Slave Revolt on Screen

Abstract

This book analyzes how films and video games from around the world have depicted slave revolt, focusing on the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). This event, the first successful revolution by enslaved people in modern history, sent shockwaves throughout the Atlantic world. However, despite its historical significance, this revolution is less well-known—and appears less often on screen—than most other revolutions; its story, involving enslaved Africans liberating themselves through violence, does not match the suffering-slaves-waiting-for-a-white-hero genre that pervades Hollywood treatments of Black History. Despite Hollywood’s near-silence on this event, some films on the Revolution do exist—from directors in Haiti, the U.S., France, and elsewhere. Slave Revolt on Screen offers the first-ever comprehensive analysis of Haitian Revolution cinema, including completed films and planned projects that were never made. In addition to studying cinema, the book breaks ground in examining video games. It scrutinizes video game depictions of Haitian slave revolt that appear in games like the Assassin’s Creed series which have reached millions more individuals than comparable films. In analyzing films and games on the Revolution, this book calls attention to the ways that economic legacies of slavery and colonialism warp pop-culture portrayals of the past and leave audiences with distorted understandings. It also contributes to important conversations about how Hollywood depicts Black History, as well as to research on slavery and memory, Haitian Studies, France, French colonialism, the French Revolution, Film and History, Cinema and Media Studies, Africana Studies, Caribbean literature, American culture studies, Francophone cinema, and Game Studies.