Les Stars

In a 1972 essay on Les stars, Edgar Morin explains the difference between actors and stars by referring to ancient heroic myths. Stars are heroes of adventure, action, tragedy, and love like the heroes of myths. They are “divinisee et mythique” (39). The star’s mythical, quasi-divine status applies both to the person who plays the parts on film and the parts that he or she plays. For stars, there is a reciprocal relation between actor and role: The star actor enhances every role he plays, elevating it into myth; and the roles on screen in turn elevate the actor into a transcendent realm.

Morin argues that the star’s beauty shares in this reciprocal dynamic. The mythical supports – the imaginary heroine and the beauty of the actress who plays the heroine – interpenetrate. Beauty becomes the essence of the star: “Le star system veut des beautes.” Recorded on film, the natural beauty of the star is elevated into an ideal beauty. And Morin sees this too as an ultimately religious desire. The permanent, unalterable beauty of the star is a more than natural beauty; it enters the realm of the sacred. The mythology of the heroine of love links physical beauty with moral beauty: “Le corps ideal de la star revele une ame ideale” (45). Youth and beauty go together in the star system of the movie industry. Morin points out that in 1940, the average age of women starts in Hollywood was 20-25 years old.

Morin includes a chapter on the “stellar liturgy” in which he analyzes the devotion of fans as a form of religious devotion. He quotes long passages from fans who speak of their “adoration” of their favorite film actors and actresses, describe how the stars fill their dreams and desires. Stars are “comme un saint patron” (82), and fans keep fetishes to have some tactile relationship with the star – photos and autographs especially.

Film, Morin suggests, isn’t just an industry. It’s a cult, a cult of the stars.