This book explores the politics and pleasures of contemporary feminist cinema, and traces the highly productive ways in which feminist directors create alternative film forms. Smelik also highlights cinematic issues which are central to feminist films: authorship, point of view, metaphor, montage and the excessive image.

"And The Mirror Cracked" explores the politics and pleasures of contemporary feminist cinema. Tracing the productive ways in which feminist directors create alternative film forms, Anneke Smelik highlights cinematic issues which are central to feminist films: authorship, point of view, metaphor, montage and the excessive image. In a continuous mirror game between theory and cinema, this study explains how these cinematic techniques are used to represent female subjectivity positively and affirmatively. Among the films considered are "A Question of Silence", "Bagdad Cafe", "Sweetie" and "The Virgin Machine".

Acknowledgements - Introduction - What Meets the Eye: An Overview of Feminist Film Theories - In Pursuit of the Author: On Cinematic Directorship: The Subjective Factor - Silent Violence: On Point of View: Dust and Cruel Embrace - And the Mirror Cracked: On Metaphors of Violence and Resistance: A Question of Silence and Broken Mirrors - Forces of Subversion: On the Excess of the Image: Bagdad Cafe and Sweetie - The Navel of the Film: On the Abject and the Masquerade: The Virgin Machine - Epilogue - Notes - Bibliography - Filmography - Index