Female characters as neurotic male projections in Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and Francois Truffaut's "La Sirène du Mississippi"

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Würzburg (Neuphilologisches Institut), language: English, abstract: This paper will try to illustrate the basic concepts of negative femininity and positive

masculinity in film noir created by the male gaze. By making use of feminist film

theory and especially Laura Mulvey¿s essay ¿Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinemä

(1975), Alfred Hitchcock¿s acclaimed film noir Vertigo (1958) will be compared to

François Truffaut¿s very own version of a film noir, La Siréne du Mississippi3 (1969).

The focus of the comparison will lie on the display of misogyny in order to hold up male

hegemony and hide male neurosis and dependency.