A brief investigation into erotic thrillers and how the films discussed disrupt the genre. I discuss how erotic thrillers are typically heteronormative or at least perceived to be so, along with being viewed as very much a product of the 'male gaze' which I argue against in the show. I talk Vertigo a lot due to it being one of my favourite films, but also because eroticism and desire are overwhelming themes of Hitchcock's work; I often thing erotic thrillers are just post Hayes code uncensored film noirs/constant riffs off Hitchcock's oeuvre; it feels like almost all erotic thrillers have a trace of Vertigo in them. I also wanted to see if In the Cut or Bound managed to successfully subvert the conventions of the genre and if they challenged the heteronormativity of the mainstream erotic thriller.
Research Notes
Femme Fatale or Lesbian Femme: Bound in Sexual Difference by Chris Straayer
This essay I found in a book I have called Women in Film Noir, edited by E. Ann Kaplan. It's mainly useful in this show for understanding the femme fatale in film noirs and neo noirs 'as a site of gender and genre turbulence' and how Bound complicates this by making the femme fatale a lesbian femme and the male partner of the traditional noir duo a butch lesbian. Strayyer suggests that Bound 'pushes gender revisions further than it contemporaries' by parodying masculinity in the character of Ceaser and bringing pro-sex lesbian and lesbian feminism discourse into a public dialogue (this is in regards to Corky's character (the butch) questioning of Violet's (the femme) lesbianism due to her sleeping with men for work).
The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema by Linda Williams
- disrupts fantasies of romance in particular the casting of meg ryan which further disrupt romantic narratives
- wedding ring motif = death of self and marriage in is death
- In the Cut complicates rather than inverts
- examination of sexuality of private experience
- intentional muddling (not just the narrative but in the mise en scene and cinematography)
Vertigo (1958) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Body Double (1984) dir. Brian De Palma
Bound (1996) dir. Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
In The Cut (2003) dir. Jane Campion
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