In Me Jane, leading female film scholars from both sides of the Atlantic get to grips with masculinity and cinema.

In original studies ranging from the Western to melodrama our contributors see masculinity marked as delicate, fragile, provisional; it is under threat, in danger of collapse, an impossible ideal. These signs of the masculine in films are recognised by women viewers who are subject to patriarchal masculinity in their own feminine formation but not subject to it in the sense that to be male is never their goal.

The pleasures of cinema-going are also celebrated. With magnificent scope, discussing patriarchy and power, bodies and transgression, identity and worldly success, the essayists by turn swoon in the beefy arms of Albert Finney, are fixed by Jean Gabin's expressive eyes or become infatuated with Clint Eastwood's voice.