"Surge and Splendor": A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic

Author(s): Vivian Sobchack

Source: Representations, No. 29 (Winter, 1990), pp. 24-49
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928417
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 VIVIAN SOBCHACK

"Surge and Splendor":

A Phenomenology of the Hollywood
Historical Epic
'Andwhatdo you call an epic?"
"Youknow,a picturethat'sreallongand has lotsofthings
goingon."'

THE HOLLYWOOD HISTORICAL EPIC has been despised, ifnotcom-

pletelyignored, by most "serious" scholars of American cinema and historiog-
raphy.2Its aestheticextravagancesseen as essentiallyin bad tasteand itshistorical
depictions as essentiallyanachronistic,the genre is generallyregarded as a sus-
pect formof both cinematicand historicalrepresentation.Indeed, for those who
have been culturallytrainedto value asceticism,caution,and logic,thereis some-
thing uncomfortablyembarrassingabout the historicalepic's visual and aural
excessiveness,about the commercialhype that surrounds its production,about
its self-promotionalaestheticaura, its fuzzyand emotionalcontent,and itsspec-
tatorialinvitationto indulge in wantonlyexpansive, hyperbolic,even hysterical
acts of cinema.
As a filmgenre, the historicalepic emerged with the medium itself.First
realizingits"spectacular"possibilitiesin Italian silentcinema,itwas subsequently
elaborated upon by Americans D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, reached its
apogee in Hollywood productionsof the 1950s and early 1960s, and then-for
complex reasons both economic and cultural-entered its present period of
decline. For those viewerswho rememberthe Hollywood historicalepic of the
1950s and 1960s, or for those who have more recentlyseen the restored and
rereleased Gone withtheWind or Lawrence ofArabia in a theater,the genre calls up
grandiose visions-those of the modern period literallyinflatedby Cinerama,
Cinemascope, and 70mm.4 It evokes "casts of thousands" and the assertively
anachronisticpunctuation of its historicalrepresentationby major Hollywood
stars.Playing"great"historicalfiguresfromAntonyand Cleopatra toJohn Reed
and Louise Bryantas passionate livers,lovers,and major historicalagents who
destroyand build empires (whetherRoman or Red), starsboth dramatize and
constructHollywood's particular idea of History-lending the past a present
stature,attributingits production to select individuals (most of them Charlton
Heston) and (T. E. Lawrence aside) providingthe literal"embodimentof Holly-
wood's faith that historicalevents rise to the occasion of exceptional human
romance."5

24 REPRESENTATIONS 29 * Winter1990 (D THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

 The Hollywood historicalepic also makes one thinkof portentouscalligra-
phy introducingus to History writin gilt and with a capital H, of prologues
usually beginning,as George MacDonald Fraser in The HollywoodHistoryof the
Worldremembers,with the words "In the Year of Our Lord," followed by "a
concise summary of the War of the Spanish Succession, or the condition of
the English peasantry in the twelfthcentury,or the progress of Christianity
under Nero."6 And, if the prologue was not written,its functionof authorizing
Historywas accomplished by a less literalbut more sonorous-and patriarchal
-"Voice of God" narration.Maps oftenaccompanied these historicizingvoices
-punctuating the text; simultaneouslypromising the viewer epic scope, em-
pire building,and adventure; and signalingthe pastnessof the past and its safe
history-bookdistance fromthe present.As Fraser puts it, "In the heydayof the
historicalstherewere fewthingsmore exciting,yetat the same time,more tran-
quilising in theireffecton the frontstallson a Saturdayafternoonthan a good
map, Olde Worlde forchoice."7
The Hollywood epic also defines Historyas occurringto music-pervasive
symphonicmusic underscoringeverymoment by overscoringit. And it evokes
spectacular,fantasticcostumes-particularlygold lame ones withunderwirebras.
Indeed, the Hollywood epic shows us that the people-most particularly,the
women-living Historyalmostalwayswore extravagantclothesand spent a good
deal of Historychanging them. Although no one in the audience is inclined to
such accountancy,we are nonethelesstold that Linda Darnell in ForeverAmber
(1947) wears "eighteenevening gowns,twentydaytimedresses, three negligees,
and a wedding gown as part of the effortto recreate the seventeenthcentury
England of King Charles II." Or thatTheProdigal(1955), starringLana Turner,
"had more than 4,000 costumes,"with"292 costume changes for the principals
alone"-one of the latter,accordingto MGM sources,involvingapparel made for
Turner "entirelyof seed pearls, thousandsof whichwere handsewn."8
This sartorialextravaganceis fullymatchedbyan extravaganceof action and
place. There are all those chariotraces,all those stampedesand crowd scenes, all
thosechargesand campaignson land and battlesat sea, all thosehorsesand slaves
and Christiansand wagon trains.There is also the vastnessof deserts,plains,and
oceans, and the monumentalityof Rome, the Pyramids,Khartoum,and Babylon.
Monumental productions regularlyproduced historicalmonuments-massive
Albert Speerish sets mythifying the mundane and quotidian into "imperialist"
and "orientalist"fantasiesof History.
At first,the purpose of all this hyperformalismseems significantonly as a
perverse and inflateddisplay of autoeroticspectacle-that is, as cinema tumes-
fullof itself,swollenwithitsown generativepowerto mobilize
cent: institutionally
the vast amounts of labor and money necessaryto diddle its technologyto an
extended and expanded orgasm of images, soundsaind profits.Thus, however
seriouslythe historicalepic presentsitselfto us or howeverpleasurablycaught up

"Surgeand Splendor" 25
 we actuallyare as we watchit,upon reflectionwe finditsexcesses and our plea-
sure embarrassing-and tend to make disclaimersabout our indulgence in such
cinematicexperience. In sum, the Hollywood historicalepic seems hardlysubtle
or substantialenough to invite much in the way of semiological and cultural
analyses fromthose scholars interestedin exploringthe nature and functionof
various formsof historicalrepresentation.Indeed, viewingall thisextravagance
and excess, one wonders how it is possible to take the genre seriouslyand what
in the world it has to do withwhat we thinkof as "real" historicalinterpretation.
Nonetheless,in thatit engages human beings of a certaincultureat a certain
time with the temporallyreflexiveand transcendentnotion that is History,the
Hollywood historicalepic is as "real" and significantas any other mode of histor-
ical interpretationwhich human beings symbolicallyconstituteto make sense of
a human-and social-existence that temporallyextends beyond the life and
timesof any singleperson. Indeed, I would suggestthatthe Hollywood historical
epic is as centralto our understandingof what we mean by the "historical"and
"History"as anyworkof academic scholarship.Obviously,itsmodalityis different
fromthelatter.In contrastto thereflective, highlyspecialized,"disciplined"mode
of representationthatstands in our cultureand timeas the site fortheoretically
comprehending the opaqueness of past others,the Hollywood historicalepic is
prereflective,popular, and "undisciplined."As well,despite its superficialexoti-
cism,it presumes the transparencyof past others,pretheoretically apprehending
theirhuman sameness in timeratherthan theirdifference.However,in thatboth
the work of academic scholarship and the Hollywood historicalepic construct
interpretivenarratives formulated around and foregrounding past human
events as coherent and significant,both are temporally reflexive and both
respond-if in differentways and throughdifferentexperiences-to the same
central and philosophical question: howto comprehend ourselvesin time.Whereas
the reticentand opaque workof academic historiesis the objectificationand pro-
jection of ourselves-now the expansive and transparentworkof Hol-
as others-then,
lywood'sepic historiesseems to be the subjectification and projectionof ourselves-
nowas we-then. However,both kindsof historicizingare culturalproductionsof a
certain mode of temporal consciousness,and both produce theirhistoryeffects
formodel readers and spectatorsthroughformaland narratologicaldevices that
are conventional.In sum, althoughacademic historyenjoysan institutionallegit-
imation that the Hollywood epic doesn't, neithermode of historicizing,of cre-
atingHistory,is "truer"thantheother.As Sande Cohen putsitin his major attack
on academic historiographyin HistoricalCulture:"There is no primary object or
complex thatwarrantscallingforththe signifier'history."'9
Thus, I want to begin thisphenomenologicalexplorationof the Hollywood
historicalepic not by establishingor debating definitionsof the "epic" and the
"historical,"nor by testingthe genre's "truthclaims."Rather,my project here is
to describe, thematize,and interpretan experiential fieldin which human beings

26 REPRESENTATIONS
pretheoreticallyconstructand play out a particular-and culturallyencoded-
formof temporal Since my aim is to "isolate the historyeffects"of the
existence.
Hollywood historicalepic, but to do so "as theypertainto an audience"and "the
manufacturingof public life,"'0my object of studyis not so much the films"in
themselves"as it is the rhetoricaland semiologicalpraxissurroundingthe public
experience of them-expressed in the prereflective or "ordinary"language used
in our particularculture to delimit and describe what is commonlyperceived as
an "extraordinary"mode of filmicrepresentation." Phenomenological analysis
of this ordinary language of experience, listening to the sense it makes to
embodied subjects,may help us betterunderstandthe appeal of the Hollywood
historicalepic to both the carnal and temporalconsciousnessof its model audi-
ence-however such carnalityand consciousnesscan be variouslylived and cul-
turallyconceived by those in the audience who belie the model. In sum, counter
to the totalizingdescriptionsthatemerge froma transcendentalphenomenology,
the descriptionsof the experientialfield of the historicalepic I offerhere are
highlyqualified-meant to unpack the sense and sense making of a particular
formof representationand itsdiscoursewhichis in "history"as well as aboutit.'2

