Gelley, Ora. "Ingrid Bergman's Star Persona and the Alien Space of Stromboli." Cinema Journal 47.2 (2008): 26-51.

Gelley tracks the course of Ingrid Bergman's career, moving from her beginnings in Sweden, to her time in WWII era Germany, to the peak of her popularity in Hollywood, and finally to her films and romantic entanglements with the famed director Roberto Rossellini. Over the course of this article, Gelley addresses many issues but places a continual focus on the shifting acceptance and use of Bergman's sexuality. Gelley states that while off-screen (until the time of her affair with Rossellini) Bergman was portrayed as innocent and virtuous, on screen she often took on the roles of “the other woman,” prostitutes, or women with questionable morals. Bergman’s sexuality was not only affected by the roles that she took on, but also by the methods of acting that she (and at times her directors) chose to utilize in each of her films. The restrained movement that characterized her collaborations with Hitchcock allowed her to achieve success in Hollywood and with the American people. However, when Bergman began to work with Rossellini her movement and acting method reflected an actor, and subsequently a group of characters, that embraced her own sexuality. While Gelley argues that it is this acceptance of female power that alienated Bergman from her Hollywood fan base, it also allowed her characters to become not only representations of strong women, but also to become central to Rossellini’s commentary on the state of Europe after World War II.

Addressing Bergman’s work in Spellbound, Gelley highlight Hitchcock’s influence, arguing that it was Hitchcock who urged Bergman to restrain her movement and focused the camera and subsequently the audience on the drama of her minuet facial expressions. With her body either out of frame of covered by unflattering outfits, Hitchcock neutralized Bergman’s capacity for the expression of overt sexuality. This fascination with Bergman’s face might have begun with Spellbound, but in Hitchcock’s next film with Bergman, Notorious, the director took the idea of the close-up to the extreme, including approximately 191 close-ups and extreme close-ups in a 101-minute film. Like Notorious, in Spellbound the close-ups ultimately undermine the strength of the female character, neutralizing the power that she posses within the plot of the film and instead relegating her to role of a emotionally involved, but ultimately passive player.