Description
Book SynopsisWhat a century of border films teaches about the real and imagined worlds of the US-Mexico borderlandsand how this understanding helps build better relations across boundaries. Border Witness is an account of cultural collision and fusion between Mexico and the United States, as seen on the ground and in films from the past hundred years. Blending film studies with political and cultural geography, Michael Dear investigates the making of cross-border identity and community in the territories between two nations. Border Witness introduces a new border film genre just now entering its golden age. A geographer and activist, Dear adopts an accessible and engaged perspective, combining the stories told by these films with insights drawn from his own decades-long research and travel. From early silent films to virtual reality, and from revolution to the present global crisis, border films provide fresh evidence for real and imagined politics and for envisioning future transborder archi
Trade Review"Dear’s book is a magnificent chronicle of borderlands films over a century that should be a “must-read” for border scholars and perhaps used not only in film classes but also in border studies courses to supplement the often-dry readings assigned in our twenty-first century visual world." * Journal of Borderlands Studies *
"A deep historical context along with solid cinematic summaries of a less discussed cinematic genre: the border film. . . . The author devotes a good deal of the book to the US's relationship with immigrants, the border patrol, and Mexican officials, providing readers with a firm understanding of the difficulties surrounding the failed policies and procedures currently taking place at the border." * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part 1 Origins
1. Border Witness: From the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico
2. Bisected Bodies: Early Silent Films
3. Making Filmscapes
4. Using Film as Evidence
5. Revolution and Modernization
6. The Great Migrations
7. Border Film Noir
Part 2 Fusions
8. Borderlands before Borders
9. From Final Girl to Woman Warrior
10. Narco Nations: Men at War
11. Lives of the Undocumented
12. Moral Tales, Border Law
13. Border Walls: Screen Folly and Fantasy
14. The Mexican Dream/El Sueño Mexicano
Part 3 Witness
15. A Golden Age for Border Film
16. Ways of Seeing the Border (Beyond Film)
17. Border Witness of the Future
Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: Chronological Filmography
Appendix 2: Alphabetical Filmography
Appendix 3: Map of US-Mexico Borderlands
Notes
References
Index
