Home in Hollywood: The Imaginary Geography of Cinema

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.