al tries to resist Vera, he always ended up falling for her manipulative snares. She seduced Al until it was too late for him. 

Unit 3: "Freaks" Themes

1. Freaks has been considered a horror film, do you agree? Write an argument defending your choice.

- I much as I am aware of the horrific nature of some scenes within Freaks, but I do not agree that it truly is a horror film. Rather than a horror, I view the movie as a psychological thriller due to the fact that it emphasizes the psychology of the characters and their unstable emotional states. In order for it to have been a horror film, it would have had to target the audience's primal fears, which it did not. While past society may have had an underlying fear of the unknown, this film did not seek to terrorize the audience with that said fear. Instead, its intent was to unravel the "monstrous" stereotypes, fears, and mentalities that some may have against those who are physically deformed. Also, most true horror films have frequently repeated scenes of terror that are meant to elicit negative emotions from the viewers, but this film only contains one such scene. It could be much more accurately described as a psychological thriller due to the aspects of moral ambiguity and the complex and tortured relationships between the pathological characters.

Assignment 2: "Sherlock Jr." Comedy

The stunts and visual gags that Keaton employed in his film making for "Sherlock Dr." was pure genius and absolute beauty. There were two scenes that were so unpredictable and crazy that I could not help but laugh that the profound quality of the classic humor. One scene being when Keaton’s character leaping down from atop the building by grabbing onto a train traffic barrier and swinging down on it nonchalantly into the backseat of the antagonist’s vehicle without the driver even noticing. There is first of all something to be said about the pure creativity behind Keaton’s way of thinking with this stunt and then the execution is truly beyond me. Speaking of Keaton’s creativity, there is certainly something to say about his incredible escape from the Sheikh's “safe house” through the window. An odd circular object with a fabric of some sort inside was placed on the window frame so that when Keaton made a run for it and jumped through the window, the fabric instantly disguised him as some random street-walking stranger. It was completely unexpected and the stunt awed me with instant surprise. I believe that it’s needless to say that Keaton’s gags and stunts were entirely effective in every manner. In relation to contemporary comedy, Keaton’s works in stunts and gags match the clean innocent humor and good old fashion hilarity.

 The self-reflexive nature of Keaton’s work if tough to determine and yet it was still very real and prevalent. The only stand-out scene of Keaton’s self-reflexive technique was when he came out of himself into the dream when he fell asleep in the projection room. For me, the technique was too vague so it did not carry strong effectiveness with me. 

My Introduction Video

Hi!

Here's my first post to this blog, my Introductory Video all about me, my tastes in movies, etc. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQX49-By1Ng&feature=youtu.be

Thanks,
Drew Tobin