Film Portrayals Research Articles

Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest. By Britt E. Halvorson and Joshua O. Reno

In Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest, anthropologists Britt E. Halvorson and Joshua O. Reno jump into the hazy pool of assumptions and images associated with the Midwest and emerge with a compelling case for the ways in which banal, uninterrogated discourse about the region directly service and uphold White supremacy. Rejecting a static notion of region and instead referring to the Midwest as a knot of narratives or a canvas for nationalist projections, they pull together seemingly fragmented examples to show how Midwest Whiteness is created and recreated regardless of material reality. For example, they begin by showing how imagining heartlands as strongholds of virtuous White labor and property ownership propels and maintains settler colonialism and Indigenous dispossession in the United States and beyond. The core of the book then draws together a smattering of cultural products to make claims about how Whiteness operates, even—especially—when depictions do not explicitly address race. From Regionalist paintings and familiar images of an agrarian Midwest landscape to the poetry of Robert Bly or Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic publications, the region is often imagined as homogenous and insular, which in turn can be interpreted as either virtuous or deplorable. Either way, it bolsters nationalism and White supremacy by instructing observers on the features of ideal Whiteness. Similarly, a chapter co-authored with Jada Basdeo looks at fictional characters like Dorothy Gale and Clark Kent to show how the creation of “intimate others” informs audiences on the merits and shortcomings of “plain” Midwest Whiteness. Meanwhile, several classic horror films utilize the Midwest as a backdrop of White ordinariness and safety, even as the region’s actual historical serial killers are placed outside of the Midwest in film portrayals. Imagining the Heartland then culminates with a chapter co-authored with Lena Hanschka that shows how the now well-established mechanisms of White supremacy were deployed in mass media from 2010 to 2019 in depictions of the suffering White farmer or industrial worker in the Midwest.

Analyzing the evolution of the artistic image of “Yang Yuhuan” from a feminist perspective through the lens of arts and cultural management

Yang Yuhuan is a controversial consort from ancient China. From historical records to literary works and even contemporary film and television dramas, the image of Yang Yuhuan has been constantly reshaped. However, in the fields of stage drama and film and television works, there has been relatively limited scholarly research on her image, with even fewer touching on arts and cultural management. This paper adopts a feminist perspective to analyze the evolution of Yang Yuhuan’s image over different periods, taking her drama and film portrayals as the study subjects. The aim is to explore how, in the current societal context, one might enrich the image of Yang Yuhuan from the standpoint of arts management. Through this research, the author observes that the underlying representation of Yang Yuhuan is that of a beautiful and nation-damaging favored consort. Notably, such an image is not merely the result of personal choice but a collective product of power and knowledge. In recent years, China’s art market has seen abundant creative representations of Yang Yuhuan, but innovations concerning her image have been scant, largely adhering to its original mold. This does not align with contemporary societal and cultural norms and fails to meet audience demands. Therefore, to further diversify the image of Yang Yuhuan, creators should transcend her traditional objectified portrayal, emphasize the unique political aspects of her love story with Emperor Li Longji, reconsider the notion that “a woman can cause the downfall of a nation,” and collaboratively innovate her image through arts management.

Maleficent As an Affectionate Fey in Disney’s 2019 Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Although Maleficent’s characterizations as wicked witch by the first Disney’s adaptation into Maleficent in 2014, the beginning of the 2019 sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil started with a prologue that Maleficent was narratively still considered evil, from which the plot evolves to reveal how the marginalizing characterization prevailed. Amidst this entanglement between the film’s plot and Maleficent’s character revelation, the present study aimed at elaborating Maleficent’s characterizations as an affectionate fey. The present study employed McKee’s (2003) textual analysis to observe Maleficent’s characterizations along the plot development, to reveal how the film portray Maleficent’s affectionate dispositions despite her formidable strength and appearance. The study concludes that Maleficent affections are highlighted through her actions toward the moors and the marginalized, as well as her blessings for Prince Phillip, underlining her willingness to admit her misjudgment and to repent because of her love for Aurora. This finding implies that the film’s plot development strongly relies on Maleficent’s character development facilitated by her strong affection as a surrogate mother.Although Maleficent’s character as a wicked witch has been deconstructed by the first Disney's adaptation of Maleficent in 2014, the beginning of the 2019 sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil started with a prologue that Maleficent was narratively still considered evil, from which the plot evolves to reveal how her marginalizing traits prevailed. Amidst this entanglement between the film's plot and Maleficent's character revelation, the present study aimed at elaborating on Maleficent's personality as an affectionate fey. The present study employed McKee’s (2003) textual analysis to observe Maleficent’s character development along the plot development to reveal how the film portrays Maleficent's growing affectionate dispositions despite her formidable strength and appearance. The study concludes that Maleficent's affections are highlighted through her loving, nurturing, and protective traits toward Aurora, the creatures of the Moors, other feys, and humans. With the depiction of these traits, Maleficent emerged as an affectionate Fey in human's eyes. They eliminate the prejudice against Maleficent, the feys, and the fairies, fostering a harmonious life between humans, the feys, and the fairies.

