Reviews
Expertly researched, carefully considered, and richly, lovingly written, Montgomery Clift: Queer Star presents an important, engaging, and rewarding contribution to film studies and queer studies., This eloquently written volume was often difficult for me to put down; I found it very engaging. It has clarity, precision, and focus, building well on work that has come before. It is destined to become the definitive scholarly work on Montgomery Clift., Elisabetta Girelli has written an elegant, illuminating book on one of Hollywood's most iconic male stars. Her sharp, thoroughly researched and theoretically informed analysis of Clift's enigmatic persona delivers fresh insights into the full range of his films. Eroticised and pained in early roles and, in later ones, more conflicted and alienated, Clift's ambiguous screen presence is persuasively read as a challenge to dominant contemporary norms and ideals of selfhood., Girelli does a heroically astute job of offering detailed analyses of Clift's post-accident films. . . She points out that "a new queerness" awaits discovery in these later films, and indeed her analysis leads one to seek them out anew. . . Love, in all of its myriad forms, is in the air throughout this complexly conceived, thoroughly engaging, and provocative book., The breadth of Girelli's theoretical knowledge and the care with which she marries queer theory with detailed analyses of Clift's filmography allow Montgomery Clift: Queer Star to be a productive addition to queer star studies. It is a testament to both her analytic intelligence and clear passion for her subject that it will be difficult for me to watch a Montgomery Clift performance and not think of the subtleties of erotic ambivalence and gender disruption that Girelli illuminates throughout her book.
