Multiple responses: Mirrors in movies?

From: [email protected] [[email protected]] 

There is a key scene in Nicholas Ray's "Bigger Than Life" where an  
unhinged James Mason sees  himself reflected in a broken mirror  
offering him a glimpse of what one reviewer referred to as his  
"shattered masculine image."
Thomas
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Mike Fekula [[email protected]] 

I have a couple of suggestions: 
 
-Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" with the famous fight scene at the end of the movie, taking place in the room with mirrors on all of its walls. 
-Peter Kubelka's "Mosaic in Confidence", an experimental film with a brief shot of a railroad signalman holding up a mirror. 
-Maya Deren's "Meshes in the Afternoon" and of course, the documentary "In The Mirror of Maya Deren". 
 
Mike Fekula
College Park, MD
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Felicia Chan [[email protected]] 
All That Heaven Allows - in the mirror and then in the TV screen as mirror...
--
[email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Dan Hassoun [[email protected]] 
-"How to Marry a Millionaire" has a pretty glorious mirror sequence with
Marilyn Monroe, as I remember.
-Some of the great '50s family melodramas like "Written on the Wind" and
"Bigger Than Life" also have pretty spectacular and conspicuous scenes of
mirrors shattering.
-The wonderful Hammer film "Vampire Circus" has several sequences in a
carnival funhouse where victims are actually swept into mirrors and feasted
upon by the undead.
-"Duck Soup" of course has a famous and extended mirror gag.
-I think Maya Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon" features the screen itself
shattering like a mirror at one point.
-"Bride of Frankenstein" contains a scene near the beginning where the
Monster attacks his own reflection in a small pond (if you want to count
this as a mirror)
-Disney's "Mulan" has an entire song called "Reflection" that takes place
around mirrors.
-"Mary Poppins" has that shot in the "Spoonful of Sugar" song where
Poppins's reflection begins to sing without her.
-The David Cronenberg version of "The Fly" features Brundlefly agonizing
over his transformation at the bathroom mirror.

...And so on. Surely this must be one of the most common visual motifs in
cinematic history. The list almost never ends.
--
Suzanne Broderick [[email protected]] 
Suzanne Broderick
Department of History
Illinois State University
Normal, IL  61761

Orson Wells' "The Lady from Shangai"--mirrors in the fun house cause  
confusion.
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Glasgow, Adryan J [[email protected]] 

Sent: 	Wednesday, December 07, 2011 2:28 PM 
To: 	'H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media' [[email protected]]



Sunset Boulevard
Last Year at Marienbad
The recent film Devil's Double 
Also, because the interwebs are awesome, here's a mirror-themed youtube compilation that may be useful:
http://youtu.be/i3OwK9H4vSM
--
Michael Morton [[email protected]] 

Another possibility: some pivotal instances of reflections in  
mirrors, as well as in store windows, in Lang's "M".

Michael Morton


--
Jeff Evans [[email protected]] 
        Psycho. There might be one "revealing" shot when Janet Leigh is deciding whether to steal the $. Mirror shots of Anthony Perkins in the motel office with both Martin Balsam and John Gavin. And then double mirror shot of Vera Miles as she searches
for Mrs. Bates in the mansion.

        At the climax of Demme's Something Wild, a mortally wounded Ray Liotta stares at himself in the mirror after having been doubled by the Jeff Daniels character.

        And I think I remember reading that Scorsese was lying on the floor directing Robert De Niro in the "You talkin' to me?" scene in Taxi Driver.

        Good luck,

        Jeff
--
Kathleen McDonough [[email protected]] 


In Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, the mirror brings you from one world to the
next.  I think the mirror is also important in terms of the Beast's power
in Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.
Good luck.
Kathleen

Kathleen McDonough
Communication Department
SUNY Fredonia
Fredonia, NY 14063
--
Michael Morton [[email protected]] 

How about the multiple roles and functions of mirrors (and other  
reflective media) in Cocteau's "Orpheus"?

Michael Morton
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Sally Parry [[email protected]] 

How about The Lady in the Lake with Robert Montgomery? The film is told
through his perspective so the camera functions as his eyes. As viewers we
only "see" the narrator/protagonist when he is looking at his reflection in
a mirror. He's often beat up so he rarely looks very good.
Sally Parry

Sally E. Parry, Ph.D. 

Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Student  Affairs

College of Arts and Sciences

Director, General Education

Campus Box 4100

Illinois State University

Normal, IL 61790-4100 
--
[email protected] [[email protected]] 
Sorry, not film ideas and this may be a bit out of the left field, but
I've found the chapter on Mirrors in Anne Hollander's Seeing Through
Clothes very useful.
Jenni Steele, Bangor University
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Zachary Wakefield [[email protected]] 
The mirror scene at the end of Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee is pretty amazing. Hope it helps.

Zach Wakefield
Auburn University
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Roger Almendarez [[email protected]] 
I'm always a fan of mirrors in movies--such a simple visual plot device,
yet always so telling and expressive. Three mirrors that come to mind are
(1) near the beginning of Adaptation with the Nicholas Cage character. I
don't have more specifics for this, but there's a good one in that movie,
(2) In the Matrix, when Neo is first flushed out of the Matrix, he touches
a mirror whose surface then clings to his skin only to then engulf his
whole body, which eventually drowns him as it goes down his throat, and (3)
the classic ending Boss scene for Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon where it's a
funhouse-esque setup where the Bruce character has to smash each mirror to
reveal the true villan. Good luck!
--
Wochna, Lorraine [[email protected]] 

Ophuls, The Earrings of Madame D

Lorraine
Ohio U 
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Michael Pistorio [[email protected]] 
RE: Mirrors in movies.

One movie that comes to mind is Orpheus (1950), part of the Orphic trilogy
by Jean Cocteau.

Here's a quote from the movie:

* "I am letting you into the secret of all secrets, mirrors are gates
through which death comes and goes. Moreover if you see your whole life in
a mirror you will see death at work as you see bees behind the glass in a
hive." - *Heurtebise

Mic Pistorio
San Francisco
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filmgene [[email protected]] 
All of Cocteau's films have mirrors as their central image. The Blood of a Poet, Beauty and the Beast, Les Enfants Terribles, Orpheus, The testament of Orpheus.

Most films about ballet similarly feature mirrors. The Red Shoes, Tales of Hoffman, The Spectre of the Rose.

Gene Stavis
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James Ward [[email protected]] 
I suspect the list will be very long (Cocteau, _Orphee_.....). But perhaps less immediately likely, Visconti's _Il Gattopardo_/_The Leopard_. Mirrors galore, and the most superb performance of Burt Lancaster's career. 
 
James J. Ward
Professor of History
Director, Honors Program
Cedar Crest College
100 College Drive
Allentown, PA 18104-6196 USA
tel  610 437 4471 x 3402
fax 610 606 4614
[email protected]