Film Noir and the Femme Fatale

            Federico Fellini’s classic Italian film, 8 ½ (1963), can be analyzed through a multitude of frameworks, but feminist theory incites the viewer to consider “how different groups of people are represented in cinema” (Gray 2010:70) and the film’s portrayal of women demands scrutiny. The film is composed of sequences of fantasy, memory, and reality, and in all three, the protagonist, Guido (a semi-autobiographical depiction of the film’s director), has an objectifying perspective on women. Feminist theory “means an understanding of patriarchy as oppressive” (Mayne 1985:83) and yet contrary to this the sheer number of women in his life is alarming: Not only is there his wife, Luisa, but also his mistress, Carla, a mysterious actress he regards as his salvation, Claudia, and a prostitute from his boyhood who appears in the film through scenes taken from Guido’s flashbacks and fantasies, not to mention the hoards of other women he seems constantly to be surrounded by.

            When applying the Bechdel Test to 8 ½, the film easily passes certain questions, such as, “are there two or more women in it who have names?” There are many named women, however all of them are solely concerned with men, and many are connected to Guido either romantically or sexually. While Guido prepares to shoot his latest film, he solicits his glamorous mistress, Carla, to come join him and he arranges for her to stay in a hotel room nearby. Not long after, he phones his wife, Luisa, and suggests she join him on his film shoot as well. At first she doubts his sincerity and his practicality, but she does eventually succumb to his charm, though she is disillusioned when she does arrive. He is attracted one, loves the other, and understands neither. As one theorist contends, the genre of film noir is frequently concerned “with evil and corruption, and its use of two women – one sexual and treacherous, the other chaste and good – to symbolize a male hero's conflict has been identified by feminist critics as a virgin/whore dichotomy characteristic of women's general representation in classical cinema” (Mayne 1985:87). 8 ½ embodies this perfectly: When Guido and Luisa have lunch in a café toward the end of the film, she notices Carla looking Guido’s way, dressed in all her typical (and slightly ridiculous) finery, when becomes aware this must be his mistress. He denies it, but she counters that she is bored of being lied to and says to him, “How sad to play the bourgeois wife who doesn’t understand.”

            As each woman vies for his affection, Guido’s attention is turned elsewhere, and this is demonstrated best in the harem scene. In his fantasy, Guido is the sole male amidst around fifteen women who include the earlier mentioned prostitute, wife, and mistress, as well as several actresses, a friend’s young girlfriend, and even a showgirl. Each woman’s fate is determined by her age: once she reaches age 26, she is sent to the ominous “upstairs”, away from Guido and the other women. When there is a small revolt in response to one woman’s having reached her expiry date, Guido breaks out a whip akin to one a lion-tamer might use at an old-fashioned circus and terrifies the women into docility. Afterwards, the women and Guido reconcile, and they feed him, bathe him, and scrub the harem’s floors. To any feminist, this depiction of women is an absolute abomination.

            From a feminist perspective, 8 ½’s most fascinating character is La Saraghina, the prostitute the audience is first introduced to during one of Guido’s flashbacks that is melded with fantasy. In the flashback, Guido is portrayed as a young boy who ditches class in order to go to the beach to watch La Saraghina. In prior analyses, it has been said that “the feminist determination [is] to view her as blatant proof of Fellini’s misogyny” (Marcus 2004:222). She emerges from a cave-like dwelling in the sand, and the boys call out to her, asking her to dance the rumba. Portrayed as a “grotesque visual object” (Marcus 2004:227), La Saraghina is initially revealed through a series of close-up shots that focus only on her body. The viewer sees her, in the flashback-fantasy from the perspective of the young Guido, and thus as the ultimate example of subversive feminity and sexuality. The scene is almost disturbing in its depiction of the woman, as though she is not quite human; Fellini “does indeed exploit her monstrosity” (Marcus 2004:223) which invites questions so as to why the woman is so demonized. Later on, a cardinal of the Catholic Church later scolds the young Guido for interacting with the devil incarnate, leaving viewers with any respect for women with a bitter taste in their mouths.

(Video from YouTube user Marrhumbatanik)