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Irving Rosenfeld, the con man running the great scam in "American Hustle," isn't, his mistress admits, much to look at. He has a belly the size of a beer keg and a torturously complicated comb-over that he arranges with the fastidiousness of a Michelin-starred pastry chef. Appearances are not everything to Irving ( Christian Bale), but rather just part of the swindle that is his life's work, his passion and genius. The confidence game is his honey pot: It's what lines his pockets, lights his fire and cigars, and has transformed the mistress, Sydney Prosser ( Amy Adams), into his equal in theft and dissimulation, making her the Rosalind Russell to his Cary Grant in a romp that's pure Scorsese screwball.

Only the director here is David O. Russell, who, more than any other contemporary American filmmaker, has reinvigorated screwball comedy, partly by insisting that men and women talk to one another. To that end, that chatter, written by Mr. Russell and Eric Warren Singer, is fast, dirty, intemperate, hilarious and largely in service to the art of the con, specifically the Abscam scandal that almost incidentally inspired the story. The real scandal dates back to 1978 and an F.B.I. investigation into political corruption that found agents posing as wealthy sheikhs anxious to buy off public officials. (Abscam was short for Arab scam, or the nominally less derogatory Abdul scam.) The swindle netted a trove of greasy-palmed politicians, but also charges of entrapment.

The movie tracks the scandal primarily from the points of view of Irving and Sydney, whose he-said, she-said voice-overs are interspersed with adenoidal dispatches from his stay-at-home wife, Rosalyn ( Jennifer Lawrence). After setting the contemporary scene, Mr. Russell cuts back to Irving's childhood, sketching in the con man's background with brief, funny scenes and a devil-may-care take on criminality that pointedly mirrors the trajectory of Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas." Like Paul Thomas Anderson, whose period bacchanal "Boogie Nights" also borrows from "GoodFellas," Mr. Russell is a cinematic Son of Scorsese. Yet while his swooping cameras and motor-mouth characters follow in the virtuosic wake of Mr. Scorsese, they're equally beholden to Mr. Scorsese's own influences, including the Golden Hollywood likes of the director Raoul Walsh.

Mr. Scorsese once called Walsh's 1939 post-World-War-I crime film, " The Roaring Twenties," a "twisted Horatio Alger story," a thumbnail description that also fits "American Hustle." Corrupt politicos and a federal Venus' flytrap give the movie a veneer of topicality, and there's plenty in it that matches up with the historical record, including the role played by Irving's true-crime counterpart, a Bronx-born swindler named Mel Weinberg. Even so, Mr. Russell doesn't seem all that interested in veracity, and the movie opens with a playful assurance that "some of this actually happened," a declaration that feels calculated to block off-point objections that some of it didn't happen. Details have been changed, and everyone, as is often the case in movies, looks younger and prettier, less lumpy and beaten down by life than the original players, even Irving and his magnificently tragic, trumped-up hair.

The attention that Irving bestows on his mop - the movie opens with him whipping it up into a spritzed froth - is emblematic of a life lived as a masquerade. There was something about him, Sydney says in voice-over, "he had this confidence that drew me to him." A classic type as essential to the American Dream as Horatio Alger, if one who's ditched honor in favor of hustling, Irving doesn't pull himself up by his own bootstraps; instead, he steals the boots off some stooge and then sells them back to their original owner at twice the price. He dwells in that shady space between faith and doubt, between our divinely given, legally sanctioned national confidence (" In God We Trust ") and the deep, routinely vindicated recognition that it's all a con. (Never give a sucker an even break.)

Once Irving's and Sydney's back stories are set in place, the movie is off and running. The two join forces personally and professionally after meeting at a party where Irving - resplendent in swimming trunks, gold chains nestling in a thatch of chest fur and a stomach that suggests he's far into his third trimester - works his magic. Mutually smitten, they begin swindling desperate people who, unable to secure legitimate bank loans, hand over wads of cash in hopes of receiving bigger advances. One mark turns out to be an F.B.I. agent, Richie DiMaso ( Bradley Cooper, very good), who uses them to run a bigger con, one he hopes will bag politicians like a New Jersey mayor, Carmine Polito ( Jeremy Renner, excellent), whose decency is tested by his ambitions.

