Film Biography and the Female Killer: Monster

Abstract

Not all films featuring the violent woman concern the kind of imaginary predators seen in Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001), the fictional murderesses of Baise-moi (Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000) or disturbed protagonist of Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009). Women who kill also appear as ‘real’ people in biographical films or ‘biopics’: defined by George F. Custen as texts that dramatise ‘the life of a historical person, past or present’ (1992: 5). Films such as Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994), Sister My Sister (Nancy Meckler, 1994), To Die For (Gus van Sant, 1995), I Shot Andy Warhol (Mary Harron, 1996), Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2003), Der Baader Meinhoff Komplex (Uli Edel, 2008) and The Countess (Julie Delpy, 2009) all recreate the lives of violent women who exist, or once existed, in the historical world.