From the beginning I had a difficult time coming up with an artifact that was culturally significant and that I wanted to spend an entire semester studying. I'm blaming the looming idea of a whole semester, which really started my anxiety for the project. In the end I settled for looking at Film Noir and the femme fatale aspect that is a major signature of the genre.
The review was interesting because it did allow me to look closer at my project and how I was really going to begin the research process. I spent a great deal of time JSTOR-ing and digging up what film peeps had said. I realized that just saying I am going to be researching the femme fatale's of Noir is a pretty large idea. There is just so information out there that I've become pretty overwhelmed. Where do I begin? How am I going to sort through this information to narrow down my focus? Was this topic really a good idea? Etc, etc, etc.
There is also this little problem that arrises when getting background info on anything, reliability of source. In my case, the Noir timeline. Scholars seems to bicker back and forth over whether the Noir movement ever ended. Some say from 1941 to 1958 was it, while others are saying that films of today are quintessentially Noir and therefore the genre can't be boxed within two specific dates. And there's also the femininity and masculinity issues, which are over the top in many of the journal pieces I've read.
I am wondering if I should look into the timeline aspect and take a couple films from the original movement juxtaposed against today's Noir-esque cinema...Or should I not focus so acutely on the femme fatale, but instead on the period and the transference of stereotypical gender roles from male to female characters?
Basically this review of the artifact has opened up far too many options and ideas and questions... I just don't know how I'm going to narrow everything down.
I think you have a really interesting idea; you just need to narrow it down. The idea of noir films is fascinating, and there's definitely a lot of stuff that you could write about, but I think it would make your life a lot easier if you chose one movie - or maybe two movies by the same filmmaker. I liked your idea earlier about A Clockwork Orange - see what you can do with that, maybe!
ReplyDeleteSo, I agree with Courtney on this one––narrow it down to like a few movies or one or two directors. Also, if you haven’t emailed Jill Newby the librarian yet, do so. Really. She is amazing. She has basically given new life to my research project and it would simply not be right if I didn’t give her credit.
ReplyDeleteSo email her. And then, I don’t know if this is a possibility, but is there someone in our school of Media Arts who has some expertise in the Film Noir genre? Could they possibly help you narrow your search? Maybe a professor could give you some good leads/ideas. I don’t know.
Also, did you find a specifically Film-Noir academic journal?