It makes
yourealizewhatGodcouldhavedoneifHe'd had themoney.
13

The advertisingrhetoricthatsells the Hollywood historicalepic to its

American,middle-class,Caucasian, consumeraudience providesus withthemost
blatantand compressed invocationto the genre'sprereflective significance.Con-
sider the followinglitany:"They Slashed and Stormed and Sinned Their Way
Across Adventure'sMost Violent Age!" (The Vikings,1958); "An Epic Film That
Sweeps Across the Horizon of AncientTimes" (Sodomand Gomorrah, 1961); "The
MightiestStory of Tyrannyand Temptation Ever Written-Ever Lived-Ever
Produced!" (TheSilverChalice,1954); "The GloryThat Was Egypt!The Grandeur
That Was Rome!" (DeMille's Cleopatra,1934); or simply,"The Power The Passion
The GreatnessThe Glory"(KingofKings,1927).4 This kindof exclamation,gen-
eralization, and hyperbole is not necessarily dated. Indeed, a recent ad
announcing the availabilityof The Last Emperor(1987) on videocassettereads:
"Emperor. Playboy.Prisoner.Man. An AdventureLike This Comes Along Only
Once in 10,000 Years."In more detailand smallerprint,itgatherstogethernearly
all the elementsthatsomehowhave come to be associatedwithepic and historical
screen narrative: "This is the extraordinarytrue life storyof Pu Yi. An epic
adventure full of warlords and concubines,conspiracy,seduction and intrigue.
In 1908 he toddled to the Imperial Dragon Throne to become China's last
emperor.And the rest,as theysay,is history."'5

"Surgeand Splendor" 27
 An interestingtag line here-particularly for what it tellsus about the rela-
tionbetween,on the one hand, the extraordinaryplenitudeof adventure,action,
and detail thatcharacterizesthe "spectacular"natureof the epic filmand, on the
other hand, the "rest"-the something"theysay" is "history."'16This latterseems
to emerge fromtheaccumulationand sedimentation(or comingto rest)of adven-
ture,action,and detail,and is characterizedas excess-a culturalremainder("the
rest")leftover as theeffectof thealreadyamplifiedspectaclewe see on the screen.
Indeed, there is the suggestionhere thatHistoryemerges in popular conscious-
ness not so much fromanyparticularaccuracyor even specificity of detail and event
as it does froma transcendence ofaccuracyand specificityenabled by a generaland
excessive parade and accumulationof detail and event.
Thus, in reviewsof the genre,one generallyfindspraise not foritshistorical
accuracy or specificitybut rather for its extravagantgeneralityand excess-of
sets, costumes, stars,and spectacle,of the money and labor that went into the
makingof such entertainment.One such reviewtellsus of the 1951, 171-minute-
long Quo Vadis?:"Colossal isjust one of the superlativestrumpetingthe size and
scope of thismammothdrama about Romans, Christians,lions, pagan rites,rit-
uals, and Nero. Roman soldierRobertTaylorlovesand pursues Christianmaiden
Deborah Kerr. It's Christians versus Nero and the lions in the eternal fight
between good and evil. The sets, scenery,and crowd scenes are nearly over-
whelming.Peter Ustinovas Nero is priceless."'7
Conversely,another such reviewchides the 1971, 183-minute-longNicholas
and Alexandrafor being toohistoricallyparticularand specific:"This is an over-
long, overdetaileddepictionof the eventsprecedingthe Russian Revolutionuntil
the deaths of Czar Nicholas . .. his wife. .. and family.Some of theperformances
are outstanding. . . and the sets and costumes are topnotch.However,the film
getsmiredin tryingto encompass too much historicaldetail."'8 Apparently,then,
despite the "lotsof thingsgoing on in it,"the phenomenologicalsignificanceand
discursivepower of the Hollywood historicalepic is not to be found in the speci-
ficityand accuracyof its historicaldetail. Too much specificity and accuracy,this
reviewersuggests,"mires"the film-bogs it down in the concreteand disallows
the emergence of something that, through generalization and extravagance,
exceedsand transcends the concrete.
In a paradoxical way,the suggestionhere is thatthe Hollywoodhistoricalepic
is not so much the narrativeaccountingof specific historical
eventsas it is the nar-
rativeconstructionof generalhistorical This is perhaps whythe genre
eventfulness.
is popularly conceived as such an admixtureof differentkinds (and not merely
periods) of past events: mythic,biblical,folkloric,and quasi- or "properly"his-
torical.Thus, Fraser can point out thatHollywood's"AncientWorld"takes place
in "the Egypto-Biblo-Classicera, since threads fromall three were often inter-
twinedin itsproductions.'"9This is preciselythe kindof categoricaland theoret-
ical sloppiness scholarsdespise and tryto clarifyand clean up-and thatpopular

28 REPRESENTATIONS
audiences don't mind at all.20It also could be argued thatthissloppiness is pro-
foundlyfunctional-and thatit is by means of iconographicexpansivenessand
formalexcessivenessthatthe Hollywood historicalepic createsa fieldof tempor-
ality experienced as subjectivelytranscendentand objectivelysignificant.The
importanceof the genre is not that it narratesand dramatizeshistoricalevents
accuratelyaccording to the detailed storiesof academic historiansbut ratherthat
it opens a temporal fieldthatcreatesthe generalpossibilityforre-cognizingone-
subjectof a particularkind.2' Thus, counterto thejudgment of
selfas a historical
most filmscholars and historianswho have ignored or scoffedat the genre as
"heavy-handed"cinema or "lightweight"history,I tend to side withthe London
Timesreviewerwho, attendingthe world premiereof How theWestWasWon,wrote
of the historicalepic: "It has a surge and splendor and extravagancenot to be
despised."22
My agreement,however,is perverse.That is, I would suggestthe Hollywood
Indeed, ratherthancursorilydismissingthe
historicalepic not be despised lightly.
"surge and splendor and extravagance"of the genre, we should recognize its
excessive elements as essential to the genre's functionalcapacityto constructa
discursivefieldin which the American,middle-class,white (and disproportion-
ately male) spectator/consumercould experience-not think-that particular
mode of temporalitywhichconstitutedhim or her as a historicalsubjectin capi-
talistsocietybeforethe late 1960s.23To use Hayden White'scharacterization,the
"contentof the form" of the Hollywood genre is its mimetic and onomatopoetic
modes of representationand rhetoric,togetherconstitutinga representational
excess thatyieldsa particular"historyeffect."24 That is, the genreformallyrepeats
the surge,splendor,and extravagance,the human labor and capital cost entailed
by its narrative'shistorical in both itsproduction
content processand its modesofrep-
resentation.Through these means, the genre allegorically and carnallyinscribeson
the model spectatora sense and meaning of being in timeand human eventsin
a manner and at a magnitudeexceeding any individualtemporalconstructionor
appropriation-and, most importantly, in a manner and at a magnitude that is
as excessto lived-bodysubjects a historicallyspecificconsumer
intelligible in culture.
Thus, it is through its multileveledand repetitivediscourse (and politics) of
excess-not only withinbut also withoutthe movie theaterand cinematictext-
thatthe Hollywood historicalepic has what Maurice Merleau-Pontyidentifiesas
the primordiallyphilosophicalcapacityto "elevateto a supremedegree thatques-
tion whichwe are in our being, thatattemptto seize hold of ourselves,to gather
ourselves together,and to com-prehendourselves"25as a temporal"spread stag-
gered out in depth."26This elevationand transcendenceof individualtemporality
through excessive repetition creates a "perception of history."27However,
although one mighthave philosophicaljustificationto argue thata sense of tem-
poral excess is universallynecessaryto constituteda'perception of history,"it is
importantto emphasize that preciselywhat signifies temporal excess is not uni-

"Surgeand Splendor" 29
 versal but culturallyand historicallydetermined.And, in the case of the Holly-
wood historicalepic, temporal excess tends to be encoded as empirically
verifiable
and materialexcess-entailing scale, quantification,and consumptionin relation
to moneyand human labor.28
Consider the rhetoric-of-apress book memorializingthe production and
release in 1962 of Hollywood's firstnarrativefilmmade in Cinerama: the 155-
minutehistoricalepic How theWestWasWon.29 The hardcovervolume opens with
the presidentsof both MGM and Cinerama introducingus to a "new era` and
''milestone"in the "worldof entertainment"througha statementthatcompares
the transcendentmagnitudeof past eventsin AmericanHistorywiththose of the
new process of cinematicproduction.They write:"Never has so vasta chapterof
our Americanheritagebeen seen bymotionpictureaudiences; neverhas any film
process encompassed such grandeur of sight and sound." They also tell us:
"Thousands of creativemen and women and skilledtechnicianscombined their
talentsto make thismotion picturea reality."And thisstatementappears on the
same double page along whose bottomruns a panoramic shot fromthe filmof a
crowd of people withbaggage ready to set out forthe West,itscaption reading:
"They came by the thousands from everywhere,for to them the West was the
promise of the future."A correlationis clearly established here between the
presenteventsof the film'sproductionand the past eventsit is intended to rep-
resent. As well, a peculiar temporalequivalence is made between the "new era"
of entertainmentushered in by the "futuristic" technologyof Cinerama and the
"promiseof the future"the Westheld forpast Americans.It is hardlysurprising,
then, that on the next double page (a vaguely drawn map of the United States
punctuated by iconic figuressignalingthe film'srepresentationof events from
1839-1889), the legend below the film'stitlequotes Walt Whitmanin what, in
context,seems a generalized paean to the protagonistsof both the "winning"of
the American Westand the conquest of motionpicturetechnology:"Movingyet
and never stopping,Pioneers! 0 Pioneers!"
With the same strategy,the book goes on to tell us "The MGM Cinerama
Story."Historicaladventuresof epic quality,quantificationof the scope and mag-
nitude of hardshipsand obstaclesthathad to be endured and overcome,heroic
perseverance,appeal to national pride-at each rhetoricalturn,these elements
equivalentlymarkboth the winningof the Westand the achievementof itsappro-
priatecinematicrepresentation.The laborious struggleentailed bythe film'spro-
ductionformally repeatsthe laborious struggleof the Americanpioneers-even in
itsdirection."Fleetsof trucks"moved Cinerama's headquartersfromOysterBay,
New York, to the MGM Studios in California,and a section entitled"A Monu-
mental Production"tellsus: "Filmingthe fullydefinitivestoryof the winningof
the American West was one of the most demanding projects ever undertaken.
This was never attemptedbefore." Location experts "traveledthroughthe his-

