“I knew I had to stop, but I didn’t care”: Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness

For those accustomed to defining their personhood solely in relation to the mind, a rupture in the body can come as an indelible shock. Such is the devastation that opens Catherine Breillat’s 2014 film Abuse of Weakness. In a composed overhead shot that begins with a painterly expanse of abstracted white forms, Breillat widens our […]

The Bourgeois Out for Blood: Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger

“For me there are two things: action and reflection. And I find that I’m more into action.” – Catherine Deneuve Female vampire mythology has long traded on erotics and unquenchable sexuality. From Theda Bara’s kohl-eyed, fangless silent movie-era “vamps,” to the bayou night-dwellers of True Blood, these creatures embody a lethal exceptionalism. Freed from the […]