Film Noir: Character Profiles

Main Male Character:
The audience relates to this character as the anti-hero. The character usually lack courage, grace and honour not to mention a sense of morality. The anti-hero can be tough yet sympathetic, or display vulnerable and weak traits. In most examples of the films, the 'Femme Fatale' is the character that brings out the dishonesty which was perhaps previously disguised as honesty and pulls them to their most likely dark death or 'doom'.

Femme Fatale:
The femme fatale is in most scenarios a cruel woman who uses the main male character to achieve her goals. The males are usually unable to refuse her, therefore making her 'fatal'. She usually has the idea in the males head that they will spend their lives together after he has done what he needs to do for her, but in most cases either dies or gets caught out.
Famous Noir femme fatales include Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity) who we would like to base our character 'Bonnie Kensington' on, Rita Hayworth (Gilda) and Lana Turner (The Postman Always Rings Twice). Sometimes the roles reverse and the female is the innocent whilst the male is evil, like in 'Gaslight' with Ingrid Bergman. The femme fatale is not always the only woman in the main characters love life. There is often a rivalry between the evil femme fatale with an innocent lady who only wants what is right for the male. The Femme Fatale wins every time.
Archetypes of film noir women:

Innocent women:

• dutiful


• reliable


• trustworthy


• pretty


• pure


• Femmes fatales


• mysterious


• duplicitous


• gorgeous


• predatory


• manipulative

Secondary male character:
These usually appear as a rival to the male protagonist and most of the time are rivalling for the femme fatale, however on occasions they can be rivalling for recognition or victory on the same side (e.g solving a murder first and perhaps killing on the way)

Secondary female character:
This character is usually completely innocent and is designed to create juxtaposition with the femme fatale. The male protagonist sometimes will fall victim to the fatale and this character deters him and somemtimes he falls in love with her - her innocence against the fatale's is what usually attracts the men to her. Of course in the era the men were feeling weak and failing so the innocent, gentle nature of this character provides them with the opportunity to be masculin again.

The femme fatale is usually the reason that both of herself and the main male character fall into their doom, and of course her menacing ways get her there, and his stupidity in ambition of their relationship puts him there too.

By making the male a detective it creates irony - they are supposed to help solve crimes, not commit them or indeed help a femme fatale commit one.
Noir heroes are irresponsible people who are never ever portrayed as perfect in these films, reflecting the time period they were made in, and of course reflecting on the broken, decietful characters of the men who returned from the war.