The Woman Behind the Mask
Christiane’s countenance is one of the most memorable in all of horror cinema—yet you barely get to see the real face of the actor playing her. Edith Scob is an ethereal force in Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face as the horribly disfigured daughter of a doctor obsessed with grafting onto her a replacement visage. For most of the film, Scob has to act behind an unsettling mask, but her eerie movements and gestures are unforgettable. Scob, who was twenty-two at the time, recently sat down with us for an interview for our Blu-ray edition of the film. In this excerpt, the actor (whom you may recognize from last year’s film Holy Motors) discusses the challenges of performing with an obscured face and the strangeness of her unforgettable character.
