Undressing cinema
Undressing cinema : clothing and identity in the movies
London : Routledge, 1997, XXI-226 p.
ISBN 0-415-13957-0
MOND 506
Résumé :
From Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy to sharp-suited gangster in Tarantino movies, clothing is central to cinema. In Undressing cinema, Stella Bruzzi explores how, far from being mere accessories, clothes are key elements in the construction of cinematic identities, and she proposes new and dynamic links between the cinema, fashion and costume history, gender, queer theory and psychoanalysis.
Bruzzi uses case studies drawn from contemporary popular cinema to reassess established ideas about costume and fashion in cinema, and to challenge conventional interpretations of how masculinity and feminity are constructed through clothing. Her wide-ranging study encompasses :
– haute couture in film and the rise of the movie fashion designer, from Chanel to Gaultier
– the eroticism of period costume in such film as The Piano and The Age of Innocence
– clothing the modern femme fatale in Single White Female, Disclosure and The Last Seduction
– generic male chic in Goodfellas, Reservoir dogs and Leon
– pride, costume and masculinity in blaxploitation films, Boyz N the Hood and New Jack City
– drag and gender confusion in cinea, from the unerotic cross-dressing of Mrs Doubtfire to the eroticised ambiguity of Orlando
Stella Bruzzi is a lecturer in film at Royal Holloway, Univeristy of London. She has published widely in the areas of cinema and cultural studies and is a regular cotnributo to Sight and Sound.
Table des matières :
Part I : Dressing up
1. Cinema and haute couture : Sabrina to Pretty woman, Trop belle pour toi !, Prêt-à-porter
2. Desire and the costume film : Picnic at hanging rock, The age of innoncence, The piano
Part II : Gender
3. The instabilities of the franco-american gangster : Scarface to Pulp Fiction, Casino, Leon
4. The screen’s fashioning of blackness : Shaft, New Jack City, Boyz N the Hood, Waiting to Exhale
5. Clothes, power and the modern femme fatale : The Last Seduction, Disclosure, Single White Female
Part III : Beyond gender
6. The comedy of cross-dressing : Glen or Glenda, Mrs Doubtfire, The adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
7. The erotic strategies of androgyny : The Ballad of Little Jo, The Crying Game, Orlando
Axe de recherches :
- Axe transversal : Cultures visuelles
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Corinne HÉLIN (17 janvier 2012). Undressing cinema. Regards sur HARTIS : le carnet des doctorant·e·s. Consulté le 17 janvier 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/qfrt

