Home in Hollywood: The Imaginary Geography of Cinema (Film and Culture)

Leading us on a journey through familiar twentieth-century American films, this engaging and provocative book proposes that Hollywood has created an imaginary cinematic geography filled with people and places we recognize and to which we are irresistibly drawn. Each viewing of a film stirs, in a very real and charismatic way, feelings of home. The comfort of returning to films like familiar haunts is at the core of our nostalgic desire. Elisabeth Bronfen examines the different ways home is constructed in the development of cinematic narrative, offering close readings of crucial scenes in classic films. Who can forget Dorothy's quest for the great and powerful Oz as she tried to return to her beloved Kansas? She thought she needed a wizard's magic, only to discover that home—and the power to get there—had been with her all along. This engaging and provocative book proposes that Hollywood has created an imaginary cinematic geography filled with people and places we recognize and to which we are irresistibly drawn. Each viewing of a film stirs, in a very real and charismatic way, feelings of home, and the comfort of returning to films like familiar haunts is at the core of our nostalgic desire. Leading us on a journey through American film, Elisabeth Bronfen examines the different ways home is constructed in the development of cinematic narrative. Each chapter includes a close reading of such classic films as Fleming's __The Wizard of Oz,__ Sirk's __Imitation of Life,__ Burton's __Batman Returns,__ Hitchcock's __Rebecca,__ Ford's __The Searchers,__ and Sayles's __Lone Star.__ Contents Acknowledgments Prologue — Out of the Library: Seven Introduction: Not Master in His Own House Chapter 1. Uncanny Appropriations "Rebecca" Chapter 2. Home — There’s No Place Like It "The Wizard of Oz" Chapter 3. Seduction of Departing "The Searchers" Chapter 4. Hybrid Home "Lone Star" Chapter 5. The Enigma of Homecoming "Secret Beyond the Door" Chapter 6. Sustaining Dislocation "Imitation of Life" Chapter 7. The Homeless Strike Back "Batman Returns" Notes Bibliography Index Elisabeth Bronfen. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [297]-303) And Index.