A video essay where the author presumes motivations and insights in a fictionalized biography regarding Debra Paget, a contract player for 20th-Century Fox whom they groomed and coached for stardom.
Direction
Rappaport's paranoid formalism invents a life.
Editing
Spliced studio stills become creepy evidence.
Director
Mark Rappaport
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Paget was Elvis's first onscreen love in 'Love Me Tender' (1956), then vanished into B-movies and European co-productions—Rappaport treats this decline as corporate assassination.
Rappaport's 'fictional biography' method here influenced later essay films like 'The Five Obstructions' and 'Room 237'—he's the godfather of paranoid cinephilia.
US