The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal

The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal

Unravelling the Cinematic Tapestry of Immigration: A Socio-Cultural Disccection of Indonesian Migrant Labor in Rawuh (2019)

This article addresses the representation of Indonesian migrant labor experiences, particularly from Jember, in local cinema by presenting a multifaceted analysis of the film Rawuh (2019). The study emphasizes the film's depiction of socio-cultural dynamics and its contribution to existing discourses on immigration and migrant labor. Utilizing close textual analysis and scrutinizing mise-en-scène elements such as setting, lighting, costume, and props, the paper probes the film's representation of the rural community's aspirations for upward social mobility, as well as the repercussions of immigration on the characters' lives and societal dynamics. Moreover, by integrating theories by Pierre Bourdieu and pertinent literature on social class, cultural capital, and habitus, the study delves into the film's portrayal of social class and inequality, illuminating the intricate interplay between cultural assets, social stratification, and the quest for distinction. Through a rigorous examination of the film, the study underscores the ways in which Rawuh (2019) intersects with and contributes to ongoing discourses on immigration, labor, and global economic forces, accentuating the film's pertinence to contemporary debates surrounding the experiences and challenges encountered by Indonesian migrant workers from Jember. Based on the analysis also serves as evidence that local films have the potential to offer a more authentic portrayal of their respective societies, as they tend to closely engage with the prevalent issues in their immediate surroundings.

Beyond the Horizon

Beyond the Horizon

The Representation of South Korean Culture and History in the Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo TV Series

This research explores the film's portrayal of South Korea. This research focuses on the scene in Moon Lovers that depicts South Korean history and culture. The qualitative approach is used to analyze the data in this study. The dataset was taken from the scenes on Moon Lovers, korea.net, and any other journal articles. The theories applied include Mise en Scene approach, Stuart Hall's representation theory and cultural theory. As a result, the outcome of this study reveals a detailed and recognized picture of South Korean history and culture.

Riding East—Western Myths, Nostalgia, and the Crossing of Generic Boundaries in Hidalgo (2004)

<i>Riding East</i>—Western Myths, Nostalgia, and the Crossing of Generic Boundaries in <i>Hidalgo</i> (2004)

Alexia Alone

Nina F. Grünfeld explores the effect of converting an epic psychological film portrayal meant for the movie theatre/art scene into a formatted reality series for commercial television. Grünfeld examines her relationship with the person she was filming, Alexia, and the process of negotiating with her how her character would be portrayed. Grünfeld applies an ethical lens to this experience and discusses the complexity of her concern as a filmmaker that Alexia was becoming a ‘victim’ for the viewing pleasure of the audience, and how this was in conflict with Alexia’s desire to be on the screen sharing her vulnerability. Grünfeld explores how her relationship with Alexia shifted after filming finished and Alexia was no longer the centre of attention. Alexia’s desire for attention and control over her depiction created tension with the broadcast processes.

Seeing diversity through the lens of ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ - Use of film in the COVID-19 era

ABSTRACT This article describes the use of film as a teaching tool in social work education by providing insights from using the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire in a diversity undergraduate social work course during the COVID-19 outbreak. The film was selected because of its course-related content as it involves issues of gender, class, power and oppression. The paper presents the rationale behind the choice of film as a teaching tool, the procedure, the outcomes and the feedback from students. The procedure used was inspired by Russell’s Model for Using Film. The outcomes and feedback from students support the idea of using film as a technique to stimulate discussion and explore concepts associated with diversity and intersectionality; students appreciated the opportunity to discuss such issues with their peers and considered the film as a valuable supplement to online lectures. Implications for using film in social work education are discussed.

