A provocative, interdisciplinary study of nuns on the big screen,
from The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) to Doubt (2008), that shines
fresh light on the cinematic nun as a woman and a religious in the
twentieth century.
Ingrid Bergman's engaging screen performance as Sister Mary
Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary's made the film nun a star and
her character a shining standard of comparison. She represented the
religious life as the happy and rewarding choice of a modern woman
who had a "complete understanding" of both erotic and spiritual
desire. How did this vibrant and mature nun figure come to be
viewed as girlish and naive? Why have she and her cinematic sisters
in postwar popular film so often been stereotyped or selectively
analyzed, so seldom been seen as women and religious?
In Veiled Desires--a unique full-length, in-depth study of nuns in
film--Maureen Sabine explores these questions in a groundbreaking
interdisciplinary study covering more than sixty years of cinema.
She looks at an impressive breadth of films in which the nun
features as an ardent lead character, including The Bells of St.
Mary's (1945), Black Narcissus (1947), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
(1957), Sea Wife (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), The Sound of Music
(1965), Change of Habit (1969), In This House of Brede (1975),
Agnes of God (1985), Dead Man Walking (1995), and Doubt (2008).
Veiled Desires considers how the beautiful and charismatic stars
who play chaste nuns, from Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn to
Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep, call attention to desires that the
veil concealed and the habit was thought to stifle. In a
theologically and psychoanalytically informed argument, Sabine
responds to the critics who have pigeonholed the film nun as the
obedient daughter and religious handmaiden of a patriarchal church,
and the respectful audience who revered her as an icon of spiritual
perfection. She provides a framework for a more complex and
holistic picture ofnuns on screen by showing how the films
dramatize these women's Christian call to serve, sacrifice, and
dedicate themselves to God, and their erotic desire for intimacy,
agency, achievement, and fulfillment.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
