Memory and Popular Film

Memory and popular film Inside Popular Film General editors Mark Jancovich and Eric Schaefer Inside Popular Film is a forum for writers who are working to develop new ways of analysing popular film. Each book offers a critical introduction to existing debates while also exploring new approaches. In general, the books give historically in- formed accounts of popular film, which present this area as altogether more complex than is commonly suggested by established film theories. Developments over the past decade have led to a broader understanding of film, which moves beyond the traditional oppositions between high and low culture, popular and avant-garde. The analysis of film has also moved beyond a concentra- tion on the textual forms of films, to include an analysis of both the social situations within which films are consumed by audiences, and the relationship between film and other popular forms. The series therefore addresses issues such as the complex inter- textual systems that link film, literature, art and music, as well as the production and consumption of film through a variety of hybrid media, including video, cable and satellite. The authors take interdisciplinary approaches, which bring together a variety of theoretical and critical debates that have developed in film, media and cultural studies. They neither embrace nor condemn popular film, but explore specific forms and genres within the contexts of their production and consumption. Already published: Thomas Austin Hollywood, hype and audiences Harry M. Benshoff Monsters in the closet: homosexuality and the horror film Julia Hallam and Margaret Marshment Realism and popular cinema Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich (eds) Approaches to popular film Nicole Matthews Gender in Hollywood: comedy after the new right Rachel Moseley Growing up with Audrey Hepburn Jacinda Read The new avengers: feminism, femininity and the rape-revenge cycle Aylish Wood Technoscience in contemporary film: beyond science fiction Memory and popular film edited by Paul Grainge Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Copyright © Manchester University Press 2003 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC- BY-NC-ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 6374 4 hardback ISBN 0 7190 6375 2 paperback First published 2003 111009080706050403 10987654321 Typeset in Sabon with Frutiger by Northern Phototypesetting Co. Ltd, Bolton Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow Contents Notes on contributors page vii Acknowledgements x Introduction: memory and popular film Paul Grainge 1 Part I Public history, popular memory 21 1 A white man’s country: Yale’s Chronicles of America Roberta E. Pearson 23 2 Civic pageantry and public memory in the silent era commemorative film: The Pony Express at the Diamond Jubilee Heidi Kenaga 42 3 ‘Look behind you!’: memories of cinema-going in the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood Sarah Stubbings 65 4 Raiding the archive: film festivals and the revival of Classic Hollywood Julian Stringer 81 Part II The politics of memory 97 5 The articulation of memory and desire: from Vietnam to the war in the Persian Gulf John Storey 99 6 The movie-made Movement: civil rites of passage Sharon Monteith 120 7 Prosthetic memory: the ethics and politics of memory in an age of mass culture Alison Landsberg 144 vi Contents 8 ‘Forget the Alamo’: history, legend and memory in John Sayles’ Lone Star Neil Campbell 162 Part III Mediating memory 181 9 ‘Mortgaged to music’: new retro movies in 1990s Hollywood cinema Philip Drake 183 10 Colouring the past: Pleasantville and the textuality of media memory Paul Grainge 202 11 Memory, history and digital imagery in contemporary film Robert Burgoyne 220 12 Postcinema/Postmemory Jeffrey Pence 237 Index 257 Notes on contributors Robert Burgoyne is Professor of Film and English at Wayne State Univer- sity. His work centres on questions of history, memory, and film. He is the author of Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at U.S. History (Minnesota Uni- versity Press, 1997), Bertolucci’s 1900: A Narrative and Historical Analysis (Wayne State University Press, 1991) and is co-author of New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics (Routledge, 1992). Neil Campbell is Head of American Studies at the University of Derby. His recent publications as author, editor and co-author are The Cultures of the American New West (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), The Radiant Hour: Youth and American Culture (Exeter University Press, 2000) and American Cultural Studies (Routledge, 1997). He is currently writing on American Western landscape photography. Philip Drake is Lecturer in Media at the University of Paisley. He is currently researching questions of stardom, performance and industry in contemporary Hollywood cinema. He has published on performance in post-classical come- dian comedy, and has forthcoming publications on stardom and cultural value. Paul Grainge is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Nottingham. His work on cultural nostalgia and media memory has been published in journals including Cultural Studies, The Journal of American Studies, Amer- ican Studies, The International Journal of Cultural Studies and The Journal of American and Comparative Cultures. He is the author of Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in Retro America (Praeger, 2002). Heidi Kenaga is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Memphis, where she teaches film, television and literature courses. Her article, ‘Edna Ferber’s Cimarron, Cultural Authority, and 1920s Western historical narra- tives’ will appear in the anthology Forgotten Feminisms: Popular Women Writers of the 1920s in 2003. She is currently at work on a book about the viii Notes on contributors American film studios’ production of ‘commemorative’ films during the postwar era, entitled Marketing a Usable Past: Historical Commemoration and the Prestige Western, 1923–1931. Alison Landsberg is Assistant Professor of American cultural history and film in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason Uni- versity. Her work on memory has been published in journals including Body and Society and New German Critique and has most recently appeared in The Cybercultures Reader (Routledge, 2000). She is currently finishing a manuscript entitled Prosthetic Memory: The Logics and Politics of Memory in Modern American Culture. Sharon Monteith is Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Nottingham. She is co-editor of Gender and the Civil Rights Movement (Garland, 1999) with Peter Ling and South to a New Place (Louisiana State University Press, forthcoming) with Suzanne W. Jones, and is the author of Advancing Sisterhood? Interracial Friendships in Contemporary Southern Fiction (University of Georgia Press, 2000). She is currently writing a book on popular cinema and the Civil Rights Movement. Roberta E. Pearson is a Reader in Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. She is the author, co-author and co-editor of numerous books and articles. She has recently co-edited both the Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory (Routledge, 2001) and American Cultural Studies: a Reader (Oxford University Press, 2000). She is also co-editor of Worlds Apart: Essays on Cult Television, which will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2003. Jeffrey Pence is Assistant Professor of English and Cinema Studies at Oberlin College. His essays have appeared in such journals as Public Culture, Poetics Today, MLQ, Film and Philosophy and JNT. Currently, he is working on a manuscript dealing with cinema, technology and spirituality. John Storey is Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sunderland. His recent publications include Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (University of Georgia Press, 1998), Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life (Edward Arnold, 1999), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (University of Georgia Press, 2001) and Inventing Popular Culture (Blackwell, 2003). Julian Stringer is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Nottingham, and editor of Movie Blockbusters (Routledge, 2003). He is currently completing a PhD on film festivals at Indiana University. Notes on contributors ix Sarah Stubbings is currently completing a PhD entitled ‘From Modernity to Memorial: Changing Meanings of the 1930s Cinema in Britain’ at the University of Nottingham. She is a contributory writer in Mark Jancovich and Lucy Faire, The Place of the Audience: Cultural Geographies of Film Consumption (BFI, forthcoming). Acknowledgements I would like to thank Mark Jancovich for his encouragement and unfailing generosity, and to colleagues at the University of Derby and the University

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