Beyond the looking glass : narcissism and female stardom in studio-era Hollywood / Ana Salzberg.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

As living subjects rather than static icons, studio-era Hollywood actresses actively negotiated a balance between their public personas, film roles, and corporeal presence. The contemporary audience's engagement with the experience of these actresses unsettles the traditional model of narcissistic identification, which divides the off-screen spectator from his/her on-screen ideal. nbsp;nbsp;Exploring the fan's desire for a material connection to the performer - as well as the star's own dialogue between embodied experience and idealized image - Beyond the Looking Glass traces on- and off-screen representations of narcissistic femininity in classical Hollywood through studies of stars like Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, and Marilyn Monroe. nbsp;Merging historical and theoretical concerns, with particular attention to the resonance of golden-age Hollywood in new media, this book explores the movie screen as a medium of shared experience between spectator and star.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This sharp, carefully organized volume covers a precise period in cinema history, Hollywood during the classical Hollywood studio era. After moving smoothly from considerations of Greta Garbo's films in the 1930s through Katharine Hepburn's mid- to late-1930s films, and then on to the Technicolor noir Leave Her to Heaven (starring the doomed Gene Tierney) neatly counterbalanced by Joan Crawford's star turn in Mildred Pierce, Salzberg (Univ. of Dundee, Scotland) turns her attention to the phenomenon of star "construction" in Hollywood. From there she continues to Sunset Boulevard and its study of faded stardom with Gloria Swanson, and Bette Davis as an aging actress in All about Eve. The author ends with a consideration of Marilyn Monroe's iconic presence in the early 1950s, with side trips to consider Grace Kelly's and Elizabeth Taylor's equally incandescent careers. Through it all, Salzberg manages to combine history with theory in an engaging blend of contemplation and analysis that grabs the reader's attention in a scholarly yet accessible style. This book is a natural for courses in women in film in classical Hollywood. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, University of Nebraska--Lincoln