Mr. Bale has long been a great actor, if not an especially likable screen presence - in this, he's the opposite of Ms. Adams and Ms. Lawrence, who are both talented and appealing - and he's leaned toward cool, even cold characters, mask or no mask. It's a pleasure to see him warm up, soften up, not only because he looks as if he were having a good time, but also because he's extraordinary here. In the past, his performances have occasionally felt like a begrudgingly presented gift to the audience, as he offered us his technique while keeping the more recognizably human part of himself out of reach. Maybe Mr. Russell, who directed Mr. Bale in "The Fighter," wore him down.

Or perhaps Mr. Bale found pathos in Irving and dignity in this small, striving, vulgar man's life. Whatever the reasons, Mr. Bale, like some other stars who embrace playing ugly, feels as if he'd been liberated by all the pounds he's packed on and by his character's molting looks, an emancipation that's most evident in his delicately intimate, moving moments with Ms. Adams and Ms. Lawrence. Hilarious and brassy, by turns reminiscent of Jean Harlow and Judy Holliday, Ms. Lawrence is a bountiful delight even in a smallish role, partly because of her magnetism and partly because Mr. Russell is one of the few American male directors working today who's as interested in women as he is in men. This may be about a famous federal sting, but, like all of his movies, it's also a love story (or two).

As Irving's other better half, Ms. Adams, a virtuoso of perkiness, goes deeper here than she's ever been allowed to. She showed an indelibly darker, more dangerous side in a supporting role in Mr. Anderson's "Master," playing Lady Macbeth to a cult leader; she has a lot more to do in "American Hustle." Like Irving, Sydney is a self-invention, one containing multitudes, from the former stripper she starts off as, to the elegant British noblewoman she pretends to be for the couple's loan scams. With her bright eyes and alabaster gleam, Ms. Adams can look like a porcelain doll, a deceptive mien that helps complicate Sydney and turns an unpredictable character into a thrillingly wild one, whose ordinary scream is the howl of a wolf.

"American Hustle" giddily embraces the excesses of its era, from spandex to 'staches, though it's a farce that speaks as well to this tarnished age. Some of its extravagances are purely decorative, and the costume and production designers, along with the hairstylist, must have had a blast. But all the shiny surfaces, the glitter ball and the gaudiness, also suggest a world in which everyone is anxious to shake off the post-Vietnam War, post-Watergate funk. The ghost of Richard M. Nixon hovers in the air; everyone is a fake and everyone wears a mask, even Richie, the F.B.I. agent with the Chia Pet perm. And then there's Irving and Sydney. "We've got to get over on all these guys," she tells him, when the scam seems to be going south. They may have to do the hustle but they'll be doing it together.
"American Hustle" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Corrupt politicians.

Director David O. Russell

Writers Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell

Stars Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro

Rating R

Running Time 2h 18m

Genres Crime, Drama

Movie data powered by IMDb.com
Last updated: Nov 2, 2017

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'American Hustle,' With Christian Bale and Amy Adams

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Irving Rosenfeld, the con man running the great scam in "American Hustle," isn't, his mistress admits, much to look at. He has a belly the size of a beer keg and a torturously complicated comb-over that he arranges with the fastidiousness of a Michelin-starred pastry chef.

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Mythology, propaganda, Liz Taylor and the real Queen of the Nile

smithsonian.com

The struggle with her teenage brother over the throne of Egypt was not going as well as Cleopatra VII had hoped. In 49 B.C., Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII-also her husband and, by the terms of their father's will, her co-ruler-had driven his sister from the palace at Alexandria after Cleopatra attempted to make herself the sole sovereign. The queen, then in her early twenties, fled to Syria and returned with a mercenary army, setting up camp just outside the capital.