30 REPRESENTATIONS
toricOhio River Valley,once a waterhighwayto the West,and into the heart of
the proud RockyMountains. They rode over unused paths and roads as long as
four-wheeledvehicles would carrythem, and by foot along trailswhere there
were no roads. They took thousands of photographsand sent them back to the
studio as oftenas theycould get to a post office."Productionnotesgive us endless
numbers: how many buffalo,horses, extras,pairs of shoes, yards of homespun
ordered from "ancient looms in India"; actual American Indian tribespartici-
pating; pounds of hay,grain,food,and crew-and how arduous all thisgathering
and deploying was and how long it took. All, apparently,to achieve historical
accuracy,yet stressinglaborand quantity: "The research alone filled87 volumes
which were cross-indexedfor easier reference."The end goal is authenticity, a
word appearing frequentlythroughoutthe textin referenceto-and equating-
both the filmmakers'and spectators'experience of the production as "truly"
historical.30
In between the lengthierportionsof textthat equate and apotheosize both
the historyofproductionand the production ofhistory(and implytheirreversibility)
are sectionsorganized around photographs. Firstare "The Stars" presented by
their Hollywood names-their identityas characters subordinated in smaller
printunderneath their pictures.3'Next are the production stillsfromthe film,
marked by individual captions that focus on a seeming specificityof character
and event. Throughout, small black-and-whiteengravings-"old" and "authen-
tic"pieces fromthe BettmanArchives-contrast withand complementthe color
photographs,servingboth as theirpale models and "authenticatingprimarydoc-
uments."32As well, in large and boldface type,on manyof the double-page lay-
outs appears a suggestive and quasidocumented quotation that abridges and
iconographicallygeneralizes the specificity of the photographs,subtendingthe
film'sfamilyromance narrativethatspans threegenerations.Above all, the quo-
tationslend intertextual"historical"and "literary"significanceto the photos and
seem selected particularlyto emphasize the narrative'slargess of scope and
action. From WilliamMacLeod Raine's GunsoftheFrontier comes: "The Westwas
won bythe pioneer. He blazed trails,guttedmountains,ran furrows,and planted
corn on the prairies."Whitmanis repeated: "Through thebattle,throughdefeat,
Moving yetand never stopping,Pioneers! 0 Pioneers!" Abraham Lincoln's Get-
tysburgAddress tellsus: "Now we are engaged in a greatcivilwar,testingwhether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Horace Greeleyis cited: "A millionbuffalois a great many,but I am certainthat
I saw thatmanyyesterday." And finally, accompanyingand elevatingphotographs
of banditattacksand "blazinggun battle,"is a quote fromDaniel Webster:"Those
who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in
avoiding discovery."
The press book concludes withan illustratedand&quasitechnicalexplanation

"Surgeand Splendor" 31
 of the Cinerama process,assertingthatthe scope of such a formof representation
begins "a new motion picture era-and age where the audience can live a real
storyon the screen,"and thisis followedbya descriptionand criticalassessment
of the "glitteringworld premiere"of the filmin London, before,among others,
bejeweled Britishroyalty.3ACthe conclusion of this "overwhelming"spectacle,
we are told: "London's criticswentoffto seek new adjectivesto describeHow the
WestWasWon,predictingitwould run forten years,statingit was one of the most
monumental entertainmentsever conceived." In addition to overwhelming and
monumental, some of these supposedly"new"adjectivesincludedgiant,spectacular,
splendiferous,rich,sprawling, and immensely
star-studded, The LondonDaily
stirring.
Mirrorsaid the filmwas "a thundering,ear-splittingsmasheroo of a spectacle."
Praising it for showingus "not only the landmarksof America, but the famous
faces of Hollywood,"theLondonEveningStandardreportedthe film"makes good
historyas well as eye-poppinghyperbole."

II

Onecanonlyconclude thatitsscaleputitbeyond
thenormal reach;ina way,it
critical
israther an elephant.34
likecritictsing

I have spent some time describingthe discursivefield of the Holly-

wood historicalepic forthreereasons. The firsthas been to emphasize how easy
it is to laugh at the language in which it is expressed, how entertainingto trash
the naivete and excesses of both the rhetoricand itsobjects,and to feel superior
to what seems their debased project. The second has been to foregroundthe
complex wayin whichthisseeminglylaughable and naive kindof hyperboliclan-
guage is commonlyused not only to describe but also mimetically to elevate the
epic filminto an historicaleventfulness that exceeds its already excessive screen
boundaries-accomplished by creatingequivalence and reciprocityamong the
epic's "historic"cinematic production, its historicalnarrativecontent and his-
trionicform,and its"historic"reception.The thirdhas been to providetheexper-
ientialbasis for furtherunpacking and thematizingthe "contentof the form"of
the genre-those structuresthatare theobjectivecorrelatesof a certainsubjective
mode of temporalbeing and that,in the cinematicexperience,mark theirsense
on and make theirsense to an embodied spectator.
In this regard, Paul Ricoeur's complex observationthat the existentialrela-
tionship between narrativityand temporalityis a "reciprocal" one is of great
importancehere. He tellsus: "I take temporalityto be the structureof existence
that reaches language in narrativityand narrativityto be the language struc-
ture thathas temporalityas its ultimatereferent."35 I would furtherargue, how-
ever, that this reciprocityis possible only because narrativityas a structureof

32 REPRESENTATIONS
language and temporalityas a structureof existencefindtheircommon groundin
bodilybeing, in a carnalreckoning withtimeand space thatprecedes the accoun-
tancyof objectivereckoningand, as Ricoeur points out, is thus "not an abstract
measure" but "a magnitude which corresponds to our concern and to the world
into whichwe are thrown."36
As Merleau-Pontysuggests,both this"carnal reckoning"withtimeas a mag-
nitude of value, and our existential"thrown-ness"into a world always already
culturallyformulatedand expressed before as well as forus, togetherprovide the
prereflectivegrounds forthatfurtherreflexivefocuson temporalitywe call "his-
toricalconsciousness."In TheVisibleand theInvisiblehe writes:"Coming afterthe
world,afternature,afterlife,afterthought,and findingthemconstitutedbefore
it, philosophy indeed questions this antecedent being and questions itselfcon-
cerningits own relationshipwithit."37From our existentialand bodily presence
to the world both temporallyafterand before others and theiractions emerges a
sense of being not merelyimmanentto time but also transcendentlyofit. More
specifically,a considerationof our existenceas alwaysin mediasresdirectsus not
only to the futureof human being but also toward its past. Thus, there is, as
Merleau-Pontyputs it,a "wave of transcendencewhichspringsup in the carnal
opening." When thisreflexive-but not yetreflective-turnon temporalexperi-
ence is reflectedupon and made symbolicallyexplicit,it is constitutedas History.
The immediate,pretheoreticalsense of temporal transcendenceis re-cognized
and reinvestedin temporal theory, in "culturalfigures,which . . . become sedi-
mentedin a culturalopening and become a kindof acquisition,belonginghence-
forth not only to a particular individual's horizon but to that of all possible
individuals."38 This is, on the one hand, an ontological(and thereforeuniversal-
izing) explicationof how human being is alwaysalready temporalizedin transcen-
dentexcessof any personal and presentbeing. However,on the other hand, the
ontologicalnature of thisprimaryand prereflectivesense of temporaltranscen-
dence is always already epistemologicallyqualified by the secondary,reflective
sense of temporal transcendencethat is symbolicallysignifiedin delimited and
specificculturalfiguresthatare in timeas well as aboutit.
These phenomenological interpretationsof the emergence of and relations
between narrativityand temporalitysuggestthatif the "contentof the form"of
the Hollywood historicalepic is the mimetic and onomatopoetic of ante-
representation
cedent human actions, then the "theme of the form" is temporalmagnitude-
extended and elevated to itshighestexistentialdegree as intelligiblewithina par-
ticular cultural framework.Recognitionof both the contentand theme of the
genre's form moves us to an apprehension of its deep structure-that is, the
"formof its form."The Hollywood historicalepic is a reflexive structurefounded
in repetition.
It seems no coincidence that of all kinds of -commercialcinematic repre-

"Surgeand Splendor" 33
 sentation, the Hollywood historicalepic-through repetition-calls the most
explicit, reflexive,and self-authorizingattentionto its own existence as a re-
presentation.Mentioned earlier,the mostobvious example is the frequentwritten
or spoken narrationwithwhichthe majorityof historicalepics begin and which
later punctuate their dramatic action. Such narrationnot only chronologically
locates the presentviewerrelativeto a past eventthat,byreflexiveauthorialfocus,
is foregroundedas retrospectivelyand nowhistorically significant.It also repeatsthe
dramatic representationin a reflexiveand reflectivemode-creating an addi-
extendsthe emplotmentof the storyfromthe
tional textual level that temporally
past to the present and confers significanceon the storyfromthe presentto the
past. As Pierre Sorlin pointsout, "Historicalfilmsare distinguishedbysomething
we could call . .. the doubleexposure
of time,withthe superimpositionof symbolic
timeon other formsof time."39 JanetStaigeralso notes the repetitionentailedby
such narrationand so necessaryto its"historyeffect":

