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

"Berghahn on film"--Cover image.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes filmography.

Introduction : the narcissistic woman : reflections and projections -- Garbo talks : expectation and realization -- Katharine Hepburn and a Hollywood story -- Vanishing differences in Mildred Pierce and Leave her to heaven -- One touch of Venus : Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, and the production code -- "Wherever there's magic" : performance time in Sunset Boulevard and All about Eve -- Marilyn Monroe : "the last glimmering of the sacred" -- Neo-screen tests, part one : Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor -- Neo-screen tests, part two : the search for Scarlett continues.

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. 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. 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. --Provided by publisher.

Print version record.

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