Meanwhile, pursuing a military rival who had fled to Egypt, the Roman general Julius Caesar arrived at Alexandria in the summer of 48 B.C., and found himself drawn into the Egyptian family feud. For decades Egypt had been a subservient ally to Rome, and preserving the stability of the Nile Valley, with its great agricultural wealth, was in Rome's economic interest. Caesar took up residence at Alexandria's royal palace and summoned the warring siblings for a peace conference, which he planned to arbitrate. But Ptolemy XIII's forces barred the return of the king's sister to Alexandria. Aware that Caesar's diplomatic intervention could help her regain the throne, Cleopatra hatched a scheme to sneak herself into the palace for an audience with Caesar. She persuaded her servant Apollodoros to wrap her in a carpet (or, according to some sources, a sack used for storing bedclothes), which he then presented to the 52-year old Roman.

The image of young Cleopatra tumbling out of an unfurled carpet has been dramatized in nearly every film about her, from the silent era to a 1999 TV miniseries, but it was also a key scene in the real Cleopatra's staging of her own life. "She was clearly using all her talents from the moment she arrived on the world stage before Caesar," says Egyptologist Joann Fletcher, author of a forthcoming biography, Cleopatra the Great.

Like most monarchs of her time, Cleopatra saw herself as divine; from birth she and other members of her family were declared to be gods and goddesses. Highly image-conscious, Cleopatra maintained her mystique through shows of splendor, identifying herself with the deities Isis and Aphrodite, and in effect creating much of the mythology that surrounds her to this day. Though Hollywood versions of her story are jam-packed with anachronisms, embellishments, exaggerations and inaccuracies, the Cleopatras of Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh and Claudette Colbert do share with the real queen a love of pageantry. "Cleopatra was a mistress of disguise and costume," says Fletcher. "She could reinvent herself to suit the occasion, and I think that's a mark of the consummate politician."

When Cleopatra emerged from the carpet-probably somewhat disheveled, but dressed in her best finery-and begged Caesar for aid, the gesture won over Rome's future dictator-for-life. With his help Cleopatra regained Egypt's throne. Ptolemy XIII rebelled against the armistice that Caesar had imposed, but in the ensuing civil war he drowned in the Nile, leaving Cleopatra safely in power.

Though Cleopatra bore him a son, Caesar was already married, and Egyptian custom decreed that Cleopatra marry her remaining brother, Ptolemy XIV. Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., and with her ally gone Cleopatra had Ptolemy XIV killed to prevent any challenges to her son's succession. To solidify her grip on the throne, she dispatched her rebellious sister Arsinoe as well. Such ruthlessness was not only a common feature of Egyptian dynastic politics in Cleopatra's day, it was necessary to ensure her own survival and that of her son. With all domestic threats removed, Cleopatra set about the business of ruling Egypt, the richest nation in the Mediterranean world, and the last to remain independent of Rome.

What kind of pharaoh was Cleopatra? The few remaining contemporary Egyptian sources suggest that she was very popular among her own people. Egypt's Alexandria-based rulers, including Cleopatra, were ethnically Greek, descended from Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy I Soter. They would have spoken Greek and observed Greek customs, separating themselves from the ethnically Egyptian majority. But unlike her forebears, Cleopatra actually bothered to learn the Egyptian language. For Egyptian audiences, she commissioned portraits of herself in the traditional Egyptian style. In one papyrus dated to 35 B.C. Cleopatra is called Philopatris, "she who loves her country." By identifying herself as a truly Egyptian pharaoh, Cleopatra used patriotism to cement her position.

Cleopatra's foreign policy goal, in addition to preserving her personal power, was to maintain Egypt's independence from the rapidly expanding Roman Empire. By trading with Eastern nations-Arabia and possibly as far away as India-she built up Egypt's economy, bolstering her country's status as a world power. By allying herself with Roman general Mark Antony, Cleopatra hoped to keep Octavian, Julius Caesar's heir and Antony's rival, from making Egypt a vassal to Rome. Ancient sources make it clear that Cleopatra and Antony did love each other and that Cleopatra bore Antony three children; still, the relationship was also very useful to an Egyptian queen who wished to expand and protect her empire.

