Published in 2001 (first published 1995)
227 pages
Anneke Smelik, studied English and film theatre studies at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands and received her PhD in film studies at the University of Amsterdam. She is lecturer in film and new media at the University of Nijmegen and has published widely on film, video and popular culture; she is co-editor of Women’s Studies and Culture: a Feminist Introduction.
What is this book about?
And The Mirror Cracked explores the politics and pleasures of contemporary feminist cinema. Tracing the productive ways in which feminist directors create alternative film forms, Anneke Smelik highlights cinematic issues which are central to feminist films: authorship, point of view, metaphor, montage, and the excessive image. In a continuous mirror game between theory and cinema, this study explains how these cinematic techniques are used to represent female subjectivity positively and affirmatively. Among the films considered are A Question of Silence, Bagdad Café, and Sweetie and the Virgin Machine.
