Europa
The film Europa by Lars Trier uses the film noir style to create an aesthetic of moral ambiguity, guilt, and innocence: the theme of the film is found in the overwhelming interplay of these three componentsmoral ambiguity, guilt, and innocence. Leo represents innocence and naivety. He is plunked into Germany in 1945 as though by the persuasive powers of narrative voice alone. The film is bookended by a hypnotic sequence, the first setting the viewer on a railroad track racing ahead into Europa; the second setting the viewer in the sinking sleeper with Leo as it fills with water and we are told that we will be dead by the count of 10. Trier as an auteur commands the narrative and the spectacle in this way: he is deliberately making a point about the complexities of the film noir tradition and how it raises such overwhelming questions. For a truly innocent character like Leo, the only logical outcome is that innocence will drown.
The priest tells Leo in the first part of the film that God is on both sides of the war and that the only thing God disapproves of is lukewarmnessi.e., an unwillingness to commit oneself. Leo is seduced by the femme fatale Katharina. She confesses that she is a former werewolf of the Germany Party, and it is quite...
…hand, he is dead, killed by Europas pushing and pulling in so many directions. On the other hand, in death he is freed from this push and pull. He is born away by the waters, which could represent some kind of spiritual solace, as water is something that cleanses, i.e., in baptism. Yet the narrators voice also disarmingly tells the viewer and Leo that one cannot wake up and be free of Europa. Is the voice of the narrator that of the devil? Is it some hateful voice that has seduced Leo from the beginning? These questions play into the moral ambiguity of the film and of the film noir genre in…
In the heist itself, time overlaps, and actions that have already been shown are repeated from another character's point-of-view. The audience is left to pout the pieces together so that we see a character do something and then se how it helps the next action lead to the desired conclusion. At the racetrack, with the announcement of the start of the fifth race, the film cuts to Johnny, in the
Film Noir Among the various styles of producing films, it has been observed the noir style is one that has come to be recognized for its uniqueness in characterization, camera work and striking dialogue. Film Noir of the 1940s and 50s were quite well-known for their feminine characters that were the protagonists, the femme fatale. This was most common with the French, later accepted in the United States. There might have
Take the movie the Maltese Falcon, for example. The character played by Humphrey Bogart is not driven by an idealistic approach, but by the financial motivations that different characters will offer him throughout the movie. At the same time, the main female character is usually the femme fatale type, dangerous, yet attractive, with whom the main male character tends to bond. This is not, however, the usual Hollywood type love
Film Noir The 1945 film "Mildred Pierce" is the epitome of film noir, complete with the femme fatale, theme of betrayal and hopelessness and use of flashbacks. While the 1954 "On the Waterfront" also uses the theme of betrayal and hopelessness, it breaks from the film noir genre, and rather than using flashbacks, it is told in present time and the use of the femme fatale is replaced by an unscrupulous
The fact that she flirts with gender roles and norms is equally as dangerous. For Corky, the danger is manifest in the potential betrayal and also in the eventual show down between the women and their male captors. Jessica is portrayed as a more passive figure, as a more classic pre-feminist femme fatale; whereas Violet is a more active figure, a true "postfeminist good-bad girl hybrid." Things happen to Jessica,
Film Noir / Cinema Architecture Perhaps one of the most fruitful ways in which to trace the evolution of Film Noir as a genre is to examine, from the genre's heyday to the present moment, the metamorphoses of one of film noir's most reliable tropes: the femme fatale. The notion of a woman who is fundamentally untrustworthy -- and possibly murderous -- is a constant within the genre, perhaps as a
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