Can a Film Star Be Too Good-Looking?
In one respect, this is nonsense. Movies, from their infancy, have been in the objectifying racket. The making of an appearance, however fiercely we may object to its methods, is their raison d’être. Celluloid is a strip of flammable skin, coated with photosensitive chemicals, and unsurpassed in its registration of human flesh—the warm and no less sensitive exterior of living creatures. If all that counts is inward essence, what the hell were those teams of makeup artists, coiffeurs, and cinematographers employed by the major studios, in the golden age, doing all day? What was the point of the costume tests, for example, that William H. Daniels, the director of photography on “Queen Christina” (1933), ran on Greta Garbo almost ninety years ago? Silently she smiles, poses, turns, casts her...
