“I never told you I was anything other than what I am – you just wanted to imagine that I was. » – Kathie Moffett (played by Jane Greer), Out of the Past (1947). Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, presents a quintessential example of the film noir femme fatale character, one who challenges the idealistic representation of the traditional woman; “Film noir creates this image of the strong, unrepressed woman, then attempts to contain it by destroying the femme fatale…” ​​Kathie Moffett, the femme fatale, is thus the archetypal image of this sexually motivated and independent woman. The essay Femme Fatale written by John Blaser, featured in the essay collection No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir, underlines this assertion. In Out of the Past, the intense sexual presence of the femme fatale, Kathie Moffett, attracts the The protagonist, Jeff Markham, becomes complicit in her mischievous plans by asserting his sexuality. In other words, the femme fatale refuses to define herself as a sexual object in this male-dominated world – instead she uses ...