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Keywords: madwomen
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Journal Articles
Journal:
Feminist Media Histories
Feminist Media Histories (2021) 7 (1): 147–171.
Published: 01 January 2021
... Louis Feuillade madness madwomen mental distress silent film whiteness The madwoman and the camera are longtime bedfellows. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, graphic photographs of female patients in mental institutions—predominantly white women in states of hysteria or...
Abstract
This article traces methods and conventions of performing women’s mental distress before the camera circa 1900. It features an analysis of gestural performances in French, US, Italian, and British films, with special attention given to two pre-1916 Gaumont films that include mad scenes. The topos of the white madwoman presents a valuable lens through which to investigate intermedial relations across performance forms and visual media as early cinema emerged, and gestures signifying madness have been particularly resilient even as approaches to film acting have evolved. Drawing on scholarship from Giorgio Agamben and Rae Beth Gordon, this article questions how techniques of performing female madness intersected with ideologies of race, class, and nationality.