Recentring Peripheral Queerness and Marginal Art in Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

This essay examines the ways in which Céline Sciamma’s 2019 film Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) looks to centralise onscreen homosexual experience through engagement with, and queering of, eighteenth-century art practices and the discourse surrounding them. From its reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses to ideas espoused by the eighteenth-century art critic and philosopher Denis Diderot, Portrait looks to traditionally peripheral spaces, or edgelands, and the visual and embodied consequences of transcending them. Engaging closely with eighteenth-century processes of artmaking, the film transforms sketches on paper, paint applied to canvas and wood, miniatures held close to the body and erotica annotated in the margins into queer-coded sites used to reflect and document the developing relationship at its heart.

A preferred reality: Film portrayals of robots and AI in popular science fiction

The increasing frequency and depth of human interaction with robots and artificial intelligence (AI) prompts this research study into how media-framed portrayals of technology in popular visual media might construct social reality. Cinema serves as an important and influential form of media, and portrayals of technology in film media can influence public perceptions, specifically confirming or creating perceptions of artificial or robotic intelligence. Previous research identifies frequent portrayals of robots and AI as deceptive, aggressive monsters in films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and James Cameron’s The Terminator. However, as the distance between fantastic technology collapses into a new social reality where humans, AI and robots exist together, film portrayals reflect a more nuanced view and changing expectations for human-robot, human-AI interactions. The study applies framing theory and a content analysis methodology to examine filmmakers’ choices to determine robot and AI character types frequenting popular cinema. Seventeen popular films yielded 592 scenes to analyse. Findings from this quantitative content analysis revealed patterns portraying robots and AI more often as friendly, helpful companions of humans, rather than menacing or harmful to humans. Therefore, the researchers conclude that modern films primarily depict cohesive and complimentary interactions between humans and living technology, reflecting on heavy technology use and dependency. Furthermore, individuals who create these films may be illustrating scenes of a preferred reality, where AI and robots are meant to be our helpers, rather than threatening replacements in both society and industry.

Filmowe portrety Stanisława Siedleckiego (1912–2002) na tle Svalbardu. Fragmenty wizualnej historii nauki

