James Chapman and Nicolas Cull,
Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema.
London New York: I.B. Tauris 2009
ISBN: 978 1 84511 940 9
UK£15.99
240pp
(Review copy supplied by I.B. Tauris)

The release of historical epics such as The Young Victoria (UK/USA 2009) and recent revivals of imperial adventures on the small screen with the fourth adaptation of John Buchan’s The 39 Steps (UK 2008) and the latest episode (2008) in the BBC television drama of the Sharpe series (based on the exploits of Bernard Cornwell’s fictional British rifleman Richard Sharpe) set in the mid-nineteenth century India reveal that Empire is constantly being shown and reinterpreted in contemporary times. The book, Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema depicts some of the major themes and representations of the British Empire on the silver screen in the 20thcentury. One of the central questions the authors address is how do history, social context, and the logistics of production frame the image of the British Empire of the late 19th century for the following century, which includes two world wars and the dismantling of the British Empire? Authors James Chapman and Nicolas Cull select thirteen films as their case studies of how both Hollywood and British cinema have portrayed the visual narrative of British Empire in relation to 20th century historical events and social movements. Each chapter offers a meticulously researched production history of the selected film(s) including rich histories of World War II films commissioned by the War Office such as Burma Victory (UK 1945), America’s obsession with Rudyard Kipling in The Four Feathers (UK 1939) and The Man Who Would Be King (UK/USA 1975), the long journey from a good idea to the finished film of two real life figures, T.E. Lawrence and Mohandas Gandhi, in the movies, Lawrence of Arabia (UK 1962) and Gandhi (UK/India 1982), the social milieu that gave rise to the success of the Indiana Jones films in the 1980s, and the critique of American empire in the film Three Kings (USA/Australia 1999).

In the introduction, the authors note that the birth of cinema occurred at the “zenith of British imperialism and with the first stirrings of America as an imperial power.” (p. 1) Romantic stories and the products of British colonialism were already prominent in popular culture through literature, consumer goods, and theater at the turn of the twentieth century. With the advent of the motion pictures, some of the earliest images continued to promote the American and British presence in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America as heroic enterprises. Moving pictures and newsreels were used to garner support for American and British national and military enterprises such as the Spanish American War and the Boer War in southern Africa. The authors identify the 1930s as the beginning of what they term “empire cinema” in both British and Hollywood film industries and point to an Anglo-American collaboration in the production and casting of the films that reflected the lucrative economic returns and the popularity of the stories, especially during the time of the Great Depression in the U.S. and the increasing nationalism and calls for self rule in British colonies such as India. The book is organized chronologically starting with the imperial adventure cinema of the 1930s followed by a discussion of British World War II documentaries in South Asia in the 1940s, and the end of the British Empire in the 1950s. The depiction of Empire in academia has gone through a lot of changes and the advent of post-colonial theory in the 1980s and the rise of multi-national corporations in the 1990s and trans-national migrations at the turn of the century revolve around the changing shades and definition of Empire.

The first four chapters focus on Alexander Korda’s The Four Feathers (1939), Gunga Din (USA 1939), the war department film, Burma Victory (1945) and Elephant Walk (USA 1954). The first two films, the authors argue, are part of the heroic adventure in the Empire tradition. But after 1945, the idea of a unified Empire is threatened by national and international events. One of the most revealing chapters in the book was on the film Burma Victory (1945). In the case of World War II films, there is a difference between the Hollywood portrayals that focus on the American heroes and the British that highlight British bravery. The competing interests in maintaining the ideal of the British Empire in a time of war in South and Southeast Asia is not a story that we often see on film but, as the authors reveal, the issue influences the films during this period. The chapter argues that Burma Victory “was the pet project” of Lord Mountbatten (p. 54) and shows how the film is at the center of a debate between a flagging British Empire and the emergence of an American super power. For example, in the film one of the key issues was how to depict the strategic value of the Burma campaign. Mountbatten wanted the film to publicize the military theater of the Far East and show how British troops were active participants and not waiting for the Americans to save them (p. 55). He also wanted to show how the Burma campaign included soldiers of different nationalities (including British, Australians, Indians, and Africans from all over the Empire) fighting together to defeat the Japanese and defend the Empire. The Americans and particularly the U.S. State department, however, were “worried that the Americans would be seen as party to the restoration of the British Empire” (p. 57), rather than as the defenders of democracy. So in the final version of the film they argued that documentary should emphasize that the mission was the means to free China rather than re-take former British territory (p. 59). The authors also compare Burma Victory to the similar Hollywood film Objective Burma! (US 1945) that focused on an American platoon. The discussion of the Anglo versus the American intent in the war, in the depiction of the battles, and in the practice of empire building is intriguing and an important point in the analysis of these films.

The rest of the book discusses how the British Empire is depicted onscreen after the empire has been dismantled after World War II. The authors situate Lawrence of Arabia (1962) as the film that reorients the depiction of empire cinema from heroic adventure to a retrospective critique of the imperial project. Other films discussed in this study include Cornell Wilde’s The Naked Prey (South Africa/USA 1965), the Carry On parody films, and The Man Who Would Be King (UK/USA 1975). The last three chapters focus on the neo-colonialist representations of Empire in the 1980s Reagan Cold War era with a discussion of the Indiana Jones films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark (USA 1981) and the Academy award winning biopic film Gandhi and a presentation of Three Kings as a preview of the complications of imperial ventures in the 21st century in the Middle East.

James Chapman and Nicolas Cull wrote different chapters in the book so there are stylistic and organizational differences between the chapters. This approach sometimes made it difficult to see the linkages between the chapters and rethinking the organizational strategy of the work through a discussion of themes such as pairing the representations of Kipling together or discussing how the differences of how different colonies reflected the complexity of Empire (South Africa vs. India, for example) may have created a more effective illustration of the changes of the representation of empire in cinema. Both, however, relied on the use of production history as a key element in discussing the films. The back-stories that include significant changes in screenplays to protests by the Censorship Boards or war departments, make for a rich understanding of each of the films they discuss and the representation of the British Empire that influences films into the twenty first century.

Shilpa Davé,
Department of American Studies,
Brandeis University, USA.

Created on: Monday, 23 August 2010