Invented Lives, Imagined Communities: The Biopic and American National Identity PDF
Preview Invented Lives, Imagined Communities: The Biopic and American National Identity
Invented Lives, Imagined Communities Also in the series William Rothman, editor, Cavell on Film J. David Slocum, editor, Rebel Without a Cause Joe McElhaney, The Death of Classical Cinema Kirsten Moana Thompson, Apocalyptic Dread Frances Gateward, editor, Seoul Searching Michael Atkinson, editor, Exile Cinema Paul S. Moore, Now Playing Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann, Ecology and Popular Film William Rothman, editor, Three Documentary Filmmakers Sean Griffin, editor, Hetero Jean-Michel Frodon, editor, Cinema and the Shoah Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, editors, Second Takes Matthew Solomon, editor, Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination R. Barton Palmer and David Boyd, editors, Hitchcock at the Source William Rothman, Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze, Second Edition Joanna Hearne, Native Recognition Marc Raymond, Hollywood’s New Yorker Steven Rybin and Will Scheibel, editors, Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis, editors, B Is for Bad Cinema Dominic Lennard, Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors Rosie Thomas, Bombay before Bollywood Scott M. MacDonald, Binghamton Babylon Sudhir Mahadevan, A Very Old Machine David Greven, Ghost Faces James S. Williams, Encounters with Godard Invented Lives, Imagined Communities The Biopic and American National Identity • Edited by William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer Cover: Library of Congress / Dreamworks SKG Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2016 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production, Ryan Morris Marketing, Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Invented lives, imagined communities : the biopic and American national identity / edited by William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer. pages cm. — (SUNY series, Horizons of cinema) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-6079-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4384-6081-9 (e-book) 1. Biographical films—United States—History and criticism. 2. National characteristics, American, in motion pictures. 3. United States—In motion pictures. I. Epstein, William H. editor. II. Palmer, R. Barton, 1946– editor. PN1995.9.B55I58 2016 791.43'651—dc23 2015024377 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vi Introduction: Strategic Patriotic Memories 1 WILLIAM H. EPSTEIN PERFORMERS AND SHOWMEN Empty Words: Houdini and Houdini 25 MURRAY POMERANCE Woody Guthrie, Warts and All: The Biopic in the New American Cinema of the 1970s 49 DENNIS BINGHAM “Weird Andy Hardy”: Ed Wood and American National Identity 73 CONSTANTINE VEREVIS HOT AND COLD WARRIORS Topography and Typology: Wyatt Earp and the West 93 HOMER B. PETTEY Patton (1970): Celebrating the Un-American National Hero 125 R. BARTON PALMER vi Contents J. Edgar: Eastwood’s Man of Mystery 145 DOUGLAS MCFARLAND ARTISTS AND WRITERS Nationalizing Abject American Artists: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Jean-Michel Basquiat 161 JULIE CODELL Adapting Plathology: Sylvia (2003) 181 CLAIRE PERKINS “The Dark Lady of American Photography”: Steven Shainberg’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) 201 MONIKA PIETRZAK-FRANGER EMANCIPATORS AND MARTYRS The Great White Hope (1970): A Forgotten Biopic? 223 JAMES BURNS AND ABEL A. BARTLEY Kinsey: An Inquiry into American Sexual Identity 239 GABRIELE LINKE Toward a New LGBT Biopic: Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008) 261 JULIA G. ERHART Spielberg’s Lincoln: Memorializing Emancipation 281 R. BARTON PALMER Afterword: The Making of Americans 301 WILLIAM H. EPSTEIN Contributors 323 Index 327 Acknowledgments Epstein, William H. “Introduction: Biopics and American National Iden- tity—Invented Lives, Imagined Communities.” a/b: Auto/Biography Stud- ies 26, no. 1 (2011): 1–33. Reproduced with permission of a/b: Auto/ Biography Studies. Bingham, Dennis. “Woody Guthrie, Warts and All: The Biopic in the New American Cinema of the 1970s.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 26, no. 1 (2011): 68–90. Reproduced with permission of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Palmer, R. Barton. “Patton (1970): Celebrating the Un-American Nation- al Hero.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 26, no. 1 (2011): 34–52. Reproduced with permission of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Codell, Julie. “Nationalizing Abject American Artists: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, & Jean-Michel Basquiat.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 26, no. 1 (2011): 118–37. Reproduced with permission of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Burns, James, and Abel Bartley. “The Great White Hope (1970): A Forgot- ten Biopic?” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 26, no. 1 (2011): 53–67. Repro- duced with permission of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Linke, Gabriele. “Kinsey—An Inquiry into American Sexual Identity.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 26, no. 1 (2011): 138–57. Reproduced with permission of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Erhart, Julia. “The Naked Community Organizer: Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant’s Milk.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 26, no. 1 (2011): 156–70. Reproduced with permission of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. vii Introduction Strategic Patriotic Memories WILLIAM H. EPSTEIN Motion pictures are the most CONSPICUOUS of all American exports. They do not lose their identity. They betray their nation- ality and country of origin. They are easily recognized. They are all-pervasive. They color the minds of those who see them. They are demonstrably the single greatest factors in the Americanization of the world and as such fairly may be called the most important and significant of America’s exported products. —From a Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association internal memo, 1928 • Entry Points “LIFE-PICTURING” DISCURSIVE MODALITY which has only recently begun to receive intense and systematic study, the biopic is almost A certainly the most familiar and most significant form of biograph- ical narrative to emerge from modernity (Christie 2002, 288). This first extensive look at the biopic in SUNY Press’s “Horizons of Cinema” series enmeshes it with “American National Identity,” itself a large and complex topic which has recently received a lot of attention. Thus I am going to ask you to think of this introduction as providing a series of entry points: 1
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