The Chaotic Femme Fatale and the Stable Detective

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Recommended: Evolution of film noir

In Classical Hollywood Cinema, the plot moves forward mostly by the conflict between order and chaos. This is the case for most of the Film Noir movies, a popular genre that started in the 1940s. In The Big Sleep (1946) and Chinatown (1976), the two main characters, private investigators, are associated with order while all of the “femme fatale” characters bring chaos to the narrative of the films.
Just like all of the Film Noir movies, The Big Sleep and Chinatown starts with a sense of balance. Everything is in order, until something bad happens: a death. At the end, the private detectives finds the murderer and the balance and order are brought back. But what happens in between this? The “Femme fatale” will add chaos and make the investigation go slower than it should. In Classical Hollywood Cinema, the main character motivates the action through their goals and desires: the quest and the heterosexual romance. But how can a romance between the main character and a “femme fatale” bring chaos in the story? The classic femme fatale in film noir has many qualities: manipulative, liar...

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