Plastic Surgery: Failed Pygmalions and Decomposing Women in Les Yeux sans Visage (1960) and Bride of Re-Animator (1989)

Abstract

In the myth of Pygmalion, made famous by Ovid’s Metamorphoses (10.243–97), the Greek sculptor carves the form of a lovely woman from snow-white ivory.¹ After he prays to the goddess Venus, she brings Pygmalion’s sculpture to life; he marries her and fathers a child by her. Despite this “happy ending,” the myth’s long cinematic history reflects ambiguously on the relationship between human artistry and ideals of feminine beauty. The narrative variant that charts the transformation or “make-over” of a homely or ill-mannered woman under the guidance of a lover or father-figure is epitomized by Professor Henry Higgins’ education of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964), based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion. Other cinematic articulations of Pygmalion’s myth shift the focus from a woman’s character to her physical reconstruction; because of their disturbingly graphic focus on the female form, these are commonly located within the horror genre.² The Pygmalion of modern horror supplants the divine power of Venus with the miracles of modern science, animating his art through the physician’s masterful knowledge of the human body.