Otherness in Hollywood Cinema

Description

In Otherness in Hollywood Cinema, Michael Richardson argues that the Hollywood system has been the only national cinema with the resources and inclination to explore images of others through stories set in exotic and faraway places. He traces many of the ways in which Hollywood has constructed otherness, and discusses the extent to which those images have persisted and conditioned today's understanding. Hollywood was from the beginning teeming with people who had experienced cultural displacement. Coaxing the finest talents from around the world and needing to produce films with an almost universal appeal, Hollywood confounded American insularity while simultaneously presenting a vision of 'America' to the world. The book examines a range of genres from the perspective of otherness, including the Western, film noir, and zombie movies. Films discussed include Birth of a Nation, The New World, The Searchers, King Kong, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Jaws, and Dead Man. Erudite and highly informed, this is a sweeping survey of how the American film industry has portrayed the foreign and the exotic.

Michael Richardson has published widely on surrealism, having edited two volumes of surrealist stories, The Identity of Things and The Myth of the World, a collection of Georges Bataille's writings on surrealism, The Absence of Myth, and a collection of writings by Caribbean surrealist writers, Refusal of the Shadow. He is currently visiting fellow at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths University. Michael Richardson is Visiting Fellow (honorary) at Goldsmith's College, University of London. His research interests focus on issues of representation and how they relate to the anthropological relation. He has published widely, having edited a collection of writings of Georges Bataille on surrealism (The Absence of Myth, Verso, 1991) and surrealism and the Caribbean (Refusal of the Shadow, Verso 1996), as well as writing the single authored books George Bataille (Routledge, 1994), The Experience of Culture (Sage, 2001) and Surrealism and Cinema (Berg, 2006). From 2004-7, he was Visiting Professor in Cultural Studies at Waseda University, Tokyo.

'Richardson's book is one for the film studies section of the library in schools, colleges, universities and performing arts training institutions.' -- The Stage 'The book is very easy reading. It's like having a chat with a friend who has been there and done that and doesn't mind showing you the T shirt. It's equally readable by men and women - in fact I was persuaded to read it by a man who said that he'd enjoyed it. Consider the book as an investment - it could well be the best treat your relationships have had in a long time.' -- thebookbag.co.uk Richardson, who has published quite widely on the writings of Georges Bataille and surrealism, presents an overview and analysis of the "other" as depicted in American cinema from Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) to the present. As such, the book is ambitious in scope, both in addressing a wide time span and in the varied typologies of "others" examined. -- Emily Godbey, Iowa State University * American Studies - Vol. 52, no. 1. * Michael Richardson steps in with his study on Hollywood, and how its films have presented the "Other" as the US became a global power... He writes about them in a way that reveals in those films a relationship with the "Other," known, perceived or dissimulated; an experience we share. -- Allan Graubard * Leonardo Reviews * Richardson has seen many films. They are films we know or have heard about and have yet to watch. He writes about them in a way that reveals in those films a relationship with the 'Other,' known, perceived or dissimulated; an experience we share. Perhaps, too, this work will bear other, future studies that speak to a different breadth of films than Hollywood is capable of -- Allan Graubard * Leonardo, Vol.47, No. 2 *