Though some modern historians have portrayed Cleopatra as a capable, popular Egyptian leader, we tend to imagine her through Roman eyes. During her lifetime and in the century after her death, Roman propaganda, most of it originating with her enemy Octavian, painted Cleopatra as a dangerous harlot who employed sex, witchcraft and cunning as she grasped for power beyond what was proper for a woman. The poet Horace, writing in the late first century B.C., called her "A crazy queen...plotting...to demolish the Capitol and topple the [Roman] Empire." Nearly a century later, the Roman poet Lucan labeled her "the shame of Egypt, the lascivious fury who was to become the bane of Rome."

After Roman tempers cooled, the Greek historian Plutarch published a more sympathetic biography. Cleopatra became a tragic heroine, with love of Antony her sole motivation. Over the next two millennia, countless paintings and dramatizations-including Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and John Dryden's All for Love -focused on the fantastic details of her suicide after Octavian defeated Antony. We know almost certainly that Cleopatra, along with her two most trusted servants, killed herself on August 12, 30 B.C., to escape capture by Octavian. However, since the facts of her death were unclear even to the men who found the bodies, we will never know if it was the famous asp that killed the queen, or a smuggled vial of poison. The asp legend has prevailed, however, and the image of her death, more than anything else, gave Cleopatra immortality.

In February 2007, a recently discovered coin bearing a portrait of Cleopatra went on display at Newcastle University in England, sparking renewed interest in the queen and a debate about whether she was really as beautiful as we imagine. The coin, dated to 32 B.C., shows a rather homely Cleopatra with a large nose, narrow lips and a sharp chin. She looks nothing like Elizabeth Taylor. But ancient historians never characterized Cleopatra as a great beauty, and in her time she was not considered a romantic heroine. In his A.D. 75 Life of Antony, Plutarch tells us, "Her actual beauty...was not so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence...was irresistible.... The character that attended all she said or did was something bewitching."

Cleopatra's beauty (or lack thereof) was irrelevant to the Romans who knew her and the Egyptian people she ruled. The real Cleopatra had charisma, and her sexiness stemmed from her intelligence-what Plutarch described as "the charm of her conversation"-rather than her kohl-rimmed eyes. Pharaoh Cleopatra VII was a brilliant leader, says Joann Fletcher. "She was one of the most dynamic figures the world has ever seen. And I don't think that's an exaggeration."

About Amy Crawford

Amy Crawford is a Michigan-based freelance journalist writing about cities, science, the environment, art and education. A longtime Smithsonian contributor, her work also appears in CityLab and the Boston Globe.

Read more from this author | Follow @amymcrawf

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smithsonian.com The struggle with her teenage brother over the throne of Egypt was not going as well as Cleopatra VII had hoped. In 49 B.C., Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII-also her husband and, by the terms of their father's will, her co-ruler-had driven his sister from the palace at Alexandria after Cleopatra attempted to make herself the sole sovereign.

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Discover facts about the Egyptian ruler, Cleopatra who is celebrated for her beauty and love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

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Lady Macbeth Macbeth

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The archetype of the Femme Fatale and her role in literature or films has not changed overtime; this is proved with the examples of Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, and Sydney Prosser

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Margaery Tyrell

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I really like your examples so far. I recommend using Margaery Tyrell from Game of Thrones. Margaery, uses her innocent look to get the upper-hand on men. She plays the innocent, weak girl, but really, she is cunning and deadly.

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Nancy Botwin Weeds

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Charlie's Angels

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Black Widow The Avengers

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I really like the examples from Gossip Girl and 90210 because they are perfect examples of a Femme Fatale.  Nancy Botwin from Weeds is a great example that you may want to consider because she uses her looks to charm and deceive all the men in her life.

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Sydney Prosser

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Georgina Sparks Gossip Girl

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I love the layout of your wall, it really reflects the tone of your archetype. I would label and explain the examples, so people have a clearer understanding of what you are presenting.

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I love all the examples you have so far but I think a really great example you could add would be the black widow spider, which is known for "Females sometimes kill and eat their counterparts after mating in a macabre behavior that gave the insect its name." according to national geographic. Although this example is non-fictional, there are many portrayals of the black window in several movies like in the Avengers.

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Your wall is really good, but you should label

the pictures. Also maybe add a few videos!

