Violent Women in Contemporary Cinema

Violent women in cinema pose an exciting challenge to spectators, overturning ideas of 'typical' feminine subjectivity. This book explores the representation of homicidal women in contemporary art and independent cinema. Examining narrative, style and spectatorship, Loreck investigates the power of art cinema to depict transgressive femininity.

Violent men in film are usually received without comment, whereas violent women are suspect and thus the victims of a double standard. they are some of the most important works currently being created, and they deserve a wider audience. This thoughtful, well-written book gives them the deft and detailed consideration due them. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. (G. A. Foster, Choice, Vol. 54 (2), October, 2016)

Autorentext
Janice Loreck is a Teaching Associate in the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University.

Klappentext

Violent Women in Contemporary Cinema explores the representation of homicidal women in six contemporary films: Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009), Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001), Baise-moi (Coralie Thinh Thi and Virginie Despentes, 2000), Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994), Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2003) and The Reader (Stephen Daldry, 2008). Violent women in cinema pose an exciting challenge to viewerswhen women kill, they overturn cultural ideas of 'typical' feminine behaviour. Janice Loreck explores how cinema creatively depicts the violent woman in response to this challenge. Departing from earlier studies that focus on popular and exploitation cinema, the book takes a unique focus on violent women in art films and other critically-distinguished forms. It explores the appeal that the violent woman holds for spectators within this viewing context. Furthermore, the book also examines how cinema responds to the cultural construction of the violent woman as a conundrumand enigma.

Inhalt

Introduction

1. Horror, Hysteria and Female Malaise: Antichrist
2. Science, Sensation and the Woman as Monster: Trouble Every Day
3. Sex and Self-Expression: Fatal Women in Baise-moi
4. Romance and the Lesbian Couple: Heavenly Creatures
5. Film Biography and the Female Killer: Monster
6. Evincing the Interior: Violent Femininity in The Reader
   Conclusion