Coates presents the face in film as a place where transformations begin, reflecting both the experience of modernity and such influential myths as that of Medusa. This is exemplified by a wide range of European and American films, including Ingmar Bergman's Persona .
Paul Coates is a professor emeritus of film studies at Western University, Ontario. Previously, he taught at Georgia, McGill, and Aberdeen, and his books include The Story of the Lost Reflection (1985), The Gorgon’s Gaze (1991), Lucid Dreams: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski (ed., 1999), Cinema and Colour (2010), Screening the Face (2012), and Comparative Cinema: Late and Last Things in Literature and Film (2021).