Stanisław Siedlecki’s (1912–2002) Film Portraits against the Backdrop of Svalbard. Vignettes from the Visual History of Science The article offers a new perspective on Stanisław Siedlecki’s biography through visual history, with a particular emphasis on film history. The connections between Siedlecki’s life and the cinema can be grouped in three sections: 1. films starring Siedlecki, 2. films by Siedlecki and 3. films about Siedlecki. The film Do Ziemi Torella (To Torell Land) represents the pre-war period; the post-war period is marked by Siedlecki’s collaboration with Jarosław Brzozowcki on the making of Skroplone Powietrze (Liquefied Air) and Wieliczka – both from 1946. In the International Geophysical Year 1957/1958, Siedlecki led the Polish polar expedition, during which the visual material was created. He appeared in all three ‘roles’ (as a co-writer, protagonist, and consultant) in Jarosław Brzozowski’s film W Zatoce Białych Niedźwiedzi (In the Polar Bear Bay). He consulted polar films until the early 1990s. There are also two film biographies (portraits) of Siedlecki by Wanda Rollna and Iwona Bartólewska. The analysis of this material has also shed new light on the visual narration of the Polish polar expeditions in the 20th century.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note Mari Yoshihara The essays in this issue all address, in different ways, how borders, places, cities, and life are managed, controlled, and represented by the possessive logics of the state, empire, and capitalism as well as how they are radically imagined and lived otherwise by those who refuse those logics. Alana de Hinojosa's "El Río Grande as Pedagogy" examines the Chamizal Dispute that purportedly ended when the 1964 treaty returned el Chamizal to Mexico and displaced 5,600 Mexican American residents of South El Paso. Through the pedagogical lens of the unruly river, de Hinojosa illustrates the terrain's refusal of white possessive logics as well as the residents' complex response to the treaty. Jennifer Ponce de León takes a different approach to the border in "After the Border Is Closed," which analyzes Ricardo A. Bracho's dystopian science fiction play Puto set in a near future in which the US has closed its border with Mexico. Ponce de León shows the play's depiction of the racialized social hierarchies, state and parastate violence, militarism, and authoritarian modalities of social control that are systematically produced by US capitalism and imperialism. Introducing the neologism of "transmilitainment," Waleed Mahdi examines Morocco's role in the production of Hollywood's "war on terror" films. Through a rich empirical study, Mahdi discusses not only the monetary relationship between Hollywood producers and Moroccan partners but also the multifaceted infrastructure for such support, arguing that transmilitainment's commodification of Morocco for pleasurable global consumption of US state violence is itself an act of neocolonial violence. Turning our attention to the other end of the spectrum in the imagination of places, Chandra Russo's "Cities of Fruit" examines how art activism can promote popular education and mobilize radical collectivity in the face of eco-social alienation. Russo focuses on the Guerrilla Grafters, an activist artist collective whose members surreptitiously graft fruit onto sterile city trees in the San Francisco Bay Area, as an example of how creative arts can contest dominant social-spatial arrangements and forge alternative imaginaries of the city. Danielle Haque also discusses an alternative imagining of city space and life in "Collective Care and Human Rights Cinema." Through an analysis of Musa Syeed's 2016 film A Stray, Haque examines the film's portrayal of the improvised and communal spaces and sustaining networks created by Muslims in Minneapolis. Finally, in his essay that turned out to be an excellent tribute to the late Lauren Berlant, Chad Shomura presents a reading of Jennifer Egan's short story "Found Objects," to show that [End Page v] Berlant's notion of "impasse" points to the life otherwise by opening modes of being that are irredeemable to the good life founded on "animacy hierarchy." Aria S. Halliday reviews three books that examine how Latina and Black girls make sense of themselves in a society built on their objectification, consumption, and familial connection as well as the appropriation of their creativity for neoliberal consumerism. Hōkūlani Aikau discusses three important works that center Hawai'i as the site of settler colonialism and cultures of US imperialism and use indigeneity as a critical analytic. In a digital project review, Dylan Rodríguez engages Edmund T. Gordon's online exhibit Racial Geography Tour that guides the visitor through the University of Texas at Austin campus and the university's institutional foundations in racial, colonial history. [End Page vi] Copyright © 2021 The American Studies Association

Anarquismo, conciliação e conflito em La Patagonia Rebelde (1974)

O presente trabalho propõe um debate acerca do filme La Patagonia Rebelde (1974), dirigido por Héctor Olivera e baseado em um livro de Osvaldo Bayer. A partir de uma perspectiva Cinema-História, realizamos uma análise fílmica para extrair de nossa fonte questões sobre o período histórico que o filme retrata, como a organização dos trabalhadores argentinos através do anarcossindicalismo, e também do período no qual o próprio filme foi produzido, como o anti-imperialismo e as contradições e limitações da conciliação de classes.

Bulworth (1998) and Cradle Will Rock (1999): Critiquing Capitalism in the Late 1990s

