Personne: The Disappearance of the White Man
Originally published in Found Footage
Review of Luchino Visconti and the Fabric of Cinema
A cinema of fabric is a cinema that flows, flutters, and drapes; and it is also one that tears, tatters, and shreds. In Joe McElhaney’s elegant book on the cinema of Luchino Visconti, fabric serves as a multithreaded methodology with which the author explores a very distinctive set of films made between 1943 and 1976. Fabric in this account refers to the fabulous costumes and sets of Visconti’s period films, and also to the details of laundry, fashion, and decor of his neorealist films and late melodramas. The contradictions within the auteurist persona of the famous Marxist aristocrat becomes a productive tension in McElhaney’s unraveling of Visconti’s lingering attach ment to romanticism, and his veiled/unveiled identity as a gay man.
Barbara Stanwyck Rides Again
The essay examines Stanwyck’s dedication to her craft, which often led her to endure injuries and physical demands, reflecting the invisible labor behind her iconic roles. By compiling decades of her performances, the analysis traces patterns in her star image and her nuanced relationship with horses as both a narrative device and a personal passion.