Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-184) and index.
At foot of title page: British Film Institute.
Introduction: Fetishisms -- Ch. 1. Americanitis: European Intellectuals and Hollywood Melodrama -- Ch. 2. Social Hieroglyphics: Reflections on Two Films by Douglas Sirk -- Ch. 3. Close-ups and Commodities -- Ch. 4. Pandora's Box: Topographies of Curiosity -- Ch. 5. Cosmetics and Abjection: Cindy Sherman 1977-87 -- Ch. 6. The Hole and the Zero: Godard's Visions of Femininity -- Ch. 7. From Log Cabin to Xanadu: Psychoanalysis and History in Citizen Kane -- Ch. 8. The Carapace that Failed: Ousmane Sembene's Xala -- Ch. 9. Netherworlds and the Unconscious: Oedipus and Blue Velvet -- Postscript: Changing Objects, Preserving Time.