Title: Veiled desires : intimate portrayals of nuns in postwar Anglo-American film /
Authors: Sabine, Maureen.
Year: 2013
Subjects: Nuns in motion pictures.; Motion pictures Great Britain History; Motion pictures United States History
Abstract: In a theologically and psychoanalytically informed argument, Sabine responds to the critics who have pigeon holed the film nun as the obedient daughter and religious handmaiden of a patriarchal church, and the respectful audience that revered her as an icon of spiritual perfection. Sabine provides a framework for a more complex and holistic picture of nuns onscreen by showing how the films dramatize these women's Christian call to serve, sacrifice, and dedicate themselves to God, and their erotic desire for intimacy, agency, achievement, and fulfillment. -- Back cover.
Contents: Introduction -- Selfless desires: sacrificial and self-fulfilling service to others in Casablanca (1942), The bells of St. Mary's (1945), and The inn of the sixth happiness (1958) -- Sexual desires: repression and sublimation in Black narcissus (1947), Heaven knows, Mr. Allison (1957), and, Sea wife (1957) -- subjective desires: the role of the Catholic family romance in The nun's story (1959) -- sonorous desires: sweet, spirited, and stirring voices in The sound of music (1965) and Change of habit (1969) -- sacred desires: passion and pathology in In this house of Brede (1975) and Agnes of God (1985) -- spiritual desires: sin, suffering, death, and salvation in Dead man walking (1995) -- Conclusion: suspect desires: the end of a religious illusion in Doubt (2008).