Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
Seeing Sarah Bernhardt
Performance and Silent Film
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
The most famous stage actress of the nineteenth century, Sarah Bernhardt enjoyed a surprising renaissance when the 1912 multi-reel film Queen Elizabeth vaulted her to international acclaim. The triumph capped her already lengthy involvement with cinema while enabling the indefatigable actress to reinvent herself in an era of technological and generational change. Placing Bernhardt at the center of the industry's first two decades, Victoria Duckett challenges the perception of her as an anachronism unable to appreciate film's qualities. Instead, cinema's substitution of translated title cards for her melodic French deciphered Bernhardt for Anglo-American audiences. It also allowed the aging actress to appear in the kinds of longer dramas she could no longer physically sustain onstage. As Duckett shows, Bernhardt contributed far more than star quality. Her theatrical practice on film influenced how the young medium changed the visual and performing arts. Her promoting of experimentation, meanwhile, shaped the ways audiences looked at and understood early cinema. A leading-edge reappraisal of a watershed era, Seeing Sarah Bernhardt tells the story of an icon who bridged two centuries--and changed the very act of watching film.
About the Author:
Victoria Duckett is a film historian and a lecturer in media studies at Deakin University, Melbourne. She is the coeditor of Researching Women in the Silent Cinema: New Findings and Perspectives.
Press Reviews:
"Duckett's excellent skills as a researcher and a writer shine through. . . . Seeing Sarah Bernhardt therefore not only adds much needed context and analysis to the performances of the legendary Bernhardt, but it also shows the promise of intermedial research."--Theatre Journal
"Addresses the chasm in criticism between a lionizing of Sarah Bernhardt's stage work on one hand, and the dismissal of her filmed performances on the other."--French Studies
"Conceptually ambitious and highly stimulating."--Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film
"Well written and insightful, this is required reading for those interested in theater, film, or women's studies. . . . Essential."--Choice
See the publisher website: University of Illinois Press
See the complete filmography of Sarah Bernhardt on the website: IMDB ...
> From the same author:
Transnational Trailblazers of Early Cinema (2023)
Sarah Bernhardt, Gabrielle Réjane, Mistinguett
Subject: Silent Cinema
> On a related topic:
Mary Nolan, Ziegfeld Girl and Silent Movie Star (2019)
A Biography Including Her 1941 Memoir
by Louise Carley Lewisson and Mary Nolan
Subject: Actor > Mary Nolan
The Lives of Justine Johnstone (2018)
Follies Star, Research Scientist, Social Activist
Subject: Actor > Justine Johnstone
The Ice Cream Blonde (2015)
The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd
Subject: Actor > Thelma Todd
Back
