The Long Road: The Shape of Perspective in Where Danger Lives

Detours, episode 4
The Long Road: The Shape of Perspective in Where Danger Lives
Stephen Broomer, October 4, 2021

The femme fatale may emit darkness, or she may simply occupy a world of shadows; she is as much a reflection of the trauma and pain of a woman in a man’s world as she is an icon of the potential danger of a woman who is empowered, self-assured, equal to man in her strength and in her capacity for violence and deception. She is a creature of the shadows, but she is also distinguished by her agency. The ways in which women are represented in film noir always interact with a ruling masculine order: the femme fatales are a contradiction to male power, trust and instinct, while the good girls are a patriarchal ideal. These performed gender roles broadcast a great deal about the dubious, chaotic illusions and self-delusions at play in their world. In this video essay, Stephen Broomer discusses the ways in which the archetypes of the femme fatale and the good girl are represented, and the ways in which a fractured perspective deceives, in John Farrow's Where Danger Lives (RKO, 1950), a harrowing journey undertaken by desperate lovers, fleeing the scene of her husband's death, from California to the Mexican border.