Film blog – Drea Secchi

November 6, 2022December 9, 2022

Ghosted Lesbians in Rebecca and The Uninvited

The plot of both Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) and The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944) contain references and themes of sex perversion, as analyzed by author Rhona J. Berenstein in Adaptation, Censorship, and Audiences of Questionable Type: Lesbian Sightings in “Rebecca” (1940) and “The Uninvited” (1944). Both of these films include the haunting by a lesbian-coded character on the living. Berenstein explores the idea that these characters, in these disembodied states, act as metaphors for lesbianism. Both of these films use ghost stories and hauntings to explore a narrative about female desire.

October 12, 2022November 21, 2022

Food storytelling

Food voyeurism is one of the most prominent themes shared in media. Images of food are one of the most popular posts on social media, and food is a very prominent theme in TV and film, including documentaries. Here I will be examining the techniques used in food documentaries created by David Gelb.

August 3, 2022August 5, 2022

The persona as deceit in “All About Eve”

Starring Bette Davis, All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) is a film about acting itself. Bette Davis is an example for the star being used as a marketing tool. Films she starred in would bill “Davis” above the title of the film to attract viewers as she was one of the most acclaimed actors of her time.

August 2, 2022August 4, 2022

The star power of Marilyn Monroe

The image of a star is not completely falsified because they base their persona on a quality that they do have, this is why the image of a star is believable. There has to be some assumable truth to what story is being told about a star for people to buy into it. The film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953) starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell is about the male gaze and how two women navigate their objectification.

June 9, 2022August 4, 2022

Neorealist Film Aesthetics in Cuban Third Cinema

Starring Richard Gere and directed by Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven (1978) defies American film conventions by using natural lighting exclusively. This was the vision of DP Néstor Almendros, a Spanish born cinematographer. For the film Days of Heaven, Almendros draws upon European filmmaking tradition, Italian Neorealism in particular. Almendros himself studied in Rome and was part of the Cuban film industry as well. More than American film, Cuban film takes aesthetic inspiration from Italian cinema. Almendros then represents the proliferation of Italian film conventions through Cuba, with Days of Heaven as an aesthetic outlier in the United States. For my paper I will analyze the influence of Italian neorealist aesthetics on 20th century Cuban cinema and beyond, using Days of Heaven as an example of the connection.