In Designing Women: Cinema, Art Deco, and the Female Form, Lucy Fischer examines the association between the Art Deco style and the new, modern woman, using Garbo as a major example.  In this presentation, I will extend Fischer's analysis by considering another point of intersection between the star image of Garbo and the styles of modernism - specifically, by situating the visual representation of Garbo within the shifting practices of cinematic and photographic portraiture. 

During the 1920s, many cinematographers experimented with the techniques of the Soft Style, using lens diffusion, lamp diffusion, and soft-focus lenses to create hazy images inspired by Pictorialist photography.  The timing of this development was somewhat ironic: During the years that cinematographers were eagerly adopting the self-consciously photographic techniques of the Soft Style, professional photographers were abandoning those very same techniques on the grounds that they were too painterly.  The new sharp style was initially found in the photographic avant-garde, but soon it was easy to find stunningly modern frames in the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair.  The result was a striking split between the styles of cinema and photography.  In the cinema of this period, a glamorous close-up was soft and beautiful.  In the pages of Vanity Fair, a glamorous portrait of a woman might be hard, or even a little harsh by the standards of the Soft Style.  That hardness was a mark of the image's modernity, a modernity that could identify a female subject as confident and rule-breaking. 

When compared with her portraits, some of the close-ups in Garbo's silent films look rather tame.  Even in an ostensibly modern film like The Single Standard, a typical image might show Garbo lit with all the softness of a Lillian Gish close-up.  However, there are some Garbo films that take more chances with the cinematography, creating a more modern visual style that seemed more appropriate for stories about the New Woman.  Directed by Jacques Feyder, The Kiss takes a surprisingly modernist approach to both storytelling and style, producing several very unusual images of Garbo: the cinematic equivalent of the modern portraits found in the magazines.  Clarence Brown's A Woman of Affairs is even more daring visually, featuring elaborate camera moves and unusual camera angles that were clearly inspired by European directors like F.W. Murnau.  In the manner of the Art Deco designs analyzed by Fischer, both films employ a modern approach to cinematography that helps to deepen Garbo's characterization as a New Woman.  

In conclusion, the example of Garbo helps to demonstrate that the conventions of lighting were responsive to social changes.  Cinematographers had learned the creative techniques of the Soft Style only recently, but softness was quickly becoming outmoded, calling for a sharper style that was more appropriate to Garbo's distinctly modern form of glamour.