Becauseframing information isa "separate"text,ata distanceand notpartoftheenclosed

story,itcan easilytakeon an authenticityin comparison to thatwhichitembeds.Yetthis
voice-overof masculineauthority assures(or perhapsreassures)us of the educational
valueof thistruestory-doubling andredoublingitsclaims.Thus thevoice-over narrator
acts... in a subtlewayas a textualdeviceofcompulsively "thisis,as 'I' say,a true
repeating,
story."40

At times,thistemporalrepetitionis graphicallyintroducedinto the text-its

oftenexotic calligraphicpresentationboth invoking"the past" in visual onoma-
topoeticreferenceto antecedent formsof writing,to "original"documents,and
claimingthe anonymousauthoritythewrittenword has secured in our particular
culture.At times,the repetitionis oral. While voice-overnarrationalso performs
the functionof doubly exposing time,itsauthorizingpoweris different.The nar-
ratorsentailed bythe genre to establish,repeat,and elaborate upon the dramatic
representationcall particularand reflexiveattentionto their own personal (if
cinematicallyderived) authorityas a means of furtherauthorizingand "authen-
ticating"the dramaticmaterial.Their offscreenvoices are especiallymale, highly
sonorous, and distinctivelyrecognizable,markingthese narratorsof Historyas
literallytranscendental-significantstarsof such "celestial"staturethey,like the
face of God, must not be seen. John Huston, for example, narrated TheBible;4'
Orson Welles narrated The Vikings;and Spencer Tracy,whose distinctivevocal
as well as authority,narratedHow theWestWasWon.
presence signifies"integrity"
In the aforementionedpress book, under Tracy's photograph as one of "The
Stars" (he is wearing a Westerncowboyhat) reads thiscaption: "The Narrator.
Although this famous star,one of the few ever to be honored by two Academy
Awards, does not appear in the film,his magnificentspeaking voice has the
important role of narratingthe stirringdrama of the winning of the West."

34 REPRESENTATIONS
Standing in for the institutionalvoice of historiography, Tracy'strustedpersona
lends received ideas a particularcredibility,while his absence from the screen
secures them a transcendentalspace outside the drama from which they can
assert a privilegedvalidity.42 In sum, a significantactor retellingthe storyover
and "above" its visible,dramatic representationgives us twolevels of narrative,
temporality, and significance-and spans the space between.
Most Hollywood historicalepics not onlyrepeat the narrativewithinthe film
through a doubling narrationbut also repeat that narrativeoutsidethe film-if
withinits cinematicdiscourse. That is, the genre oftenformallyand/orliterally
celebratesand representsthe historicstrugglesunder whichit produced itselfas
a mimetic imitationof the historicaleventsit is dramatizing.This extratextualand
elevated repetitionof historicaleventsis notonlyevidentin such commemorative
volumes as the How theWestWas Wonpress book. It is also evident in television
accountsof "The Makingof . . . ," picturemagazinecoverageof productionhard-
ships, and the like-reflexive and repetitiousnarrativesof the historicalepic's
own repetitionof historicalnarrative.This extratextualrepetitioncan itselfbe
quite dramatic. Movie starsother than Liz and Dick have made headlines while
working on a film,but consider how Taylor and Burton's illicitextratextual
romance-and theirmagnitudeas stars-mimicked the historicalsituationof the
textin which theywere imitatingCleopatra and Antonyand extended the pro-
duced History of the past into the present moment of historicalproduction.
Additionally,as Fraser notes of Cleopatra,"The 1963 production by Twentieth
Century-Foxbecame a bywordforextravagance,crisisand disappointment"43_
the troubledproductionhistoryof thefilmpopularlyperceivedand writtenabout
as isomorphicwiththe narrativeshape of the popular conceptionof Antonyand
Cleopatra's emotional and politicalhistory.I don't mean to suggesthere thatLiz
and Dick's romance was consciouslyplanned so as formallyto "repeat history"in
an excess of temporalitythattransgressedthe boundaries of the filmtheywere
making,or that Cleopatrawas a financialdisappointmenton purpose. Rather,I
mean to foregroundhow importantextratextualdiscourseabout the production
of the filmis to the constructionof the Hollywood historicalepic's temporalfield.
In itselevationof elementsof the film'shistoricalnarrativeto yetanotherdiscur-
sive level,the genre expands and extendsthe temporalityof "ordinary"textuality
into an extensiveand excessive temporalitywhich literallytranscendsthe film
frame,the text,and the timeof the spectator'simmediatepresence to the filmin
the theater.
This extensionof temporalityis also one of the functions,I would suggest,
of castinghighlyrecognizablestarsto representhistoricalfigures.Perhaps laugh-
able, certainlydistracting,and possiblyreprehensibleto those who seek in the
historicalepic cinema the physicalanonymityof an "underdetermined"body to
paradoxically signifyboth the physical specificityand the vagueness of half-

"Surgeand Splendor" 35
 known historicalpersons, stars people the represented historicalpast with the
present. Their "overdetermined"presence in a filmpunctuatesthe representa-
tion of the past and stressesthe representationas repetition,as imitationof pre-
vious events,and thus,like the narration,doubles the film'stemporaldimension.
As well, their-presence fuinictions as a sign of temporal transcendence.Elizabeth
Taylor outlivesthe end of Historyas it was writby Cleopatra. Charlton Heston
outlivesnot only El Cid but also Moses. And Peter Ustinovwillperpetuallybe in
temporal excess of Nero. Thus, starsnot only exceed the representationor "re-
presencing" of past historicalfiguresto remind us that the representationis a
repetition,but additionallyserve to generalizehistoricalspecificity throughtheir
own iconographic presence. Stars are cast not as characters,but in character-as
"types"who, however physicallyparticularand concrete,signifyuniversal and
general characteristics.Thus, while not embodyinghistoricalfiguresin any way
that could be called "accurate" by a historian'sstandards,starsnonethelesscon-
tributeto an expansive,excessive,and multileveledtemporalitythatcan be expe-
rienced by the spectatoras subjectivelytranscendentand objectivelysignificant.
Indeed, the very presence of starsin the historicalepic mimeticallyrepresents
figuresbut ratherthe realsignificance
not real historical of historicalfigures.Stars
literallylend magnitude to the representation.
This kind of conceptualmimesis-that is, the representationor imitationof a
general idea ratherthan a specificperson, event,or thing-paradoxically often
takes the most literaland materialformof imitation,creatingat the formallevel
of representationwhat I choose to call cinematiconomatopoeia. Thus, temporal
magnitude is constitutednot only by the "big" presence of starsbut also by literal
quantity:an extravaganceand accumulationof detail, horses, moccasins,battles,
jewels, and Christians.Similarly,the existentialweightof historical"being-in-time"
that is culturallysedimented as the thoughtthat is Historyis made literaland
materialthroughscale: in the concretely"big" presence of monumentalsets and
landscapes. Withinthisculturalcontext,one can betterunderstandtoo how the
existentialfeeling of "being caught up" in the turbulenceof a time and social
formationthat exceeds and buffetsthe stabilityof one's being "merelypresent"
or "merelyliving"in timeplaysitselfout in the Hollywoodhistoricalepic's massive
surges of movementfrombuffalostampedes to revolutionsto the Exodus. And
how excessive symphonicmusic repeats and underscoresthissense of temporal
turbulenceby extending,elevating,and emplottingit at an extradiegeticlevel-
outside the story,but withinthe text.
If History is subjectivelyunderstood as an excess of temporalityover any
individual'sparticipationin and comprehensionof it,thenthe Hollywood histor-
ical epic constructsa "field of historicality" by objectivelymimickingtemporal
excess-although it does so in an enculturatedwayinformednot onlyby empir-
ical literalismand capitalistmaterialismbut also by the conceptual apparatus of

