The Existence of White:

The Body of Curtis/DeSalvo in Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler

Abstract

  What type of existence is the body on the screen? Considering this problem, this paper studies Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler (1968). The existence of Albert DeSalvo, played by Tony Curtis, shows a singular way of being on the screen that has not been pointed out in previous studies. From the viewpoint of mental illness, previous studies assume DeSalvo to be a “divisional existence whose second personality is the real culprit.” However, that is not the premise of this paper. I drow on Stephen Heath’s classification of “the presence of people” in the narrative film. The aim of this paper is to clarify the singularity of the way DeSalvo exists that does not fit each item of this classification well.

  In my discussion, I examine the star image of Curtis and the figure of DeSalvo in the media discourse, and point out the process of showing DeSalvo as the real culprit. Furthermore, I identify the splits in the process, using invisibility and voice as a clue. I also demonstrate how the mechanism of violence of visualization operates to establish DeSalvo as the subject, as well as how subsequently this mechanism is undermined by the register of bodily gestures. Finally, after tracing these three phases, namely the invisible regime, violence of visualization, and another invisible area, I clarify that the way of existence of DeSalvo led to “the existence of white.”