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Your ideas look great, though I would add labels just in case others aren't really familiar with them. Also, you could probably add the Black Widow from The Avengers, or the girls from Charlie's Angels.

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Your wall looks really good so far. You have a lot of good examples. I would just label some of the photos that aren't as recognizable so people know who they are. You should also add your thesis.

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Sydney Prosser

American Hustle

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Adrianna Tate-Duncan 90210

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Naiomi Clark

90210

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Cleopatra

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Rita Hayworth

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Catwoman

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Eva Green

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The femme fatale "is fabricated, reconstructed in, and apparently necessary to, the cultural expressions of the...century. She is a powerful and threatening figure, bearing sexuality that is perceived to be rapacious, or fatal to her male partners...she can be a prostititue, man-hunting aristrocat, vampire, African queen, native (black) woman or murderess. She crosses boundaries of class and race" (Stott Fabrication viii)

"the femme fatale comes in many guises, but she is always Other. She is always outside, either literally or metaphorically, for as sexually fatal women she represents chaos, darkness, death, all that lies beyond the safe, the known, and the normal. In effect, the major common feature of the femme fatale is that of positionality: she is a multiple sign singuralised by her postiiton of Otherness" Stott 37-38)

The figure of the femme fatale, or a woman who is dangerous for and even lethal to a man, has been a consistent staple of the culture surrounding the notions of femininity since the time of Ishtar. She has the ability to strike fear in the hearts of men through time and culture. She can come in many forms, but in the core she poses a threat to a patriarchal system. The femme fatale has not failed to capture the imaginations of popular literature and film. Throughout both mediums, much of the same themes make themselves known. A closer examination of the femme fatale in film shows us that although cultures shift and ideas and technologies change, the femme fatale still lurks in the shadows and can even be made into a Hollywood star.

However, it shouldn't go unnoticed that the ability to present these dangerous vixens didn't happen without a fair share of fighting and overcoming obstacles-namely in the form of the Motion Picture Production Code. This Code that affected films created in Hollywood from 1930 to 1968 had the intent of upholding "ideal" forms of sexuality, religion, familial relationships, and general morality. However, although the femme fatale went through a difficult time period in trying to get through the censors (because she doesn't fall into the model of housewife and mother the Code upheld)-the end result when she did make it through is all the more fascinating to watch! (Information from Mainon and Ursini)

Notable Femmes Fatales In Film:

(Information Gathered From Mainon and Ursini)
THEDA BARA (1855-1955): ("Arab Death" anagram)

"One of the first film actresses to take on the roles of cuch formidable literary and historical femmes fatales as Carmen, Camille, Salome, Madame Du Barry, and Cleopatra" (Mainon and Ursini 9)

Theda Bara was an American silent film actress and one of the most recognizable sex symbols in the 1920s. She was the first woman to be called "The Vamp" (as in Vampire), which is to this day a slang term for a predatory female. It is worthy to mention that "The Vamp" persona did not originate on its own, and that the Fox Film Company meticulously crafted their first real star as a notorious femme fatale. According to Fox, Theda Bara was born in the Sahara Desert to a French artist and Egyptian concubine.

Although much of Theda Bara's films have been lost, we are still in possession of her 1915 film A Fool There Was. In this film, Bara plays a character known simply as "The Vampire" which epitomizes the femme fatale. Upon first seeing "The Vampire," Bara's character's destructive and malicious nature comes to light. Here, she takes a rose in her hand only to take its head and rip it into pieces with pleasure.
A Fool There Was: The Vampire Sadistic Flower Scene
In the remainder of the film, The Vampire has three male victims who all suffer at the hands of this femme fatale. We are first introduced to a man who has become a vagabond, warning all men about her treachery. The second, is an alcoholic who shoots himself after The Vampire says "Kiss me, my fool."
Theda Bara: \"Kiss Me, My Fool\"
The third and final victim loses his career, family, and life because of his relationship with The Vampire. In the final scene, we see this man lying at The Vampire's feet while she spreads a flower's petals over his dead body.
Corpse and Flowers Scene, See 2:31-3:02
By the end of the film, the message to the audience became clear: "To get involved with a sexual woman was equivalent to death itself" (Dijkstra in Evil Sisters on A Fool There Was 11).

