But why is it appropriate to put our knowledge of star personae to work
when watching a movie, but not our knowledge of how popular plots go
99.9% of the time? Why is access to one kind of movie lore legitimate and the
access to the other kind not?
In this essay, I have tried to resolve this apparent problem with movie stars
by arguing that the invocation of star personae is a matter of figuration. Films
allude to star personae; the history of the star’s previous roles and the characters
he played are not presented as literally connected to the character.
Moreover, the possibility of alluding to the star persona appears to grow out
of the capacity of the photographically based motion-picture to physically por