1POPULAR CINEMA

trast, the cool look of the international deco style typically requires plenty
of space and light, precious materials and fabrics, as well as pale shades and
shiny surfaces. Yet in both cases, the main character’s flight from traditional
marriage and family life to these highly symbolic spaces of female liberation
offers an occasion for a sustained reflection on modern femininity.
Analyzing these fictional interiors within the conventions of genre cinema
calls for a closer look not only at set and costume design, but also at
camerawork, mise-en-scène, and editing. After all, in order for any ideological
investments to take place, interior space must be transformed into narrative
space. Of particular relevance to this process is the identification of
the (gendered) gaze with power and desire. Spatial control is established
through the point of view of the characters; through their movements inside
the space; and through editing, lighting, and camerawork, including
shot sizes, movement, and framing. To what degree these domestic spaces
are highly gendered in nature can be seen in the rituals of entering and exiting.
It is always the man who enters the woman’s space; it is always he who
comments on the decor in relation to her physical appearance and his sexual
preferences.
Within such a highly codified narrative space, doors and windows establish
points of transition between interior and exterior spaces and, by extension,
public and private definitions of female identity. Pieces of furniture
become obstacles and auxiliaries in the project of self-realization. Curtains
and screens function as framing devices, and props establish hierarchies between
foreground and background. Dramatic lighting, together with natural
light sources and primary color schemes, sets the general mood, whereas
editing and framing offer important clues for the spatial experiences of various
characters. To give only one example, open floor plans are repeatedly
used to express a woman’s resistance to traditional notions of domesticity
and to suggest a more fluid relationship among her professional, social, and
domestic lives. Invariably, such unconventional layouts enlist the close
relationship between interior/exterior space and the social/sexual body to
show the limits of emancipation.
The hybrid genre of the woman’s film emerged as the ideal setting during
the late 1930s and early 1940s for achieving the domestication of high
modernism as well as modern femininity. During the war years, the heightened
sense of urgency surrounding cinema—whether in terms of political
propaganda or escapist entertainment—made the modern styles all the
more relevant as a privileged expression of alienation, ambivalence, and al-
Cinema, Set Design, and Modernism 61