Undressing Cinema

From Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy to sharp-suited gangsters in Tarantino movies clothing is central to film. In <em>Undressing Cinema</em> 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 cinema fashion and costume history gender queer theory and psychoanalysis.<br>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 femininity are constructed through clothing. Her wide-ranging study encompasses: <br> * haute couture in film and the rise of the movie fashion designer from Givenchy to Gaultier<br> * the eroticism of period costume in films such as <em>The Piano</em> and <em>The Age of Innocence</em><br> * clothing the modern <em>femme fatale</em> in <em>Single White Female</em> <em>Disclosure</em> and <em>The Last Seduction</em><br> * generic male chic in <em>Goodfellas</em> <em>Reservoir Dogs</em> and <em>Leon</em><br> * pride costume and masculinity in `Blaxploitation' films <em>Boyz `N The Hood</em> and <em>New Jack City</em><br> * drag and gender confusion in cinema from the unerotic cross-dressing of <em>Mrs Doubtfire</em> to the eroticised ambiguity of <em>Orlando</em>.