'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 long-persisting damaging stereotypes and reinforced troubling power dynamics.
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
I: Musical Elsewheres
1. Compelled by the Primitive in Cinematic Dance - W. Anthony Sheppard (Marylin and Arthur Levitt Professor of Music, Williams College, Massachusetts, USA)
2. Late Ottoman Musical Folklore as Marker of Elia Kazan's Intimate and Violent Elsewhere – Esther Heboyan
II: U.S. Hegemony, Elsewhere as a Conflict Zone and Geopolitical 'New Frontiers'
3. John Ford's Mexico: The Fugitive (1947) - Costanza Salvi (Lecturer, University of Zaragoza, Spain)
4. When Hollywood Cared: The Representation of Czechoslovakia in Hollywood Cinema of World War II - Milan Hain (Professor, Palacký University, Czech Republic)
5. Manifest Destiny Beyond Borders, from the American West to the Middle East – Julie Assouly
6. From the War Reporter to the Traveler-Entrepreneur. Evolutions of the American protagonist in Films About Countries at War (1980 – 2020) - Antoine Gaudin (Associate Professor, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, France)
7. A Terrorist Nation: Gaddafi's Libya on American Screens - Sara El Majhad (Lecturer, University of Aix-Marseille, France)
III: Elsewhere Through Stereotypical Models and Counter-Models
8. Anti-Orientalism in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005) - Abderrahmene Bourenane (Postdoctoral fellow, Le Mans University, France)
9. The Fairy Tale Europe of the American Rom-Com - Barbora Kaplánková (PhD candidate, Palacký University, Czech Republic)
10. The Action Takes Place in Poland, That Is to Say Nowhere... Dream-like Poland in David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006) - Emmanuel Plasseraud (Professor, Amiens University, France)
11. Wes Anderson's Transatlantic Cinema: Beyond Stereotypical French Culture – Julie Assouly
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | Jun 11 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 320 |
| ISBN | 9781350561977 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 40 bw illus |
| Series | World Cinema |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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