36 REPRESENTATIONS
Enlightenmentdiscourse.44Hence, the genre'screationof Historyas literallyand
materiallyspectacular-ina cinematicformthatis not only necessarilyand suffi-
cientlyvisiblebut also emphatically"tobe looked at" in itsexcessiveand expansive
physicalpresence. As Staiger says of historicalcinema's general strategy:"The
filmimplies thatwhat'shistoricalis a physicalreality.It is the mise-en-scene,the
props, the costumesand the people thatare historical."45 What shall count as the
historicalis not merelyverifiedbut also constitutedthroughthe visible and in
materialevidence. The Hollywood historicalepic gives us "more" to look at and
"more" material evidence than the shorterand smallerand less elaborated his-
toricalfilm;the historyit attemptsto "realize" is stressedas temporallytranscen-
dent, as writwiththatcapital H.
Thus, the genre also constitutesitshistoricalfieldas literallyand materially-
onomatopoetically-extended and expanded. An excess of temporalityfindsits
formin, or "equals," extended duration:filmsfarlongerthan the Hollywood norm.
Correlatively, an excess of space findsitsformin, or "equals," expandedspace:Cin-
emascope, Cinerama, Superscope, 70mm. Indeed, if one were looking for a
Bakhtinianchronotope to characterizethe historicalepic-that is, to identifythe
essentialand inseparabletime-spacerelationshipthatgeneratesand makes visible
its particular form,action, and character-one need go no furtherthan Cine-
mascope or Cinerama or Vistavision.46
In this regard, howeverour particularculture may qualifyit,it is crucial to
rememberthatour sense of historicality and itsfurthersedimentationand objec-
tificationinto History begins firstnot in our reflectiveexistence as historical
objects but in our reflexiveexistenceas embodied subjects.It is as carnal as well as
culturalbeings thatwe presentlysitin a movie theaterto see a representationof
past events and somehow get caught up in a comprehensionof time-not only
the temporalmovementof the movieand itsnarrativebut also a prereflective and
imaginativefield in which to sense ourselves as temporal beings who transcend
our presentpresence. Thus, thereis a paradoxical,yetculturallyapt, logic to the
factthat most Hollywood historicalepics are a great deal longer than are other
films-their runningtimewell over the two-hourlengthusual forother kindsof
commercialmovies.It takes,forexample, 222 minutesforthe South to go in Gone
withtheWind.At 180 minutesthe titleof the World War II epic TheLongestDay
has a double resonance. Reds finds 199 minutesof screen time the extravagant
equal of TenDaysThatShooktheWorld.And, at 188 minutes,Gandhi'spatience must
be matchedbythe spectator's.On the one hand, experiencingthisextraordinary
cinematicduration,the spectatoras a body-subjectis made more presentlyaware
than is usual of his or her bodily presence-indeed, is "condemned" to the
presentand physically"tested"bythe lengthof the film'sduration. On the other
hand, however,enduringthe filmin the presentimprintsthe body witha brute
sense of the possibilityof transcendingthe present-of the literaland material

"Surgeand Splendor" 37
 capacityof human being to be testedand tocontinueand lastthrough eventsrep-
resented as a temporal "spread staggered out in depth."47This writingon the
body by experience, I would argue, providesthe carnal and subjectivegrounds
necessaryfor the constructedabstractand objective premises considered suffi-
cient to historicalreflections.However, insofaras the body is always already an
acculturatedbody,the inscriptionof experience upon it makes a specifickind of
Physiologicalsense cannot
culturalsense and has a particularlogicalintelligibility.
be amputated fromsociologicalor psychologicalsense. Thus, writingon thebody
of the model Americanspectator/consumer, the Hollywoodhistoricalepic is trans-
codingthe culture's emphasis on literalismand materialisminto specificcarnal
terms,and reprintingitsversionof Historynot onlyforposteritybut also on our
posteriors.This is, philosophicallyand carnally,a profound formof repetition.
In his complex and persuasivediscussionof the relationsbetweennarrativity
and temporality,Ricoeur stressesthe necessityand functionof repetition in the
constitutionof historicalconsciousness. Indeed, he questions "whetherwe may
go so faras to say thatthe functionof narratives-or at leastof some narratives-
thatis, of repeti-
is to establishhuman action at the level of genuine historicality,
tion."48This question is relevanthere-as is Ricoeur's emphasis on repetitionas
that aspect of narratologicalformmost responsiveand responsibleto our phe-
nomenologicalsense of timeas "historical."In thisregard,the Hollywood histor-
ical epic can be considered as the formbestable to representthe subjectivelylived
time of its particular cultural moment as objectively"historical."This is not
merelybecause the ostensible"content"of the genre refersto and repeats events
culturallyagreed upon actuallyor likelyto have happened and to have had, in
theirhappening, some presentsignificancefor the future.It is also because the
formaldiscourse of the genre foregrounds,multiplies,and elevates the conven-
tions of repetition that culturallyproduce the experience of time as historical.
Qualified by the specificcodes of its particularculturalcontext,the Hollywood
historicalepic thus intensifiesthe existential(and arguablyuniversal)functionof
repetition:to extendthe magnitudeof our temporalsense betweenthe immediate
and prereflective"preoccupation"we have with time as "now" and the deeply
reflectivesense we have of the transcendentunityof "all times"which,given our
personal sense of finitude,has somethingto do withdeath.
In this linking of past, present, and future,repetitionsuggests a tempo-
rallytranscendentstructure-one that connectsoriginsand ends by reflexively
turningon and revisitingitself.As a rhetoricaldevice, repetitionforegrounds
configurationratherthan linearity,circularityratherthan teleology.Thus, when
"historicalevents"are takenas itsobject,repetitionworksagainsttheirobjectively
known "finishedness,"their"overness,"their"pastness."It is throughrepetition
that "the past is retrieved"in anticipationof the projectof its recirculation,and
one may become aware of "the endlessness of historicaltime"while sensing the
finitestructureof one's own individualtemporality.49 In effect,repetitionserves

38 REPRESENTATIONS
as a formalrecirculationof signsthat,when put to the serviceof linearand teleo-
logical "content"such as the chronologyof historicalevents,does awaywithchro-
nology and teleology and institutesa sense not of "being-in-time"or "being-
toward-death"but of "being-in-History."50
Both Ricoeur and Merleau-Ponty,while philosophizingabout temporality
and historyin universalterms,recognizethe universalis alwaysalready qualified
by the particular and contingent.Human beings may be universallyaware of
themselvesas temporal and historicalbeings,but, insofaras it is alwaysalready
culturallyencoded, thatawareness is specificallyinflectedand expressed in ways
thatmay differand conflictwithina single culture,fromcultureto culture,and
fromtime to time. Thus, historicalconsciousnessis itselfhistoricized.Merleau-
Ponty tells us of his existentialturn from Husserl's attemptphilosophicallyto
"reduce" phenomena to their eidosor "essence": "The most importantlesson
reduction.' In
which the reduction teaches us is the impossibilityof a complete
short,thereis no Historywitha transcendental,capitalH-except in thequalified
sense thathuman beings in particularculturesfixand secure it as such. Summa-
rizing Merleau-Pontyon the relation between lived temporalityand historical
consciousness,Gary Madison says:
If itcan be saidthattemporality itselfqua continuous
is subjectivity adventofBeing,itmust
be said thathistoricity
is personalsubjectivity qua reappropriation, and rein-
sublimation,
vestment in symbolsand institutions of thissameupsurgeof Being.Whatcharacterizes
history is thatitrepresentsand is theaccumulation of thetransformation
maneffectson
his existentialsituation;it is like the sedimentation and gatheringtogetherof man's
attempts tounderstand himself in hiscarnalrelationtotheworldand othersand totrans-
formintoan open and availablemeaningtheindigenousmeaningof his ... existence.52

This is a resonantpassage in relationnotonlyto thecinema in general-arguably

the medium best able to represent both the carnalityof human being and its
dynamic relationsand transformational effectsin contingentsituations-but also to
the Hollywood historicalepic in particular.In medium and form, the genre
simultaneouslyconveys to model spectator/consumers boththe signifying"up-
surge" and becoming of Being, its "continuousadvent" or "adventure,"and its
accumulation,sedimentation,and reinvestmentinto culturallyspecificand sig-
nificant"event" and "institution."Thus, throughthe "contentof its form,"the
Hollywood historicalepic setsup a transparentdialectic-one thatallowsitsspec-
tators a prereflectiveexperience of the dual nature of historicality as both the
makingand beingof History.The genre entails the spectatorin the carnal labor
throughwhichfilmmakers, actors,and spectatorsalike transformthe "advent"of
provisionalhuman "gesture"into the archetypal"adventure"of thegesteinto the
institutionalized"events"of History.Thus, the phenomenologicalexperience of
the Hollywood historicalepic is less one of theparticular,specific,and "objectively
ofa pasteventthan it is of a gene-ral,concrete,and "subjec-
accurate" representation
tivelyauthentic"representation of theproduction ofHistory.Qualified, however,by

"Surgeand Splendor" 39
 theirlived value and culturaland historicalsituation,the conceptsof both "pro-
duction"and "History"have particularand delimitedmeaning.

III

Manyofthepeopleyoumeettoday, whoare responsibleforseeingthatmoviesgetmade,

havescopethewidthofa TV screenand a historical
consciousness tolast
thatextends
year'sreruns.53

It is particularlytellingthattherehave been so fewHollywood histor-

ical epics made for theatricalrelease in the 1970s and 1980s.54Partiallyas a
response to televisionand itsobvious lack of magnitude,the screen genre peaked
in production and box-officereceptionduring the 1950s and 1960s. Briefly,the
early 1960s bring us to the end of the corporate hegemony of the Hollywood
"studio system"-firmlyinstitutionalizedby the 1920s and, among other things,
based upon the presumptionand constructionof a homogeneous,white,patriar-
challyinformed,middle-classmodel audience. In the mid 1960s, both the eco-
nomic hegemonyof the studiosand the culturalhomogeneityof the audience as
constructedby the industryfellapart.55Antitrustsuitsfinallybroke the hold of
the major filmcorporations on production,distribution,and exhibition-and
until the industrydiversifiedits production base, corporatelyallied itselfwith
televisionand the musicindustry, and became fullyincorporatedbymultinational
corporations,Hollywood'seconomywas in turmoil.
The peak period of the productionof historicalepic cinema in Hollywood
also coincided witha culturallyhomogenizingCold War politicsand entered its
decline as the United States entered Vietnam and a period of mass politicaland
social fragmentation.Given these "coincidences,"itwould be fruitfulto speculate
on the relationshipbetweensuch politicsand the "politicalunconscious"symbol-
icallyenacted withintheculturallyqualifiedstructureof cinematic"excess"I have
described here as phenomenologicallyconstructinga particularand contingent
sense of "being-in-History."56
In this regard, Allen Barra, looking for explanations for "The Incredible
ShrinkingEpic," quotes both BritishcriticPaul Coates-and WalterBenjamin.
Coates maintains: "True filmepics can only be made [and properlyreceived by
audiences] at a timewhen a country'snationalmythsare stillbelieved-or, at best,
at a timewhen a nation feelsitselfslippinginto decline, whichproduces a spate
of nostalgicevocationsof those myths.Afterward,a period of cynicismsets in, in
which the mythsare presented in a revisionistmanner"-meaning, Coates says,
"thatcurious hybridof the last 20 years,the anti-epic."57Benjamin sees thisrevi-
sionismless as cynicismthanas an assumptionof responsibility:"To articulatethe
past historicallydoes not mean to recognizeit 'the wayit reallywas. . . .' It means
to seize hold of a memoryas it flashesup at a momentof danger.... In every

