The other night Patricia and I watched Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, a 1945 film directed by Robert Bresson, and both of us were struck by how much the star, Maria Casares, looked like Chloe Sevigny. No?

There appears to be no relation, though. She is, however, the daughter of Santiago Casares Quiroga, who was prime minister of Spain when the fighting that led to the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936.

The ending of Les Dames is disappointing but otherwise it's a good entry into the "scheming woman/women" subgenre, with Macbeth, The Women, Gone with the Wind. What are the recent entries in this? Or do cinematic women just kick ass now, rather than scheme for power, or men, or revenge? The scheming seems left to the teenaged girls now.

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