The fast-growing field of cinematic reception studies contains several case studies of specific films or television series and even more overviews of the classical world on film. J.'s book makes an invaluable contribution because it is neither of those things. Rather, J. takes a single narrative unit from Ovid's Metamorphoses (the story of Pygmalion, Met. 10.238–97) and explores its onscreen legacy from the silent era to 2009's Splice (Pedro Almodóvar's 2011 The Skin I Live In was, unfortunately, too recent for inclusion). This allows J. to cover an impressive range of films in widely varying genres while remaining focussed on the common thread of the Pygmalion story.
In this relatively new field of classical scholarship, lines have yet to be firmly drawn concerning what constitutes ‘reception’ and how to deal with the various echoes of the classical world that we see onscreen. There are, essentially, three broad categories of ‘reception’: works which deliberately and consciously engage directly with antiquity; works which engage with works of the first category but have no direct relationship with antiquity themselves; and works which seem to offer ‘correspondences’ or ‘parallels’ with antiquity, but have no substantial link to the ancient world and whose authors may be entirely unaware of the correspondence. Essentially, scholarly studies on the relationship between works of this third category and antiquity are engaging in comparative literary studies, but doing so under the umbrella term of ‘reception’. J.'s book offers a perfect jumping-off point for further discussion of these issues. Some of the works analysed are examples of reception of the first kind (Pygmalion, SIMØNE), several are of the second variety (My Fair Lady and all subsequent ‘make-over’ films for which, J. points out, Lerner and Loewe's musical is an ‘unavoidable reference point’, p. 67) and several come under the third heading. J. acknowledges from the beginning the different relationship these works have with Ovid's text; for example, J. Espenson, the writer of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode ‘I Was Made To Love You’, is ‘not consciously drawing upon … Ovid’ (p. 4) while Chapters 5, 6 and 7 cover ‘correspondences’ with Ovid's story, ‘some conscious, some coincidental’ (p. 115). Indeed, just as one might begin to wonder if the point is being pushed too far, J.'s self-aware commentary acknowledges a desire to ensure Ovid is not ‘pushed too far out of the frame’ (p. 179) and she is aware of the danger of ‘seeing Pygmalion's shadow around every cinematic corner’ (p. 38).
Perhaps proponents of the death of the author will wonder why this point requires discussion, but the conceptual differences between the various forms of reception are an important subject of current debate (see for example J. Paul's concerns regarding the ‘point of reception’ in cases where there is no clear link with antiquity in L. Hardwick and C. Stray [edd.], A Companion to Classical Receptions [2008], p. 309, and M. McDonald's insistence in the same volume on the usefulness of such texts for didactic purposes, p. 340). J.'s book, covering as it does such a wide range of classical receptions, offers fertile ground for further discussion of what constitutes reception and how such echoes of antiquity may be of scholarly interest. J. puts forward an eloquent defence of the usefulness of re-examining ancient texts in the light of more recent ‘receptions’ (p. 31), and she demonstrates the potential of this approach in an exploration of Hitchcock's Vertigo and the Metamorphoses in which she skilfully offers fresh insight into both texts through their comparison with each other (this approach was suggested by L. Hardwick in Reception Studies [2003], p. 4).
Theoretical issues aside, this volume provides an insightful and rigorous exploration of the theme of the manufactured woman onscreen (focussing largely on film, but Chapter 6 provides a case study of an episode of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer). J.'s work is steeped in an intimate knowledge and deep love of film (in a characteristically wry endnote, she refers to Red Dwarf's robot servant as ‘the admirable Kryten’, a nod to the 1957 film based on J.M. Barrie's play about a butler, The Admirable Crichton, p. 205). Her love of Ovid is infectious and in Chapter 1 she provides a thorough analysis of the Ovidian text including a refreshingly lengthy section on the Propoetides.
The book is divided thematically into chapters which for the most part may also usefully be categorised by genre. Chapter 2 provides a case study of Vertigo as an introduction to the different forms of the manufactured woman; Chapter 3 continues the exploration of remodelling real women in make-over films; and Chapter 4 covers films in which an already-formed statue comes to life, usually inhabited by the goddess Venus herself (picking up on pre-Ovidian forms of the Pygmalion story). Chapter 5, introducing the subject of robots, is less generically coherent but successfully introduces a theme which dominates the rest of the book – the futuristic, literally manufactured woman, who can be created to move and speak without divine assistance. Following the Buffy case study, Chapter 7 is again less focussed in terms of genre but is enriched by a study of Lars and the Real Girl, which offers an inverse of the story of the moving, speaking manufactured woman in Bianca, a doll who neither moves nor speaks but who is given life by the affection of the people around her for both the doll and her ‘lover’. Chapter 8 provides a conclusion, drawing the book's themes together using a few more short case studies.
The breadth of J.'s theme allows her to include fascinating sections on such issues as real-life dolls, feminist theory and cyborgs. The essential categorisation of the Pygmalion story by gender is addressed, though it forms the basis for selection of material more than a springboard for discussion. J. notes that there are some gender-reversed versions of the Pygmalion story (p. 175) and refers, where appropriate, to the related stories of Prometheus and Pandora. The latter is particularly important to Chapter 7 which, with the exception of Lars and the Real Girl, focusses on technologically created women and overlaps with the common science fiction motif of technology spinning out of control. The Prometheus story, which is more about the creation of human beings as a species (though usually focussed on the male) is also occasionally relevant, but J. stays focussed on the specifically gendered creation of a woman (literally or metaphorically) or use of a manufactured woman, usually, though not exclusively, by a man – a wise choice when this theme alone offers such a great variety of texts for study.
The book is written in an easily readable style and elaborates on secondary scholarship for those new to the field. Technical terms are clearly explained (though I am not sure the term ‘Ur’ can be quite so easily boiled down to mean ‘source’, p. 68) and there is a small glossary. It is an excellent resource for students of both film and Classics. J. provides her own highly readable prose translation of Met. 10.238–97, which will be invaluable to non-specialists, while the Latin text is provided in an Appendix. It is a shame that the flow of the writing is occasionally interrupted by typing errors or minor inaccuracies (for example, the names Freddie/Freddy and Zac/Zack are spelled inconsistently; the Buffy episode ‘Ted’ is from Season 2, not 1, p. 145) but these do not detract from the overall achievement of the work. This lively and engaging volume will prove very useful to students and scholars alike.
