'Elsewhere' in American Cinema
How Hollywood Represents the World
'Elsewhere' in American Cinema
How Hollywood Represents the World
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Description
The foreign 'elsewhere' has long been depicted in American cinema as a site of fascination and fantasy, shaping how Western audiences view the world. 'Elsewhere' in American Cinema explores how these portrayals have also created enduring stereotypes and reinforced troubling power dynamics, models and counter-models.
Bringing together a diverse group of international contributors, the volume explores depictions of the 'elsewhere' across various genres including musicals, westerns, war films, and romantic comedies. Drawing on theoretical frameworks such as Michel Foucault's heterotopias, Edward Said's Orientalism, and Homi Bhabha's concept of in-betweenness, the eleven chapters offer fresh perspectives on films spanning from the silent era to contemporary Hollywood. Through close readings of films such as The Fugitive (1947), America America (1963), and Kingdom of Heaven (2005), they analyse Hollywood's emphasis on patriotism and its problematic portrayal of conflict zones, the role of music in exoticising foreign lands, and the evolution of stereotypes into counter-models.
As a result, the cinematic 'elsewhere' emerges as a complex space that is simultaneously real and constructed, familiar and alien, onto which American filmmakers project cultural anxieties, fantasies, and ideologies, revealing the changing relationship between the United States and the rest of the world.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Introduction – “Elsewhere in US Cinema, an Intercultural, Interdisciplinary and Highly Political Subject”- Julie Assouly (Associate professor, University of Artois, France)
Part I - US HEGEMONY, ELSEWHERE AS A CONFLICT ZONE AND GEOPOLITICAL 'NEW FRONTIERS'
1- Milan Hain (Associate professor, Palacký University, Czech Republic) – “When Hollywood Cared: The Representation of Czechoslovakia in Hollywood Cinema of World War II”
2- Julie Assouly (Associate professor, University of Artois, France) – “Manifest Destiny Beyond Borders, from the American West to the Middle East”
3- Antoine Gaudin (Associate professor, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle) – “From the War Reporter to the Traveler-Entrepreneur. Evolutions of the American protagonist in Films About Countries at War (1980 – 2020)”
4- Sara El Majhad (Lecturer, University of Aix-Marseille, France) – “A Terrorist Nation: Gaddafi's Libya on American Screens”
5- Costanza Salvi (Lecturer, University of Zaragoza, Spain) – “John Ford's Mexico: The Fugitive (1947)”
Part II - MUSICAL ELSEWHERES
6- W. Anthony Sheppard (Marylin and Arthur Levitt Professor of Music, Williams College, Mass.)
– “Compelled by the Primitive in Cinematic Dance”
7- Mikaël Toulza (Associate Professor, University of Lille) – “To the Rhythm of the Drums: Rada Drums and Territorialized Exotic Images in Voodoo Zombi Films”
8- Esther Heboyan (Emeritus professor, University of Artois, France) – “Late Ottoman Musical Folklore as Marker of Elia Kazan's Intimate and Violent Elsewhere”
Part III - ELSEWHERE THROUGH STEREOTYPICAL MODELS AND COUNTERMODELS
9- Abderrahmene Bourenane (Postdoctoral fellow, Le Mans University, France) – “Anti-Orientalism in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005)”
10- Barbora Kaplánková (PhD candidate, Palacký University) – “The Fairy Tale Europe of the American Rom-Com”
11- Emmanuel Plasseraud (Professor, Picardie Jules Verne University, France) – “The Action Takes Place in Poland, That Is to Say Nowhere... Dream-like Poland in David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006)”
12- Julie Assouly (Associate professor, University of Artois, France) – “Wes Anderson's Transatlantic Cinema: Beyond Stereotypical French Culture”
Bibliography
Product details
| Published | Jun 11 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 320 |
| ISBN | 9781350561953 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 40 bw illus |
| Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
| Series | World Cinema |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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