Bulworth (1998) and Cradle Will Rock (1999):Critiquing Capitalism in the Late 1990s Martin Halpern The 2008 economic crisis and the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in 2011 produced wide-ranging discussions about the failings of the existing capitalist order and the need to imagine alternatives to it. Since the emergence of Bernie Sanders as a national figure, the term "socialist" has been a focal point of discussion. Some of the debate involves little more than redbaiting. Indeed, the combination of climate change, the coronavirus, and the presidency of Donald Trump brought a continuous stream of worrisome news that has left little room for optimistic reflections. Searing film portraits of our anxious times such as Sorry to Bother You seek to awaken viewers to the depths of malevolence through which we are living. Rather than examine the dystopian visions in recent films, I will look back at two films from the late 1990s that explore socialist and communist ideas. Indeed, artistic critiques of capitalism and imagining of alternatives to it have been features of cultural life even in quiescent and conformist periods such as the 1990s. Despite the disarray in progressive circles resulting from Clintonite centrism in the 1990s, two major film stars, thanks to their ability to leverage financing for major film projects, gave movie audiences an opportunity to critique a social system that was seemingly stable. Set, respectively, in the 1990s and in the 1930s, Warren Beatty's 1998 film Bulworth and Tim Robbins's 1999 film Cradle Will Rock grappled with the dilemma of how one can both survive within an unjust social order and perhaps even transcend it. Each film focuses on the preservation of individual dignity and either explicitly or implicitly contributes to the strengthening of collective struggle against late capitalism. As well-financed feature films appealing to a mass audience Bulworth and Cradle Will Rock provide critiques of elite capitalists and the capitalist system and offer sustenance and support for the idea that "another world is possible."1 Tim Robbins's 1999 film Cradle Will Rock provides a window on the New Deal. At the center of the film is the 1937 effort to stage Marc Blitzstein's pro-labor opera The Cradle Will Rock while the film's rapidly shifting scenes provide insightful glimpses on the mural movement of Diego Rivera, the struggles of steel workers and the unemployed, women's leadership roles, new opportunities for African Americans, and the roles of anti-communist, pro-fascist, and big-business opponents of the New Deal. The film's central focus is on whether impulses for solidarity and human caring, by artist or worker, may overcome the power of money.2 The danger that capitalists are able to use money to corrupt agents of change is evident in both the play within the movie and in the movie's story. In Blitzstein's play, we see that Mr. Mister, the dominant figure in Steeltown and a symbol of capitalist power, has successfully corrupted the clergy and the media. He also attempts without success to buy off Larry Foreman, the union leader. In the movie story, Blitzstein highlights to Orson Welles, who is about to direct his play, the vulnerability of the artist to the blandishments of capital. Welles is the host of a [End Page 37] successful national radio show and Blitzstein asks him, "How long can you whore your talents before you're used up unwanted?" Acknowledging that everyone needs money, Blitzstein probes, "The question is what will you do for the money? Where do you draw the line?" Robbins's film opens with the words "a (mostly) true story," a reference to the fact that most of the film's characters are historical personalities and to the film's culmination with the depiction of a historic event, the runaway opening night performance of The Cradle Will Rock on June 16, 1937. The film's shifting focus on other historical events that happened earlier and later–the painting and destruction of Diego Rivera's mural at Rockefeller Center in 1933 and 1934, the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on the Federal Theatre Project in 1939...

“Not the Lover’s Choice, but the Poet’s”: Classical Receptions in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Céline Sciamma’s film Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, 2019) tells its 18th-century story of love and loss in part by retelling an ancient story, the myth of the poet Orpheus and his beloved Eurydice, as related by the Roman poet Ovid in his epic Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE). The myth’s most iconic moment, when Orpheus turns around to look at Eurydice and therefore loses her to Hades, occupies a central position in the film’s plot and underlies its running theme of ‘looking at’ as ‘looking back.’ By changing certain aspects of the myth – replacing poetry or singing with painting, making both main characters women, and having them alternate between the two main mythic roles – Portrait does not so much update the ancient story as debate its meanings. What does it mean to lose someone beloved but gain their image? How is every loss a kind of death, and in its train, the life that remains a kind of afterlife? Most generally, what are the links among lived experience, memory, and art? By raising these questions via the ancient myth, Portrait meditates on the effect of making, as Orpheus did, “not the lover’s choice, but the poet’s.”

Review: City Dreamers, directed by Joseph Hillel

Review: <i>City Dreamers</i>, directed by Joseph Hillel

‘What is a mouth’: Joyce Wieland’s Pierre Vallières (1972) and the politics of the film portrait

Focusing on Joyce Wieland’s film portrait Pierre Vallières (1972), this article follows the Canadian artist and filmmaker’s practice as it evolved through her engagement with the New York film avant-garde of the 1960s. Through an analysis of Wieland’s collaboration with Shirley Clarke, I will also discuss Pierre Vallières in relation to US-American documentary practices from the same period. Referring to Clarke’s Portrait of Jason (1967) with its focus on the spoken word as well as Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, I will place Wieland’s film within this line of film portraits engaging with identity and a performative notion of subjectivity. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze, this article concludes with a close reading of Wieland’s film, discussing her use of the close-up as a means of thwarting the linear narrative and logic of its subject’s political speech. Pierre Vallières’ politics thus emerges within an aesthetics that crosses the boundaries of documentary and avant-garde, communicating with audiences beyond the film’s original context of French-Canadian emancipation.

