The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women’s Cinema

“[The Woman at the Keyhole is one] of the most significant contributions to feminist film theory sin ce the 1970s.” ―SubStance

” . . . this intelligent, eminently readable volume puts women’s filmmaking on the main stage. . . . serves at once as introduction and original contribution to the debates structuring the field. Erudite but never obscure, effectively argued but not polemical, The Woman at the Keyhole should prove to be a valuable text for courses on women and cinema.” ―The Independent

When we imagine a “woman” and a “keyhole,” it is usually a woman on the other side of the keyhole, as the proverbial object of the look, that comes to mind. In this work the author is not necessarily reversing the conventional image, but rather asking what happens when women are situated on both sides of the keyhole. In all of the films discussed, the threshold between subject and object, between inside and outside, between virtually all opposing pairs, is a central figure for the reinvention of cinematic narrative.