40 REPRESENTATIONS
 era, the attemptmustbe made anew to wresttraditionaway froma conformism
thatis about to overpowerit."58
The era of the Hollywood historicalepic from its beginningsin the early
1900s throughitsdecline in the 1960s can be characterizedas informedby those
culturalvalues identifiedwithrationalhumanism,withbourgeoispatriarchy, with
colonialismand imperialism,and withentrepreneurialand corporate capitalism.
It was in the 1960s that,for a varietyof reasons, these ideological values were
placed in major crisis. The Civil Rights,youth,and women's movements;the
explicitfailureof Americanpoliticaland militarymightin SoutheastAsia and the
civilwar at home; the rise of foreigneconomic powerand the emergenceof mul-
tinationalcapitalism; the pervasive spread of electronicmedia throughoutthe
entirecultureand a correspondentdevaluationof the mechanicaland the visible
labor of men and machinesthe latterentails-these eventsnot onlymade explicit
whathad theretoforebeen ideologicallytransparentbut also radicallychallenged
and transformedthe dominant culture's"rational,humanistversionof the sub-
ject as a unifiedspeaking self,coheringin mind,body,and speech."59In its par-
ticular representationof the "production"of History,the Hollywood historical
epic depended upon a celebrationof rationalism,humanism,the unityof histor-
ical agents,the progress,continuity, and coherence of a centralized"production"
process availingitselfof labor's surplusvalue to produce excessivetemporalityas
a fixedcommodity,a stableand coherentnarrative:History.
In 1938, a Hollywood press release about MGM historicalepic MarieAntoi-
netteunselfconsciously,indeed proudly,went public with the informationthat
"fiftywomen were broughtto Los Angeles fromGuadalajara, Mexico, to sew on
thousandsof sequins and do the elaborateembroideryused on manyof the 2,500
costumes."60FiftyMexican women may illegallycross the border today and end
up sewing costumes, but it is highlyunlikelythat such colonial exploitationof
cheap labor would be quite so blatantlycelebratedin what,in the era of the epic,
functionedas a transparentrepetitionof historicalevents.
One could also argue that,on various levels,the Hollywood historicalepic's
formalconstructionof historicalconsciousnessin the 1950s and early 1960s has
been coopted and, bynow,radicallytransformedbytelevisionand the miniseries,
which has given us such epic equivalents as Roots,The Windsof War,War and
Remembrance, TheJewelin theCrown,and Northand South.To some, thishas caused
a formaldebasementof the genre-as measured bywhatone can expect forone's
money in consumer society.(Television,afterall, is perceived as "free.") Thus,
Barra laments: "The audience for Warand Remembrance, withlowered expecta-
tions,will allow old newsreel footage of air combat; an audience going to see a
modern war movie would expect completelyreconstructedair forcesand fleets
for its money."However, he notes,on the positiveside, the televisionminiseries
has "given rise to an armyof techniciansand productionassistants"61 although
this army,unlike its cinematic predecessors, tends to remain publicly uncele-

"Surgeand Splendor" 41
 brated as signifyingan apotheosis of labor. Like the computercasing that hides
the already invisibleworkof electronicmediation,the televisionminiseriestrans-
formsthe extravagantlabor spent in the productionof Historyinto something
less visible.
The miniseriesalso trar-farmsthe Hollywood historicalepic in a more pro-
found way-formally alteringitstemporalfield,and thusitsconstructionof His-
tory.Indeed, miniseries is a revealing nomination. It suggests that the spatial
displacementfromcinematicto electronicrepresentationhas changed the exis-
tentialsense and termsof epic excess,and thatthe electronicmedium'snew mode
of episodic and fragmentedexhibitionhas changed the sense and termsof the
expansiveness,movement,and repetitiousnessof epic-and historical-time. In
thisregard, we mightsee thismove and transformation of the historicalepic to
televisionas one symptomof our own culturalmove intoa period conceptualized
less in termsof the explicit,economicallyextravagantdisplaysof corporatecapi-
talismor of the unifyingimperativesof World War I, World War II, and Cold
War ideology than in termsassociated withthe electronic, the postindustrial,
and
thepostmodern. Contemporarycriticshave argued thatour situationand practice
withina culturemarked by multinationalcapitalism,high technologyof an elec-
tronic kind, and a heightened cultural awareness and consumption of images
have radicallyaltered the value and meaning of antecedence-andwhat formally
constitutesitsadequate representation.In the electronicera of the televisionand
the VCR, temporalityis transformed.Repetition means reruns, and one can
materiallyand literallymanipulatetimeto constructvariousversionsof "history"
(whichno longer are weightyenough to bear a capital H).
Characterized negativelyby what FredricJameson calls an "invertedmil-
lennarianism,"the narratologicalstructureof postmodern representationhas
a severelyweakenedexistentialsense of connection to both the historicalpast
and the future,and is caught up in an intensifiedpresent-a "within-time-ness"
marked bya sense of "the end of thisor that"62and characterizedbythefragmen-
tationand mixture oftemporal modesin a schizophrenicmanner,bytemporal pastiche,
and by nostalgic temporalscavenging.Certainlythe miniseries-not only frag-
mentingits own temporalcontinuityacross a week but also interruptingit with
advertising-stands as transparenttestimonyto thischaracterization.As does the
currentnostalgicfascinationwithrestoringand recycling"old" Hollywood his-
toricalepics.
On the other hand, Linda Hutcheon characterizespostmodernrepresenta-
tion more positively.63 It is, she insists,resolutelyhistoricaland has a heightened
existentialsense of the present'sconnectionto the past and future.Althoughstill
as the contentof itsform,thismore consciouskindof postmodern
using repetition
representation-unlike the Hollywood historicalepic-uses itparodically, thatis,
witha criticaldistancethatproduces ironyand underminesitsown assertionsand
truthor realityclaims. This postmodernrepresentation,Hutcheon argues, frac-

42 REPRESENTATIONS
tures the totalizingpower of Historyinto a heterogeneousdialogismof histories
and a heightenedawareness of theirinscriptions,investments,and conflicts.
At thisculturalmoment,then,there seems no place between these two ver-
sions of postmoderntemporalityforthe productionof the kindof historicalcon-
sciousness thatthe Hollywood historicalepic once created throughitsparticular
discourse and politicsof temporal excess. As a culture,we seem to be too self-
conscious,too image-conscious,and too aware of our social heterogeneityto find
anybut nostalgicappeal in thedirectedtemporalforceof thegenre,in itscreation
of a prereflectivesense of "being-in-History." Indeed, the current restoration
and reissue of LawrenceofArabiaand GonewiththeWindinfirst-run theaters
speaks
to both the present cultural impossibilityof writingHistoryin the Hollywood
epic manner and-in keeping withtheJamesoniancharacterizationof postmod-
ernism-a popular nostalgia for the unity and fixityof Hollywood epic val-
ues that stand against mass apprehension of shifting,heterogeneous histories
engaged in contestation.
In thisregard, what Leslie Berlowitzsays of the American tendencyto con-
structHistoryrather than historiesis relevantto the Hollywood historicalepic
and itspopular appeal:
Sincethe19thcentury andoriginshasdistinguished
overidentity
thestruggle thepolitical
dangerousstruggle
and culturallifeofall majornations.Thispotentially hasbeenpartic-
ularlyproblematic forAmericans, who fearthattheyhavehad no past,no patriarchal
or customsin theEuropeansense,no feelingsof permanent
traditions rootednessand
Americanshaveoftenrespondedto this"fear"of pastlessness
stability. bymakingrigid
aboutthefoundingmyths
assertions and symbols upon theconstancy
and byinsisting of
certainvalueswhich,theyhave argued,constitute the moralcode of America.Adept
leaders,fromLincolntoReagan,haverecognizedthistendency and exploiteditforsocial
and politicalpurposes.64

This is the stuffof which the Hollywood historicalepic was made. Since the late
1960s, however,"rigid assertions"about America's "founding mythsand sym-
bols," and the "constancyof certain values" that are unified as an American
"moral code," have been challenged bymanyAmericans-most of themmargin-
alized in relationto dominantculturebut some of them speaking-if only for a
shortwhile-within the American mainstream.Indeed, ArthurPenn's LittleBig
Man (1970, 150 min.)and RobertAltman'sNashville(1975, 159 min.)both use the
inflatedand extravagantepic formto deflatethe power of foundingmythsand
symbolsand showAmericawithno moralcode whatsoever.(Altmanfurthertheo-
rizes the constructionof Historyin his 1976 box-officeflop,BuffaloBill and the
Lesson,whichrunsa contained 120 minutes.)None-
History
Indians;or,SittingBull's
theless,since the fewAmericanmavericksmakingcountercultural"mainstream"
filmsin the 1970s as a response to the historylessons of Vietnam,therehas been
littlein the wayof an Americancinematiccritiqueofthe dominantmode of pro-
ducing History.Warren Beatty'sReds (1981, 200 min.), well intentionedand

