Lee Siegel has a recent piece on Greta Garbo entitled “Sexy Beast” in The New Republic (sorry, subscribers only). Siegel's best line is, "Americans want movies to suddenly light up their darkened theaters, as if being alone with your imagination were an untrustworthy enterprise; Europeans like (or used to like) dark-hued films that keep their imaginations glowing in the dark." Seems as if our own Kirby and Etienne made this point a while back.