Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy, to sharp-suited gangsters in Tarantino movies, clothing is central to film. 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 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 femininity are constructed through clothing. Her wide-ranging study encompasses:
* haute couture in film and the rise of the movie fashion designer, from Givenchy to Gaultier
* the eroticism of period costume in films such 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 cinema, from the unerotic cross-dressing of Mrs Doubtfire to the eroticised ambiguity of Orlando.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Bruzzi (Univ. of London, UK) challenges many of the views and assumptions about the role of clothes, gender, and identity in film. In part 1, "Dressing Up," the author examines haute couture in film and the divergent roles of the costume designer and the couturier: the former deals primarily with character and film narrative, the latter with clothes as opaque objects of spectacle and display. She goes on to explore sexuality--clothes as objects of desire--and fetishism, particularly in period costume. Part 2, "Gender," deals with male dress in gangster films, the emergence of particular black fashions, and the modern femme fatale, showing how each relates to identity and power. Bruzzi challenges the view that women who dress in an overtly sexual manner contribute to their own oppression by analyzing the self-conscious use of clothes for power in film. Part 3 moves beyond gender to cross-dressing and androgyny in films, the former primarily for comedy and the undermining of gender, the latter for eroticism. Armed with thorough research, Bruzzi writes with authority. This is not easy reading, but well worth the effort. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals will welcome this volume. Z. H. Weisfeld; emeritus, University of Michigan