Fritz Lang’s Film Noirs and Changing Concepts of Masculinity
The 1940s represented a time when masculine control of the world was coming undone. Men returning from war, the social paranoia of the emerging cold war and the perceived communist threat to America were all signifiers of a world where man is not as dominant as he once believed. Therefore, the masculine role was changing. When this changes the feminine roles change too. It was these social changes that led to the shaping of what we now know as Film Noir. The man losing control or giving up control is not an invention of film noir but it is a staple of the Film Noir protagonist. Fritz Lang’s Woman in the Window (1944) and his follow-up film Scarlet Street (1945) are excellent representations of the changes in masculinity in the 1940s. These two films starring Edward G. Robinson will be explored through this essay.
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