Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema

by James Chapman, Nicholas John Cull

Popular cinema is saturated with images and narratives of empire. With "Projecting Empire", Chapman and Cull have written the first major study of imperialism and cinema for over thirty years. This welcome text maps the history of empire cinema in both Hollywood and Britain through a serious of case studies of popular films including biopics, adventures, literary adaptations, melodramas, comedies and documentaries, from the 1930s and "The Four Feathers" to the present, with "Indiana Jones" and "Three Kings". The authors consider industry-wide trends and place the films in their wider cultural and historical contexts. Using primary sources that include private papers, they look at the presence of particular auteurs in the cinema of Imperialism, including Korda, Lean, Huston and Attenborough, as well as the actors who brought the stories to life, such as Elizabeth Taylor and George Clooney. At a time when imperialism has a new significance in the world, this book will fulfil the needs of students and interested filmgoers alike.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

James Chapman is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Leicester. He has written several books on the history of British popular culture, including work on cinema, television and comics.

He attended Wales High School during the 1980s. He took his BA (History) and MA (Film Studies) at the University of East Anglia and then undertook his doctoral research at Lancaster University, completing his thesis on the role of official film propaganda in Britain during the Second World War.

In 1996 he joined The Open University where he taught a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and was principal contributing author to the university’s first dedicated course on Film and Television History. He joined the University of Leicester as its founding Professor of Film Studies in 2005.

Chapman’s research focuses on British popular culture, especially cinema and television in their historical contexts. He has written or edited ten books, including two which he has co-authored with Professor Nicholas J. Cull. His work draws upon the ideas of the film theorist Gilles Deleuze and applies them to understanding the role and nature of popular film and television. His books include studies of the science fiction television series Doctor Who and the James Bond films. SFX magazine described his book Licence To Thrill as "thoughtful, intelligent, ludicrous and a bit snobby - bit like Bond really".

He is a Council member of the International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST) and is editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

Chapman has also published articles in the following journals: Screen, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Journal of Popular British Cinema, Visual Culture in Britain, Journal of Contemporary History, Contemporary British History, Media History and European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid production history of American and British films whose subject matter is empire and colonialism. Each chapter centers on a single film. The best of them is chapter five, which does an excellent job of describing both the development of the 1954 film Elephant Walk and interpreting it. Some of the other chapters fixate too much on production history, however, and don't quite get into, what is for me, the more important job of critiquing. Much of the study of other films centers on script development, which often yields little insight into the final product. Yes, script histories are important as part of a larger, genre wide study and would be appropriate for critical biographies of screenwriters. But too much is given over to them, here, for such films as Lawrence of Arabia and Gandhi. A much better contextual study emerges from the authors' look at Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey and John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King. The latter film, the book argues, was a film that generated only mixed success. I strongly disagree with that conclusion. Not only was it a solid box office success but it was and has remained a semi-major icon of 1970s cinema, although I would have given equal space to The Wind and the Lion. Finally, I understand the choice of focusing on Gandhi, but the authors also mention Heat and Dust. I wish they had opted for foregrounding the latter, with fewer pages given to the former. Heat and Dust is a much superior and more complex, thus interesting, film. It is by far the best work to emerge from Merchant-Ivory, which often tended to make saccharine laced films of nostalgia without much going on below the surface. So, too, would it have been interesting to see the book spend more time on the two television series, Jewel in the Crown and The Far Pavilions.

[Fernanda Cobo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discute as representações sobre o Imperialismo clássico feitos por filmes britânicos e hollywoodianos ao longo do século XX e as mudanças de abordagem de acordo com os contextos de produção. Tem capítulos muito bons e outros razoáveis, por isso é um livro irregular. Além disso, as análises fílmicas são mais escassas em comparação com o levantamento documental sobre os filmes, o que explica a irregularidade dos capítulos. Mesmo assim, é uma leitura que vale a pena para quem tem interesse no assunto e a introdução do livro traz um panorama bem estruturado do debate em torno do tema.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally interesting and readable account which focused on the films of Empire.I was personally more interested made prior to 1945.
I did find difficulty in understanding why The Naked Prey and Indiana Jones films were included.As to the Three Kings i have never seen it or heard of it.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclosure: I have met one of the authors (Nicholas Cull).

I read this one because I enjoyed "Projecting Tomorrow" so much.

"Projecting Empire" fell short for me. It felt disjointed compared to "Projecting Tomorrow," which dealt with the development of the science fiction film genre.

"Projecting Empire" doesn't follow the development of a genre. It looks at how films depict/respond to the idea of Empire, both the formal empire of the British and the informal empire of the Americans. And that sets up a split in the book that isn't really addressed. Also, some of the chapters just seem to go on and on, away from the original film, and then just stop.

Some of the chapters are very good, such as the ones on "Lawrence of Arabia," "Gandhi," "The Naked Prey" and "The Man Who Would Be King." However, the book as a whole doesn't come together.