GRETA GARBO (1905-1990)

"the dream factory capitalized on that sensuality and produced yet another archetype of the American movies: the femme fatale as goddess, a superior being who men cannot resist adoring" (Mainon and Ursini 64)

Swedish actress Greta Garbo was one of Hollywood's greatest film stars of the late 1920s and 1930s. Garbo donned the role of the femme fatale in many films including The Temptress (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1926), Susan Lennox: Her Fall and Rise (1931), and Camille (1936).

The film that best typifies Greta Garbo's femme fatale status is MGM's 1931, Mata Hari. Mata Hari is known as the Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was female double agent in World War I. She is said to have been executed by the French for spying for the Germans, however the validity of these charges remains a mystery to this day. Mata Hari has been depicted as a femme fatale in various works of popular culture, including Garbo's film.

Towards the beginning of the film, we see Garbo as Mata Hari dancing erotically in front of a statue of Shiva. Here, she caresses the statues limbs passionately. The scene was deemed so erotic, the production company reduced the scene's length and cut the section where Garbo fully disrobes. It is in this erotic moment that Mata Hari meets her male victim in the film. Rosanoff, a young Russian soldier, is completely devoted to Garbo's character from this moment on. Garbo's status as a femme fatale and the victimization of Romanoff at her hands is best viewed in a scene involving an icon of the Madonna. In this section of the film, Mata spots the icon with jealousy as a rival goddess. She subsequently demands Romanoff to extinguish the icon's candle if he truly loves her, even though his mother had told him never to commit such an action. Romanoff initially resists, but once Mata refuses his advances, Romanoff quickly complies. This scene clearly depicts Garbo's success as a goddess-like femme fatale.
Garbo\'s Mata Hari and the Madonna HEDY LAMARR (1914-2000)
Hedy Lamarr, Austrian actress born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler to Jewish parents, was a dangerously seductive woman both in her film career and in her personal life. Throughout her lifetime, Lamarr had a total of six husbands, the first of which she left with "jewels in hand." A contract star for MGM, Lamarr was a major force during Hollywood's "Golden Age." Lamarr starred in her role as a femme fatale in various motion pictures including Ecstasy (1933), Boom Town (1940), White Cargo (1942), The Strange Woman (1946), and Samson and Delilah (1949).
Cecil B. DeMille\'s Samson and Delilah Trailer
Hedy Lamarr's most successful film, Samson and Delilah, tells the Biblical tale of an original femme fatale. In the Biblical narrative, Samson is a man who is protected by God and given superhuman strength. He then falls in love with a woman named Delilah, who has been paid by the Philistines to betray Samson and reveal the source of his great power. Delilah realizes that Samson's strength comes from his long locks, so she cuts Samson's hair and he is later captured by the Philistines. Delilah is an ultimate femme fatale in the Judeo-Christian Bible. Hedy Lamarr shines through her role as the seductress of Samson.

Hedy Lamarr as Femme Fatale: Samson and Delilah Scene

Although Samson and Delilah's success clearly marked the heights of Lamarr's stardom, her debut film Ecstasy surpassed all of her films in terms of its notoriety. Here, she plays a young woman named Eva who marries a rich older man who is unable to sexually gratify her lust. Eva leaves her husband and meets a younger man named Adam on a horse ranch. Adam first sees his Eva naked, and she subsequently beats him and slaps his face, only stimulating the young man more. Later in the film, there is a very graphic sex scene (for the 1930s) which is deemed one of the first orgasms ever to be seen in mainstream media. The filmmakers concentrate on Lamarr's facial expressions as her Adam performs oral sex on her. Because of Lamarr's sexual expressions, this film was censored and banned in various countries following its release.

