Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film

by Matthew H. Bernstein (Editor), Gaylyn Studlar (Editor)

Overview

The Sheik. Pépé le Moko. Casablanca. Aladdin. Some of the most popular and frequently discussed titles in movie history are imbued with orientalism, the politically-charged way in which western artists have represented gender, race, and ethnicity in the cultures of North Africa and Asia. This is the first anthology to address and highlight orientalism in film from pre-cinema fascinations with Egyptian culture through the "Whole New World" of Aladdin. Eleven illuminating and well-illustrated essays utilize the insights of interdisciplinary cultural studies, psychoanalysis, feminism, and genre criticism. Other films discussed includeThe Letter, Caesar and Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, Indochine, and several films of France's cinéma colonial.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813522951
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

MATTHEW BERNSTEIN is an associate professor of film studies at Emory University. He is the author of Walter Wanger: Hollywood Independent and a former coordinating editor of The Velvet Light Trap.

GAYLYN STUDLAR is a professor of English and film and video studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic and This Mad Masquerade: Masculinity in the Jazz Age.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments    
Introduction - Matthew Bernstein
Gender and Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of the Cinema - Ella Shohat
PART ONE HISTORICAL AND GENERIC CONTEXTS    
The Curse of the Pharaoh, or How Cinema Contracted Egyptomania - Antonia Lant
&‘grave;Out-Salomeing Salome'': Dance, the New Woman, and Fan Magazine Orientalism - Gaylyn Studlar
The Thousand Ways There Are to Move: Camp and Oriental Dance in the Hollywood Musicals of Jack Cole - Andrienne L. McLean
The Family Romance of Orientalism: From Madame Butterfly to Indochine - Marina Heung
A Whole New (Disney) World Order: Aladdin, Atomic Power, and the Muslim Middle East - Alan Nadel
PART TWO NATIONAL CINEMAS    
The &‘grave;Cinema colonial'' of 1930s France: Film Narration as Spatial Practice - Charles O'Brien
Praying Mantis: Enchantment and Violence in French Cinema of the Exotic - Dudley Andrew
In the Labyrinth: Masculine Subjectivity, Expatriation, and Colonialism in Pepe le Moko - Janice Morgon
Timeless Histories: A British Dream of Cleopatra - Mary Hamer
Reading The Letter in a Postcolonial World - Phebe Shih Chao
Orientalism in Film: A Select Bibliography
About the Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

A superb collection of essays which amply demonstrates that multiculturally oriented studies of cinema have come of age.

author of Creating the Couple: Love, Marriage, and Hollywood Performance - Virginia Wright Wexman

The first major collection of essays on Orientalism in American and European cinema... is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the politics of visual culture.

University of Arizona - Susan White

In Visions of the East, eleven cultural theorists use film as a point of departure for elaborating on Edward Said's initial articulation of orientalism as a regime of knowledge constructed and maintained by Western hegemonies. . . . A superb, much needed, and timely text for anyone interested not only in understanding the historical contexts for such films but also in deconstructing their political and cultural ideologies.

Religious Studies Review

Challenges the reader to confront the ideological bias buried within Western film-making. Professors Bernstein and Studlar have assembled a significant collection of original essays which utilize broad theoretical concepts to illuminate particular films. The result, an engaging and stimulating book, makes an invaluable contribution to the study of cinema history, theory, and criticism.

Syracuse University - Lester D. Friedman