The phantom of the cinema : character in modern film /

Drawing on Bazin's distinctions between theater and cinema and Metz's theorization of the image as a combination of both absence and presence, Michaels (Allegheny College) looks at character in modern film as a "phantom," an elusive presence that constantly withdraws itself from the viewer's grasp. In part this work is simple typology: the author discusses the phantom in terms of character types--the actress (Persona), the con man (The Sting), the magician (The Magician), the vampire (Nosferatu), the spy (Reilly: Ace of Spies), and the cipher (Zelig). But he breaks from typology to consider "elusive" characters in specific films, such as Randall Adams in the docu-fiction The Thin Blue Line and the blank figures in Malick's Badlands and Days of Heaven. In effect, Michaels sees the presence of absence everywhere; thus he dilutes his insight through a totalization of it. If for Metz every image is both presence and absence and every film a "fiction" film, then for Michaels every character must be a phantom and his thesis becomes nonproductive. Murray Smith's Engaging Characters (CH, Apr'96) is a more systematic study of the representation of character in cinema. Though accessible to all readerships, Michaels's volume is a purchase for comprehensive film collections only. J. Belton Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick