>> At 09:28 AM 7/13/99 -0700, M Furniss wrote:
>> >While I'm writing, am I the only one who doesn't CARE if Elizabeth Taylor
>> >is viewed as beautiful?  Or that someone's head is large?  Or that
>> >someone is short?  I don't think this kind of information forwards film
>> >scholarship.

Surely it is absolutely central to a certain kind of film scholarship.
Here for instance is the description of a book written by the Professor of
Film Studies at Warwick University entitled 'Stars' and published by the
British Film Institute...

"Cinema's glamour has always been inseparable from star performances and
star images.  On its first publication in 1980 this book set new standards
of critical and theoretical rigour in the field of star studies.  Through
the intensive examination of films, magazines, advertising as well as
critical texts, Richard Dyer analyses the historical, ideological and
aesthetic significance of stars....."

How Elizabeth Taylor is viewed would not strike Professor Dyer as unworthy
of discussion, one feels.

Regards
John Dougill
Kyoto

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