Mediale Repräsentationen der Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich: Sissi im Film, Operette und Presse des 20. Jahrhunderts by Nicole Karczmarzyk

Reviewed by: Mediale Repräsentationen der Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich: Sissi im Film, Operette und Presse des 20. Jahrhunderts by Nicole Karczmarzyk Anita McChesney Nicole Karczmarzyk, Mediale Repräsentationen der Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich: Sissi im Film, Operette und Presse des 20. Jahrhunderts. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2017. 227 pp. The enduring fascination with Empress Elisabeth, or "Sissi," has not diminished even 125 years after her death. Her mythical status has been fueled by countless depictions in popular media. Yet in contrast to the numerous representations of the Empress, few academic studies have undertaken a systematic analysis of those portrayals themselves. Mediale Repräsentationen der Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich: Sissi im Film, Operette und Presse des 20. Jahrhunderts fills this gap in scholarship by analyzing changing representations of Elisabeth in the popular media of German-speaking countries from the late 1800s to the present. Focusing in particular on the evolving portrayals in film, on stage, and in the press, Nicole Karczmarzyk demonstrates the ways in which myths are functionalized along with their changing historical and media-cultural context. [End Page 121] The nine chapters of Mediale Repräsentationen are organized chronologically to trace the changing contours of the Sissy myths from her time to today. Chapter 1 begins with a brief discussion of the study's theoretical framework. Karczmarzyk outlines previous research on Empress Elisabeth as a cultural phenomenon and discusses select conceptions of myth, whereby she emphasizes its semantic and narratological functions and its use to mediate between discursive dichotomies. While this brief theoretical overview does little to advance a scholarly understanding of myth, it provides a basic framework for this study and its goal to offer insights into the changing depictions of this specific Austrian icon and into the dynamic formation and functionalization of myths as a whole. The real strengths of this book lie in the seven chapters following the introduction, which provide an informative, detailed study of representations of Elisabeth in their respective historical and media-cultural context. Chapter 2 focuses on the early formation of myths of the empress from the late i8oos to the end of the Habsburg Empire in 1918. This instructive first analysis is foundational for later chapters, as it details key qualities that will recur in varying forms in later representations. Drawing on accounts of Elisabeth in the popular press in and outside of Austria and on early photographs and paintings, Karczmarzyk highlights recurring topoi. Among the defining characteristics are: the positive valuation of Elisabeth's outsider status in the Habsburg court, which is then used to promote anti-monarchical sentiments; the portrayal of Elisabeth as the ideal Austrian "Landesmutter," who is endowed with qualities such as beauty, grace, privacy, and interiority in order to project ideal conservative middle-class female virtues; and the image of Elisabeth as the "Mater Dolorosa," or sorrowing martyr, which emphasizes her victimhood. Each of these idealized representations, Karczmarzyk shows, draws on existing topoi in myths that are reshaped to imbue the empress with qualities that advance a particular agenda. Chapter 3 of Mediale Repräsentationen illustrates the durability and malleability of these mythical qualities as seen in films and related press articles of the 1920s. The analysis emphasizes how selected narratives from Elisabeth's life create the image of a sensitive, humane empress in order to suggest a positive depiction of the past monarchy. Chapter 4 extends the narrative of the evolving Elisabeth myths by considering two competing representations in the Weimar Republic. On the one hand, German film depicts Elisabeth as [End Page 122] a victim of the Habsburg court in order to criticize the former Austrian government. On the other hand, Austrian films, operettas, musical comedies, plays, and even Hollywood productions use sentimental and romanticized depictions of Sissy as a fairy-tale princess to promote a nostalgic view of the former empire. Chapters 5 then demonstrates how films of the late 1930s and 1940s repurpose elements of the existing myths to advance National Socialist ideology. In chapter 6 Karczmarzyk looks at portrayals of Sissy in five films and accompanying film magazines of the 1950s that project the longing for a bygone era dominant in the culture of post-World War II Austria. Chapter 7...