Volume 53, Issue 3

This essay discusses the representation of New England's colonial past in the most re cent cinematic adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter (185.0). Based on theoretical models developed by Renate Lachmann, this essay will show that the movie creates an effect of historicity in developing a web of intertextual references between the cinematic adaptation of The Scarlet Letter and a number of historical and literary documents. The intertextual structure of the film determines the cinematic recreation of the past and succeeds in simultaneously reconstructing different historical crises in American colonial history.

The essay demonstrates how Hollywood meets history. It will examine the ways in which the mainstream movie fuses filmic and non-filmic discourses in order to stage the American Revolution on screen. On the one hand, the film appropriates legendary figures and folk tales about some colonial militia leaders who fought against the British troops during the war of independence. The Patriot assembles a historical patchwork hero whose on-screen appearance renders a culturally meaningful narrative about America's past for contemporary viewers. On the other hand, the film visualizes history through star performance and references to earlier historical movies. The. essay will argue that the very patchworking of characters and the cinematic 'quilting' of life stories form essential strategies for mainstreaming history in Hollywood movies.

Based on the TV re-enactment The Crossing (1999), this paper will argue that the film intertwines three modes of cultural memory: historiography, iconography, and mythology. As a complex blend of different visual and narrative codes, The Crossing unfolds a history of continuity that is closely related to the commemorative cult about George Washington and his victory at the Battle of Trenton in 1776. Released in the year of the bicentennial commemoration of Washington's death, the film reinscribes the visual and imaginary codes that make up the memory of the nation. The Crossing is thus both a storage medium of collective memory and a dynamic medium of remembrance that actively configures the past by echoing national images and narratives.

This paper investigates how far historical developments and the New Indian History influenced Hollywood movies. As a case study it looks at Geronimo (1962) and Geronimo: An American Legend (1993). The movie Geronimo, the first more sympathetic treatment of the Apache leader, is barely interested in historical events, puts most of the blame for Geronimo's 1885 breakout on corrupt whites, and, in a happy ending, portrays Geronimo as slowly converting to white ways. Geronimo: An American Legend, filmed after twenty years of Native American struggle for their. rights, uses American Indian actors, has them speak in Apache, and is historically more accurate; yet, it does not focus on Geronimo but portrays instead his chase by white Americans as well as their (and the audience's) efforts to co me to grips with their guilt. The Apaches are presented as noble, heroic Indians vanishing in an inevitable dash of cultures. Although progress has been made in portraying Native Americans and their culture in film, the Hollywood view is still deficient.

Undoubtedly, John Ford's Rio Grande can be regarded as a prime example of the so-called Cold War Western. Released in November 1950, the film was read by many film critics as the director's right-wing statement on the Korea crisis. Sharing this view, my analysis will show to what a high degree Rio Grande supported the conservative gender politics of American postwar society, which, as Elaine Tyler May and others persuasively argue, fought communism not· only in remote parts of the world but also and especially in the family, with women, and mothers in particular, blamed for involuntarily supporting the 'red' infiltration.

After being ambushed in Starbuck, Texas, the men of the Wild Bunch flee to Mexico where they become involved in the Mexican Revolution. At first they help the federal troops, but later they change sides and try to help the revolutionaries. In addition to the Mexican Revolution, two other wars are layered into the narrative: the First World War and the Vietnam War. This layering of historical events adds depth to the movie by justifying its depiction of violence, especially in the apocalyptic ending, and by establishing an analogy between the Wild Bunch in Mexico and American intervention in Vietnam. In terms of this analogy, the failure of the Wild Bunch to help the peasants in Mexico parallels the failure of America to help the peasants in Vietnam.