FILM COSTUME - WOMEN IN FILM NOIR
series in 5 parts

1- Film, stars and the language of fashion

Shortly after World War II Hollywood’s darkest series of mainstream films came to Europe for the first time and received a fine-sounding name - Film Noir.
„The streets were dark with something more than night“, a gloomy Film Noir-feeling featured itself. Under the direction of Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak and others acted Raymond Chandler’s, Dashiell Hammett’s and James M. Cain’s hard-boiled private detectives and neurotic unscrupulous killers in the center of realistic outdoor-shots. There walked high-heeled sophisticated women in a self-confident way through the expressionistic game of light and shadow in a big-city jungle.

„Film Noir ... does give us one of the few periods of film in which women are active, not static symbol, are intelligent and powerful, if destructively so, and derive power, not weakness, from their sexuality“. - Janey Place. And once again the smell of desire, confusion and doom lies in the air. Notorious femme fatales, the magic BAD GIRL and the erotic GOOD BAD GIRL enthrall the typical anti-hero of the Film Noir in merciless ways - unlike the more modern emancipated types of women, MASCULINE FEMININE GIRL and INDEPENDENT GIRL. She’ s so smart in her new dress was the motto of the dream factory, not only in the moments of sensuality.

A war regulation of the US-government limited the costs of studio-fashion. Automatically, trends of everyday life-fashion moved into the film events of the 40ies. The new film costume ought to be as non-theatrical as possible, ready made and favourable. Now Edith Head, Jean Louis and other studio designers clothed the Hollywood superstars BARBARA STANWYCK, RITA HAYWORTH and JOAN CRAWFORD under the motto: „to dress her down“. The current broad-shouldered standard outfits: a dress or a waist-fitting jacket with skirt and blouse, brought the myth of the glamorous robes of the 30ies divas to an definitive end and established a new look in the motion picture - the semidocumentary film costume.

In 1948 for the first time Hollywood has placed an OSCAR for „costume design“ , but nevertheless the costume always remains a stepchild of film compared to direction, film script and camera. The problematic nature: film costume is mostly not observed consciously by the spectator, could be the reason that there are hardly analyses on this subject. However, an iconographic sign system conceals itself behind natural assignment of clothing - a language of fashion. The illusion creating quality of clothing is one of the most important aspects under which an analysis of film costume could be seen. Five of the most famous Film Noir movies supply the material for this research on film costume: DOUBLE INDEMNITY by Billy Wilder, MILDRED PIERCE by Michael Curtiz, GILDA by Charles Vidor, DARK PASSAGE by Delmer Daves and THE BLUE GARDENIA by Fritz Lang.

In order to reach more concrete statements, a structural analysis of costume is required: formulation of the individual components of a filming outfit in regard of: form (matrix 1) and material (matrix 2), distinguishing in each case: object, support and variant. (Roland Barthes, Systeme de la Mode)

Matrix 1 registers each individual garment (dress, jacket, skirt, trousers, coat, etc.) by means of the components feminine/masculine as object, condition as support (e.g. with or without neckline) and style as variant (wrapped or slitted e.g.). Besides sex specific affiliation emotional factors and characteristics are communicated in the film costume.

Matrix 2 registers particularly the textile structure: material as object (e.g. terry cloth or woolen cloth), colour as support (white, gray) and design as variant (e.g. with floral pattern or square, ruffles). It proved to be helpful to use connotations and interpretation possibilities of materials, colours and design of real clothing. Only the decoding of both of the matrix levels formulates concrete statement tendencies of the film costume, i.e. makes the dress-code readable.

In its appearance scene the BAD GIRL (Barbara Stanwyck) is seen on top of the staircase wrapped in a white towel. This costume can be analyzed as follows:

DOUBLE INDEMNITY Billy Wilder, 1944 Paramount, 106 min.

Matrix 1:	wrapped	dress	with neckline
	V	O	S
Matrix 2:	white	terry cloth	with floral motif
	S	O	V

Statement tendency:

Matrix 1:	femininity (O)
	accentuation of eroticism by off-the-shoulder neckline (S)
Matrix 2:	devotion (S)
	leisure (O)
	femininity (V)
Accessoires:	hair ribbon, sun glasses and slippers - leisure

Even the first costume communicates a lot of informations: this woman is super-feminine and very sexy. She has plenty of time, is disposable and bored, just ready for an affair with a man who steps into her house purely accidental.

How in the course of the film action style and fashion are able to create a second skin, how women are featured as monsters, as an erotic wish full thinking, or as a good fellow, and that in Film Noir even a woman dressed in innocent white can be fatal, you will get to know in the second part.

© Rosa Burger, MA 1997
Tel. +43 1 535 94 09
FILM COSTUME - WOMEN IN FILM NOIR
Master’s thesis, University of Vienna, 1993.

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