Lamarr\'s Sex Scene in Ecstasy

ELIZABETH TAYLOR (1932-)

"Her dark beauty, her voluptuous figure, her emotional intensity, and her scandalous affairs and marriages [eight and counting] made her a worldwide star by the age of twenty-five" (Mainon and Ursini 203)

Elizabeth Taylor is one of the most famous and notable American stars of Hollywood's Golden Age and her immense popularity allowed her to choose her own roles, which often included the persona of the femme fatale. Taylor's femme fatale films include A Place in the Sun (1951), (1957), Raintree County (1958), (1963), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1966). Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

One of her most famous films, , illustrates her great ability to personify a solidified historical femme fatale and "political animal" (Mainon and Ursini 211). Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, conquered two of the most powerful men of the Western world: Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. She bore a son to Caesar and three children to Antony. She famously aligned with Antony to contest Julius Caesar's named heir. After Antony's suicide after the loss of his final battle, Cleopatra followed suit through the poisonous bite of an asp. Cleopatra has been taken up through popular culture and regaled for her beauty, but more for her manipulation and wit in the field of love. Taylor shines in the role of Cleopatra and the propaganda for this film mostly centered on her role as seductress.

Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra Trailer, Focusing on Her Role as Femme Fatale

ANGELINA JOLIE (A Modern Day Femme Fatale, 1975- )

"From wild, bisexual bad girl through sexually charged warrior woman to commanding mother figure, Jolie has left her strong imprint on the new millennium femme fatale" (Mainon and Ursini 315)

Angelina Jolie is a famous American actress who has received one academy award and three Golden Globe Awards. Unlike her thriving career, her personal life has been very tumultuous and somewhat indicative of her status as a modern day femme fatale. Jolie has married three different men (two of which ended rather suddenly by her own doing) and has reported that she had sexual relationships with at least one woman. Jolie' s romantic relationships often have elements of the macabre, in that in her first wedding she wrote the groom's name in her blood on her clothing and in her second relationship to Billy Bob Thornton, she wore a vial of his blood on a chain daily. However, Jolie has received the most notoriety for forming a relationship with a married man, Brad Pitt. This relationship has been the source of much discussion in magazines and tabloids, and "Brangelina" became the "It" term for quite some time. Of similar importance to Jolie's character as a femme fatale is her notorious tattooed body. Angelina Jolie has over ten known tattoos, which have to be concealed through make-up for her various films.

Jolie has performed the role of the femme fatale in various films including Foxfire (1996), Girl, Interrupted (1999), Gia (1998), Original Sin (2001), Alexander (2004), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), and Beowulf (2007). Two of her films, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Original Sin require further exploration because of the first's popularity and the second's heavy reliance on the figure of the femme fatale for its plot.
Jolie as Dominatrix and Killer in Mr. and Mrs. Smith
In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jolie and Brad Pitt play a middle-class couple and are both secret agents without the partner's knowledge. The plot comes to full force when this dull couple facade shatters when each agent is assigned to kill the other. When they realize who their targets are, Jolie and Pitt's characters become the passionate couple they once were in the early years of their marriage. Jolie best typifies her role as a femme fatale figure in this film when she dresses up in the outfit of a dominatrix for a "client" who she scolds and subsequently kills by snapping his neck.
Trailer for Original Sin
Jolie plays the character of Julia/Bonnie in Original Sin and acts as a sexually charged, cigar smoking femme fatale who revels in her manipulation of men. Throughout the film, she acts as a dominatrix figure to one lover and a sadomasochist to another, where she practices blood-drinking, cutting, and rough sexual encounters. In the film, Jolie' Bonnie takes the place of a murdered mail order bride named Julia and dupes Antonio Banderas' character Luis into falling in love with her. Bonnie then takes Luis' money and returns to her previous life of vice and crime. Luis tracks his wife down, and instead of shooting her as he intended, he declares his unconditional love for Bonnie in an angst ridden way. Their relationship epitomizes that of the relationship between a femme fatale and her lover.

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The femme fatale "is fabricated, reconstructed in, and apparently necessary to, the cultural expressions of the...century. She is a powerful and threatening figure, bearing sexuality that is perceived to be rapacious, or fatal to her male partners...she can be a prostititue, man-hunting aristrocat, vampire, African queen, native (black) woman or murderess.

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Mata Hari

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"Circe, who turned Odysseus' men into swine in Book X of The Odyssey and the Sirens, whose beauty and alluring song attracted his sailors in Book XII." - Detnovel.com