Making Faces, Playing God: Identity and the Art of Transformational Make-up

by Thomas Morawetz

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Book cover for Making Faces, Playing God

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Wearing a mask-putting on another face-embodies a fundamental human fantasy of inhabiting other bodies and experiencing other lives. In this extensively illustrated book, Thomas Morawetz explores how the creation of transformational makeup for theatre, movies, and television fulfills this fantasy of self-transformation and satisfies the human desire to become "the other." Morawetz begins by discussing the cultural role of fantasies of transformation and what these fantasies reveal about questions of personal identity. He next turns to professional makeup artists and describes their background, training, careers, and especially the techniques they use to create their art. Then, with numerous before-during-and-after photos of transformational makeups from popular and little-known shows and movies, ads, and artist's demos and portfolios, he reveals the art and imagination that go into six kinds of mask-making-representing demons, depicting aliens, inventing disguises, transforming actors into different (older, heavier, disfigured) versions of themselves, and creating historical or mythological characters.
Thomas Morawetz, Tapping Reeve Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Connecticut School of Law, writes avocationally on modern literature, non-fiction, mysteries, and movies. His interest in movie-making extends over thirty-five years.
  • ISBN10 0292752466
  • ISBN13 9780292752467
  • Publish Date 15 August 2001 (first published 1 August 2001)
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 13 July 2009
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint University of Texas Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 256
  • Language English