"Surgeand Splendor" 43
 "leftist"as it means to be, stillbuys into the formaland ideological repetitionsof
the Hollywood genre-playing out the "greatman" theoryof Historyoutside as
well as withinthe text,withBeattyproducing,cowriting,directing,and starring
as John Reed.
Thus withinthe last decade (nostalgicallynoted byBarra as the timeof "The
Incredible ShrinkingEpic"), it is two non-Americanswho mostsignificantly con-
testthe Hollywood historicalepic byenteringintospecificformaland ideological
dialogue withitstemporalconstruction.In differentwaysassociated withthe dif-
ferences marked by Jameson and Hutcheon's characterizationsof postmod-
ernism,both Alex Cox's Walker(1987) and Bernardo Bertolucci'sTheLastEmperor
(1987) are explicitlyaware of the rhetoricand politicsof excess thatinformedthe
Hollywood genre, and both use thisknowledgecritically.
Made by the same directorwho gave us RepoMan and Sid and Nancy,Walker,
in its depiction of the leader of an army of American irregularswho invaded
Nicaragua in 1855, financedby railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt,stresses
the schizophrenicgap between rhetoricand action and seems to illustratethe
temporal mode of Jameson'sversionof postmodernrepresentation.The histor-
ical contentof the film'ssubject matteraffordsits only use of representational
repetition-but it is a repetitionthat,in its retellingthe contemporaryinterven-
tion in Nicaragua through the representationof a previous and obscure inter-
vention,directsus "back to the present"ratherthan to the past or future.65The
contentof the film'sform,however,is not the multileveledand isomorphicrep-
etitionthat creates the sense of excess temporalityand temporal significancein
the Hollywood historicalepic. Ratherwe have itsopposite: formaldisparity among
its levels. The filmis shortin duration and long on the span of its narrative.Its
music is contemporarysalsa, while its costumes are historically"accurate." The
same disparityand anachronismbegin increasinglyto encroach on the narrative's
visiblemise-en-sceneand temporalcohesion-with Timemagazine,modern auto-
mobiles, and even computers forcingthe present into what was initiallyrepre-
sented as the past. Clearly,Walkeris not directedtowardantecedence; indeed, if
it constructsany excess of temporality,it is an excess of the existentialpresent
that very purposefullydebasesthe significanceof the past. As one reviewerhas
said, the film"keeps our attentionfocused not on the hollow heroicsof the past
but on the bloody farce of the present."66 Walkeris a text in which one history
interrogatesanother.
The Last Emperorin many ways is both the saddest and most profound of
contemporaryattemptsto deal withhistoricalrepresentationin epic form.Unlike
Walker,it does use the formalrepetitionsof the Hollywood genre. Textuallyfull
of surge and splendor and extravagance,it also surrounded itselfwithextratex-
tual discourse about itsown historic,costly,and arduous productionin mainland
China. Nonetheless,all that repetition,all thatexcess temporalitythat accumu-
lates and circumscribesan expansive fieldfor "being-in-History" is ironically
put

44 REPRESENTATIONS
to the service of a historyfrom which both the central protagonist-and the
spectator-are excluded. Contained in the Forbidden City,contained in Man-
chukuo, containedin Mao's reeducationcamp, China's lastemperor,Pu Yi, strug-
gles to makeHistoryand not merelyto be ofit. All the surge and splendor and
extravaganceof the historicalepic cinema is paradoxicallycentered upon a his-
toricalfigure-a "greatman"-who seems to have littlehistoricalagency.As spec-
tatorsof this particularspectacle, we are not engaged in a temporal field that
allows us prereflectivelyto experience the possibilityof temporaltranscendence
but ratherare leftto reflecton our own lackof agency and our own restricted
immanence in the movie theater-particularly since we, like Pu Yi, only get
glimpsesof the "significant"historicaleventswe thoughtwe were going to see.
Thus, in a paradoxical and profoundlyironicreversalof temporaldirectionmore
characteristicof Hutcheon's postmodernrepresentationthanJameson's,TheLast
Emperorgives us a historicalfigurewho repeats, mimics,and foregroundsthe
antecedence and presence not of past historicalagents but of the cinema spec-
tator-someone who, if at all, sees Historyat a distanceand yetnevertheless,like
responsibleto and accountable foritsconstruction.
Pu Yi, is presently

Notes

A versionof thisessay was presentedat the WesternHumanities Conference held at

Universityof California,Los Angeles, in October 1988. I am indebted not only to
Hayden White,mycolleague at Universityof California,Santa Cruz, forhis generous
conversationon some of the issues presentedhere, but also to those conferencepar-
ticipantswhose astute commentshelped guide my later elaborations-most particu-
larlyRobert Rosen, Michael Rogin,John Rowe, and RobertRosenstone.
1. Dixon to Mildred in In a LonelyPlace (1950, Nicholas Ray); cited in Derek Elley,The
Epic Film:Mythand History(London, 1984), 13.
2. While Britainand Italyhave alwaysbeen involvedin the productionof historicalepics,
and Hollywood oftenhas engaged in internationalcoproductionas a wayof keeping
costs down, nonethelessit is Hollywood-as institution,industry,and a set of narra-
tologicalstructuresand cinematicconventions-that is primarilyresponsibleforcon-
structingboth the epic's standard marketand (at least in scale) its standard model.
Thus, the termHollywoodused throughoutthisessay is meant to conveya conceptual
frameworkmore than a geographicalone.
3. For general discussionof the reasons surroundingthisdecline,see Allen Barra, "The
Incredible ShrinkingEpic," American Film14, no. 5 (March 1989): 40-45ff.
4. GonewiththeWind,originallyreleased in 1939, achieved its epic scope withinthe tra-
ditional aspect ratio of the 1930s and 1940s (the screen'srelationof heightto width
was 1.33 to 1), whileLawrenceofArabia,originallyreleased in 1962, used wide screen.
5. David Thomson, Warren and DesertEyes:A Lifeand a Story(New York,1987), 409.
Beatty
Thomson, in relationto Beatty'sepic Reds(1981), ig-specifically referringhere to Gone
withtheWind.

"Surge and Splendor" 45

 6. George MacDonald Fraser, The Hollywood Historyof the World: From One Million Years
B.C. to ApocalypseNow (New York, 1988), xi.
7. Ibid., 80.
8. Edward Maeder, "The Celluloid Image: Historical Dress in Film," in Maeder, ed.,
Hollywood and History:CostumeDesign in Film (Los Angeles, 1987), 11-12.
9. Sande Cohen, Historical Culture: On the Recoding of an Academic Discipline (Berkeley,
1986), 21; italics mine.
10. Ibid., 13; italics mine.
11. A parallel project exploring the significance of popular critical response to The Return
ofMartin Guerre insofar as it relates to "how this fictional narrative" was "secured as a
tale of the historical real" can be found in Janet Staiger, "Securing the Fictional Nar-
rative as a Tale of the Historical Real," SouthAtlanticQuarterly88, no. 2 (Spring 1989):
393-413.
12. My phenomenological allegiance, therefore, is not to the transcendental phenome-
nology derived from Edmund Husserl and bent on describing eidetic essences.
Rather, it is to the existential and semiological phenomenology derived from Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, a phenomenology whose "reductions" are never fully final or "essen-
tial," but are always qualified by the partial vision and finitude that marks human
being.
13. Attributed to James Thurber in Fraser, HollywoodHistory,xii.
14. Elley, Epic Film, 1.
15. TV Guide (San Francisco Metropolitan Edition), 1 October 1988, A-4.
16. It is of particular and parallel interest that Staiger, "Securing the Fictional Narrative,"
rhetorically "parses" a similar critical statement by Vincent Canby about The Return of
Martin Guerre: "This is, as they say, a true story." Her focus is on the function of the
"they say"-a "gesture provoking intertextuality"as she sees it, referring less to a "spe-
cific group of people" than "to a set of texts in circulation in the social formation that
give authenticity to the notion that 'this' is 'a true story"' (399).
17. Mick Martin and Marsha Porter, Video Movie Guide 1988 (New York, 1987), 674.
18. Ibid., 644.
19. Fraser, HollywoodHistory,7.
20. It is interesting to note here that Elley in Epic Film conservatively focuses on epics
beginning with biblical history and ending with early medieval history-indeed,
defining the historical epic by the historical distance of its temporal content from the
present. Thus, epics of the American West and more contemporary historical events
are considered only in passing. Writing in a more nostalgic mode, Fraser's Hollywood
Historyis more encompassing in its categories and more attuned to their phenome-
nological function. Fraser groups his discussion of the historical accuracy of Holly-
wood into "seven ages": the firstis "The Ancient World," the second is "Knights and
Barbarians," the third is "Tudors and Sea-Dogs," the fourth is "Romance and Royalty,"
the fifthis "Rule, Brittania," the sixth is "New World, Old West," and the seventh is
"The Violent Century."
21. This issue of historical generalization is taken up by Pierre Sorlin in The Film in History:
Restaging thePast (Oxford, 1980). He writes:
The cultural heritage of every country and every community includes dates,
events and characters known to all members of that community. This
common basis is what we might call the group's "historical capital," and it is
enough to select a few details from this for the audience to know that it is
watching an historical film and to place it, at least approximately. In this way

