Overview

Faced with the challenges that inevitably occur in small markets, feature film production in Jamaica has been sporadic and uneven, yet local filmmakers have succeeded in creating a small but exciting body of work that is receiving increasing attention. Organized as a series of discussions on a selection of the more well-known Jamaican films, this study employs close readings of these texts to reveal their complexity, sophistication and artistry. The focus on the politics of identity and representation, examined through the lens of place and nation, opens up a conversation on how these films have contributed to, and participate in, the discourse on Jamaican identity. Place is understood as both constituting and reflecting identity, and is explored within the context of the films' representation of the postcolonial city, the dancehall, the north coast hotel and the great house. The concern with nation is revealed as a persistent and underlying focus that more often than not, directs our attention to the grievous gap between rich and poor in Jamaican society. These films' often-criticized attention to marginalized communities plagued by problems of crime and violence can be understood, Moseley-Wood argues, as an expression of the postcolonial struggle to redefine place in ways that contest hegemonic discourses that define Jamaica as hedonistic paradise as well as challenge the unifying and homogenizing myths and narratives of nation.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rachel Moseley-Wood
Publisher:   University of the West Indies Press
Imprint:   University of the West Indies Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 22.80cm
Weight:   0.378kg
ISBN:  

9789766407179

ISBN 10:   9766407177
Pages:   277
Publication Date:   27 September 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

"Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Show Us as We Are Imagined Bonds in the New Nation: The 1962 Independence Films ""Badda Dan Dead"": Resistance and Intertextuality in The Harder They Come The Trickster as Cocksman: The Hotel as Contact Zone in Smile Orange Reggae and Rockers: Privileging the Local, Disrupting Paradigms of the External Gaze Love and Sex in Babylon: Nation and Desire in Children of Babylon and One Love Negotiating Patriarchy: The Erotic Performance of Dancehall Queen Real/Reel Life in Jungle: Alienated Spaces in Third World Cop and Ghett'a Life Dreaming History and the Nightmare World of Jamaican Politics in Better Mus' Come Epilogue: Expanding Narratives of Identity in Jamaican Film Notes Selected Bibliography Index"

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Author Information

Rachel Moseley-Wood is Lecturer in Film Studies and Literature, Department of Literatures in English, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

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