The Representation of the "Femme Fatale" in the Narrative Universe of "Muerte de un ciclista" (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955)

Abstract

This article analyses the representation of the femme fatale in Muerte de un ciclista (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955) as a symptomatic resource of the director’s political dissidence. To undertake research we have adopted an interdisciplinary perspective that considers the contributions of both semiotics and feminist filmic theory. Textual analysis has been applied to study the narrative structure and the processes of visual and syntactic signification associated to the femme fatale. The conclusions of the analysis show a stereotype strongly codified and anchored in the classic narrative of sanction, revealing the difficulty of articulating, in the cinema under francoism, a model of femininity different to the norm of marriage and motherhood.