Sad, Mad or Unsettlingly Independent
To coincide with Remembrance Sunday, this talk, by cultural historian Professor Maggie Andrews, explores how the complex and contradictory portrayals of widows in films are shaped by historical context and genre conventions.
We will look at how tragic war widows embraced the possibilities of romances in 1940s women’s films such as ‘Young Widow’ (1946) but were heroic fighters in war films and courtroom dramas like ‘Carve Her Name with Pride’ (1958) and ‘A Captain’s Honour’ (1982).
In recent years, widows have been portrayed exerting power, dangerous, unsettlingly independent or a threat to the status quo as in ‘Mrs Harris Goes to Paris’ (2022). Alternatively, they have been represented as a sexually temptress in ‘Malena’ (2000), scheming and vengeful in ‘Mademoiselle de Joncquières’ (2018) or as convention-smashing criminals in the heist movie ‘Widows’ (2018).
Nevertheless, particularly in mainstream cinema, narratives seem to focus on propelling widows into the arms of a new man, as in ‘Widow Clicquot’ (2023).
100m (inc Q&A) – In the Auditorium
Tickets £7.50