46 REPRESENTATIONS
 everyhistoricalfilmis an indicatorof a country'sbasic historicalculture,its
historicalcapital.... Behind the common knowledge,we can detectwhat is
much more important:the underlyinglogic of history.(20-21)
22. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and CineramaPresent"How theWestWas Won"(New York, 1963),
n.p.
23. It is no coincidence thatthe decline of the Hollywood historicalepic in the mid 1960s
coincideswiththe transformation in Hollywoodbusinesspracticefromcorporatecap-
italism to multinational(or "late") capitalism in the late 1960s and thereafter.Its
decline also coincideswiththesocial upheavals of thelate 1960s,and Vietnam'sdecon-
structionof the mythof Americancolonial power and benevolence.
24. Hayden White,TheContent oftheForm:NarrativeDiscourseand HistoricalRepresentation
(Baltimore, 1987), ix-xi.
25. Gary Brent Madison, ThePhenomenology ofMerleau-Ponty:A SearchfortheLimitsofCon-
sciousness (Athens,Ohio, 1981), 259.
26. Maurice Merleau-Ponty,TheVisibleand theInvisible.trans.Alphonso Lingis (Evanston,
Ill.,1968), 186.
27. Ibid., 188.
28. Althoughrelatingsuch materialexcessivenessto intertextuality as thebasis of authen-
ticationof storyas "history," Staiger,"Securingthe FictionalNarrative,"makes a com-
ment relevantto popular criticalstresson props, sets,costumes,lighting,etc.: "The
physicalworld of the filmhas been described as authenticand consequentlytrue; its
visibleworld has been pointed to and fixed as specificallyhistorical.What has been
used bythe filmand itscontextualizingdiscoursesto authenticateitsclaimto be a 'true
story'is, as one reviewerput it, 'a surface sheen."' Speaking of TheReturnofMartin
Guerre,Staiger goes on to disclose her "subtext":"Even if one could say thatthe film
in some sense really did represent completelythe physicalor visible world of the
1500s, it would be said withinan ideologythatwhatis visibleis whatis real" (401; italics
mine).
29. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and CineramaPresent"How theWestWas Won";subsequent refer-
ences are to thisvolume, whichis unpaginated.
30. It mustbe emphasized thatauthenticity and accuracyare not synonymoustermsin rela-
tion to the Hollywood epic's systemof equivalencies intended to generate a "history
effect."This becomes particularlyapparentwhenone turnsto discussionsof hairstyles
or costumessuch as those in Maeder's Hollywood and History.For example, we are told
that "Max Factor supplied TwentiethCentury-Foxwith4,402 period wigs 'authentic
to the last curl,"' (69). However,thisauthenticity is transparentlyinvoked in an essay
specificallyindicatingthatwomen'swigsin Hollywoodhistoricalepics were neveraccu-
rate representations.Similarly,we find out that perceived authenticityof costume
depends only on partialaccuracy: "While costumes deviate fromauthenticityin sil-
houette,fabric,and other aspects,theyofteninclude extremelyprecisereproduction
of certainkeydetails"(15).
31. This subordinationof historyto stardomis also noted in ibid.:
When a star was cast in a period film,the studio faced a dilemma. While it
was desirable thatmoviegoers believedthe historicalimage presentedon the
screen was indeed authentic,it was economicallyvital thatthe star'simage
was not sacrificedto history.In looking at how Hollywood movie makers
reconciledthese twoconflictingdemands, one can see a systematicapproach
to the way theyhandled makeup and hair,combiningstars'modern images
withillustrationsof historicalaccuracy"(58).

"Surge and Splendor" 47

 32. Discussing historicalauthenticityand intertextuality,
Staiger,"Securing the Fictional
Narrative,"notes in criticalresponses to MartinGuerre:
Ten of the reviewersconsider thisfilmauthenticin part because it reminds
themof otherrepresentationscreatedin thesame period. Such a proposition
derivesfromthe notionthatsomehowBrueghel,La Tour,and Flemishpaint-
ings should be considered reasonably authentic representationsof the
people of the sixteenthcenturybecause of the adjacent date of theirmanu-
facture. Since we do not assume that early Egyptian paintings faithfully
mimicreal Egyptians,our assumptionthatBrueghel's or the Flemish paint-
ings mightdo so mustresultfromour pointingto othertexts:discourseson
art history.Brueghel is, "as theysay,"a "representational"painter...." This
filmand itsadjacent textspromotespectatorialactivityof referenceto other
"authentic"texts,hoping to secure fora fictionalnarrativethe statusof being
a tale of the historicalreal, of fixingit as a coherentrepresentation,and a
returnof the bonding of the body of the past and itsname. (400-401)
33. It is tellingthatthe authorityheld by Britishroyaltyis called upon to "authorize"an
American textabout the Westemphasizing"democratic"values and intendinga "his-
toryeffect."Given (forthiscountry)the historically originaryrelationbetweenBritain
and the United States,it is as appropriateas it is also superficially
bizarre.
34. Fraser,Hollywood History,10.
35. Paul Ricoeur,"NarrativeTime," in W.J.T. Mitchell,ed., On Narrative(Chicago, 1981),
165.
36. Ibid., 169; italicsmine.
37. Merleau-Ponty,Visibleand Invisible,123.
38. Madison, Phenomenology ofMerleau-Ponty, 261.
39. Sorlin,Filmin History, 60; italicsmine. Sorlin also discussesvarious semioticpossibili-
ties of narration in historicalfilms:no asserted narrativevoice; delayed narrative
voice; narrativevoice opening the filmand thendisappearing; narrativevoice distrib-
uted throughoutthe film;double narrativevoice (see 53-54).
40. Staiger,"Securingthe FictionalNarrative,"402-3; italicsmine.
41. Huston did play a part in TheBible,but one clearlyseparated fromhis role as godly
Narrator.Indeed, his Noah provided one of the fewcomic performancesin the only
comic sequence of the film.
42. It is useful in thiscontextto recall thatpersona-while derivingitsmeaning fromthe
face mask used by actorsto portrayassumed characters-also secures meaning from
the actor'svoice: "throughsound."
43. Fraser,Hollywood History,15.
44. In thisregard,myown philosophizingdescriptionshere enjoyno special privilege.To
talk metaphoricallyabout temporalityas a "field"would not be possibleor intelligible
withoutEnlightenmentphilosophy.However,insofaras phenomenologywas a reac-
tion to and critiqueof certaintendenciesof the "European sciences,"it can at least be
considered a mode of descriptionthatattemptsto understand and redress the limi-
tationsof the latter'sparticularformsof "objectivism," "empiricism,""positivism,"and
"psychologism."
45. Staiger,"Securingthe FictionalNarrative,"404.
46. See M. M. Bakhtin,"Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel," in TheDialogic
Imagination,ed. Michael Holquist, trans.Caryl Emerson and Holquist (Austin,Tex.,
1981), 84-258.
47. Merleau-Ponty,Visibleand Invisible,186.
48. Ricoeur,"NarrativeTime," 176.

48 REPRESENTATIONS
49. Ibid., 178.
50. Staiger,"Securing the Fictional Narrative,"deals with the functionof repetitionin
relation to narrativeand the constitutionof historyby way of referenceto Freud.
Toward the end of her essay,she writes:"If I were to ask then,'who needs narrative?'
Freud would, I think,say,'everyone.'The drive to narrativizethe past and to secure
the fictionaltale as pointingto thathistoricalreal is understandableas a repetitious
desire to fix,to haltand cure. It is thedeath instinctaligned withEros, a signalanxiety
in our time"(411).
51. Maurice Merleau-Ponty,Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London,
1962), xiv; italicsmine.
52. Madison, Phenomenology ofMerleau-Ponty, 257-58.
53. Peter O'Toole, quoted in Barra, "Incredible ShrinkingEpic," 60.
54. Barra, ibid., makes the pointthattherewere some epics made in the 1970s and 1980s,
but mostwere not historicalin emphasis.
55. Prior to the early 1960s, there were veryfew commercialtheatersand distribution
circuitsthat identifiedand catered to discreteelements of this mass homogeneous
American audience. The breakup of the Hollywood studio system,the influxof for-
eign films,the social fragmentation of Americansocietyand itsarticulationintodemo-
graphic units based on age, sex, race-all led to a perception of the audience as
heterogeneous and to the concreteexpressionof thisperceptionin the segmentation
of verylarge movietheatersintosmallerhallsand the emergenceof multiplextheaters
witha seeminglydiversifiedproduct.
56. FredricJameson, The PoliticalUnconscious: Narrativeas a SociallySymbolic Act (Ithaca,
N.Y., 1981).
57. Quoted in Barra, "Incredible ShrinkingEpic," 43-44.
58. Quoted in ibid., 45.
59. Staiger,"Securingthe FictionalNarrative,"406.
60. Maeder, "Celluloid Image," 34-35.
61. Barra, "Incredible ShrinkingEpic," 42.
62. FredricJameson, "Postmodernism;or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,"New
LeftReview146 (July-August1984), 53.
63. Linda Hutcheon, "Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism,"TextualPractice1, no. 1
(1987): 10-31; and "The Politicsof Postmodernism:Parody and History,"Cultural
Critique5 (1987), 179-207.
64. Leslie Berlowitz,quoted in ChronicleofHigherEducation,12 April 1989, A-18, from
Denis Donoghue et al., eds., Americain Theory (New York, 1988).
65. The connection between repetitionand parody emerge when we note that Elliott
Abrams'sassistantforCentralAmericanaffairsis named WilliamWalker.This "lattice
of coincidence" (a termused by Miller in RepoMan) evokes a strangeeuphoria pro-
voked by that sortof irrationalcohesion thatcharacterizestheJamesonianmodel of
postmodernism.
66. Michael S. Gant, "FilibusteringFarce,"Sun (Santa Cruz, Calif.),28 April 1988, 25.

"Surge and Splendor" 49