Easy Rider

Easy Rider was written by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Easy Rider was filmed on a very low budget of $555,000 and was directed by Dennis Hopper. That did not seem to matter because it took in over $60 million worldwide. The film was rated R and included things like violence, drugs, and sex. The film appealed to a teenage audience. The film used anamorphic images, shots filmed with a hand-held camera, and a hallucinatory dream sequence. Another reason why it was appealing to teens was the soundtrack. Some of the main characters were played by Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson. Music from The Band, The Byrds, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Steppenwolf, and others were used in this film. The heroes in this movie go looking for American and encounter things from hippie communes to small-town communities. They start out in Los Angeles and travel to New Orleans. Their journey turned out to be a failure. They searched and did not find what they were looking for. They idealized their journey and ended up not finding their Holy Grail. It was an anti-establishment type of film. This film showed the industry that films could still be good without having a huge budget to shoot a film.

Femme Fatale

A femme fatale is a woman that is very seductive who can lead men into compromising and dangerous situations. She is ofter alluring and mysterious. Femme fatale is french for "fatal woman." The pictures from http://moderntimes.com/palace/film_noir.html show that these woman are very beautiful and have a mysterious side to them. The way they dress is even seductive. The Belton text supports this description. The text says that the objective of females in film noir is to castrate or destroy the male hero. They were usually viewed as just things to men and sexual fantasies for them. They would take advantage of this and use it against the men to overpower them. Femme fatales use their seductive ways to ensnare men and manipulate them. The men think that they are romantically interested and that is exactly what a femme fatale wants them to think. A good example of a femme fatale would be Joan Bennett in Scarlet Street. A few others include Jean Simmons in Angel Face, Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, and Jane Greer in Out of the Past.