IVIV (8): Subtextual Uses of Eyeliner in the Cinema

[Dave Monroe]

   "Eddie, who was enrolled in the graduate film program at SC, let
out a scream of recognition.  He'd been working on his doctoral
dissertation, '"Deadpan to Demonic--Subtextual Uses of Eyeliner in the
Cinema' ..." (IV, Ch. 8, p. 115)


"Black Narcissus, 1947"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039192/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Narcissus

In the myth of Narcissus, the nymph Echo tries to win Narcissus's love
by echoing fragments of Narcissus's speech but Narcissus was deaf to
outside, entreaties. We see again how Narcissus, as a symbolic figure,
symbolizes the closed system, also symbolized by Oedipa's closed
tower. In addition, the face of the nymph displayed on the sign for
the motel greatly resembles Oedipa's face. This parallel allows the
reader to draw a direct comparison between the myth of Narcissus and
Echo and the figure of Oedipa. To the critic, Hanjo Berressem, the
likeness "implies that...Oedipa is in love with the narcissistic
culture of which she herself is so much a part." However, one can also
see the tawdry nymph as the distortion and commercialization of the
classic ties which Oedipa herself has to classical myth and story.

http://www.gradesaver.com/the-crying-of-lot-49/study-guide/section2/


"the graduate film program at SC"

USC?

http://cinema.usc.edu/

The USC School of Cinematic Arts, until 2006 named the School of
Cinema-Television (CNTV), is a film school within the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles, California. It is the oldest and
largest such school in the United States, established in 1929 as a
joint venture with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The
school offers multiple undergraduate and graduate programs....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USC_School_of_Cinematic_Arts/


"Deadpan to Demonic--Subtextual Uses of Eyeliner in the Cinema"

Cf. ...

The Eyeliner system makes use of an old stage trick called Pepper’s
Ghost that by most accounts was first seen onstage in an 1862
production of Charles Dickens’s “Haunted Man,” at the Royal
Polytechnic Institution in London. John Henry Pepper (1821-1900) is
usually credited with discovering the illusion, though an engineer
named Henry Dircks was really first to suggest placing an angled piece
of plate glass between audience and actors, allowing off-stage objects
or people to “appear” reflected on the glass as if they were onstage.
When the off-stage lights were turned off, the ghosts seemed to
vanish.

With Eyeliner, the unwieldy glass pane is replaced with a lighter,
nearly invisible screen ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/theater/02eyel.html


Kathleen Bryon

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0126402/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Byron

"eye makeup good for a year's worth of nightmares"

http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Images/47_BN/Death.jpg

For many, there remains a magical, defining moment in British cinema;
the scene in Black Narcissus when Sister Ruth abandons her wimple and
habit for a low-cut dress and very slowly and deliberately applies
blood-red lipstick. It was Kathleen Byron who provided that moment; as
Sister Ruth she delivers an astounding study of repressed sexuality
suddenly, fervently and fatally imploding.

http://www.powell-pressburger.org/NFT/Program.html

@ 3:58 ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C4tNi2pYoI


"All those German silents Conrad Veidt in Caligari, Klein-Rogge in Metropolis"

E.g., ...

CV in TCODC

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm205953024/nm0891998
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm205953024/tt0010323
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0891998/

RK-R in M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_uMj4MToe0
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0459030/

See, e.g., ...

Kracuaer, Siegfried A.  From Caligari to Hitler:
   A Psychological History of the German Film.
   Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1947..

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/1369.html
http://www.archive.org/details/fromcaligaritohi013829mbp
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=psar.035.0212a


"the demands of orthochromatic film stock"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthochromatic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_film#Spectral_sensitivity

Until 1925, Hollywood studios used orthochromatic Eastman Standard
Negative stock. Orthochromatic film was only sensitive to the
brightest natural light, so large ultraviolet lamps had to be used
during shooting. It also registered only blue light, so anything
colored red showed up on the film as black. This posed a problem for
actors and actresses, whose flesh-toned faces appeared darker than
normal on screen. Thus began the practice of using heavy white pancake
makeup on the majority of screen personalities....

http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Criticism-Ideology/Film-Stock-BLACK-AND-WHITE-AND-COLOR.html