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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.430909352042
EAN: 9780226318851
ISBN: 0226318850
Label: University Of Chicago Press
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 444
Publication Date: October 15, 1987
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Sales Rank: 319417
Studio: University Of Chicago Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
For this edition of her classic study of the feminine role in film, Molly Haskell has written a new chapter addressing recent developments in the appearance and perception of women in the movies.
"An incisive, exceedingly thoughtful look at the distorted lens through which Hollywood has historically viewed women. It is a valuable contribution not just of film criticism but to a society in which the vital role of women is just beginning to emerge."—Christian Science Monitor
"Haskell is interested in women—how they are used in movies, how they use movies, and how the parts they play function as projections and verifications of our myths about women's lot and woman's psyche and even, lately, women's lib."—Jane Kramer, Village Voice
"In examining the goddesses worshipped by an entire nation, Molly Haskell reveals a good deal about our national character and our most cherished sexual myths. . . . Concerned with the deeply ingrained belief of women's inferiority, she analyzes movies as a social product as well as a social arbiter, and she effectively demonstrates how women are encouraged to impose limitations on themselves by fashioning those selves after flickering shadows in a darkened auditorium—sexual creatures who possess neither ability nor ambition beyond their bodies. . . . Both as an examination of film and as sociology, From Reverence to Rape is excellent."—Harriet Kriegel, The Nation
Amazon.com Review:
Biting, brilliant, and marvelously witty, From Reverence to Rape is the first and the last word on women in the movies--perhaps the best book ever written on the subject. Most feminist film critics produce work that conforms to the academic discipline of cultural studies. Haskell's groundbreaking statement (first published in 1974 but with an added chapter that updates her theme through the 1980s) is accessible, serious, and great fun because its primary source is Hollywood cinema itself. Haskell draws on her amazing knowledge and understanding of American film to comment witheringly upon the ways producers, directors, and critics from the 1920s and onward have treated women. Still, within the attack her passionate love of films and the women who appear in them shines through. For example, in a lovely passage on Greta Garbo, Haskell claims that the actress's appeal, "however provocatively she might array herself, was romantic rather than sexual, and that is the reason women liked her. Her spirit leaped first and her body, in total exquisite accord, leaped after. She yearned not for pleasure in bed but for love in eternity."
Appreciations with this much sensitivity and vigor are as hard to find as a critic who can imaginatively process a lifetime of movie-watching experiences. Moreover, Haskell discusses the larger social significance of the male cinema and male criticism she often finds so infantile. At one point, despairing over critics who either ignore actresses or transform them into love objects, Haskell bemoans the critics' immaturity as "one of the more common and less endearing manifestations of the eternal adolescence that hangs on the American male--who, by the time he is mature enough to appreciate a woman, is almost ready to retire from the arena. There are a few good years in which he can both appreciate and operate, but not enough (particularly with the current defections from heterosexuality) to satisfy the female population, which may be why more and more women are turning to each other, or to themselves." This fine book, as loving and funny as it is angry, is a must for movie fans as well as anyone interested in gender issues. --Raphael Shargel
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This is one of the least enjoyable books on films you will ever come across. Totally dry and bland, Haskell just runs through women's history in motion pictures with thumbnail descriptions of classic films and the like, never really giving us the essence of any major female stars or even good analysis on specific films. Don't take my word for it - check it out at the library and read it for yourself. Bet you don't finish it!!
Rating:  -
I was in the 11th grade at the time and I was just getting immersed in my fascination with movies and film theory. I read every book I could find on film studies.
That is when I stumbled upon this book (first edition) in my school's library. After reading this book, I never looked at the history of films, film themes, etc. in quite the same way.
As the years went by, I had read other film theory books that dealt with femininity and feminist thought, but this one always remained ... Read More
Rating:  -
--there is absolutely nothing polemical or fanatical about this book, which is for film lovers--not just feminists. It is one of the best books on FILM (not just women in film) I've ever read, up there with Stanley Cavell's "Pursuits of Happiness," but much more direct and down-to-earth. Haskell is a fiercely smart, wickedly funny, and casually erudite critic with many extremely sharp observations. She's arguably both a better belles lettresist and a better critic than her (I believe???) one-time husband ... Read More
Rating: -
Along with Susan Douglas's work, Growing Up Female in the Mass Media, this book is one of the most honest and clearly organized arguments about the way women are depicted in film. For anyone who wants to see what women are screaming about...this book will wake you up. Haskell does a fascinating job of expressing (and cleverly) what has been done to women in the media...how they've been portrayed and how they've been made to be prostrate creatures in film. If you buy it, you'll obsessively begin to notice ... Read More
Rating: -
Molly Haskell describes herself in the introduction of FROM REVERENCE TO RAPE as a film critic first, and only secondly as a feminist. She even remarks negatively on an article about the movie HUSBANDS that Betty Friedan wrote for the New York Times in 1971, saying that Ms. Friedan just used the movie to extrapolate on her basic message in THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE. Having said that, she goes through the decades of film from the silent pictures through to the eighties, and concludes that the basic use of film towards ... Read More
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