Count Lazlo Almasy, the English Patient, is a man in an Imperial time and world. The people in this world live by Imperial rules and perpetuate Imperial stereotypes. The film takes place in World War II era Africa, and as the film portrays it, in the mysterious and exotic Sahara desert and in Cairo, Egypt. Count Almasy’s character lives in the desert among imperial explorers and in the desert environment full of natives who bring to life classic stereotypes full of ignorance and white prevalence and power. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, authors of Unthinking Eurocentrism, believe that the Imperial attitudes that the British government and the Western imperial society initiated, continue today and are alive in the cinema. The film, “The English Patient” is a key example of Imperial influence on cinema with the exception of one character: Count Almasy. On the surface, Almasy seems to be just like those around him, but when one looks deeper, his characteristics show that he is in fact an anti-imperial. Almasy’s character invites the viewer to identify with his seeming quest for adventure and then reveals qualities that then revise the colonial stereotypes that he seemed to personify previously.
In the chapter “Imperial Imaginary” by Shohat and Stam, the authors discuss the idea that the perfect imperial subject is the adolescent male because of his vulnerability and hunger for adventure (101). The nature of imperialism is one of power and control. To teach a man to be an imperial one must teach him to love adventure. According to the authors, the empire by its very nature is the man’s plaything and that “boys [can] play in the space of an empire” (101). It gives them the freedom and creativity to explore and through cinema...
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...at, unpredictable weather, and the general exoticism of the Sahara, Almasy is the odd light in the dark of the “Imperial Imaginary”. According to Stam and Shohat’s definition of the imperial, Almasy fits into their
image only on the surface. He believes in many things that are antithetical to that of the imperial,largely his feelings about borders, names, and maps. When one delves deeper into his personality and beliefs, it can be seen that he is in fact the anti-imperial amidst a plethora of imperial stereotypes.
Works Cited
Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. New York: Random House, Inc., 1992.
Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and theMedia. New York: Routledge, 1994.
”The English Patient”. Dir. Anthony Minghella. Perf. Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Defoe, and Kristin Scott Thomas. Miramax, 1996.
The Crucible. Dir. Nicholas Hytner. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Paul Scofield. 20th Century Fox, 1996. DVD.
Hamlet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Mel Gibson and Glenn Close. Videocassette. Warner Home Video, 1990.
... century. In conclusion, The Empire Builders can be interpreted through a postcolonial perspective since it produces many elements of the hierarchy of difference.
Dir. Julie Taymor. Perf. Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999.
When people think of the concept of imperialism, they usually view it as something that pertains to government. Even the first definition of imperialism in the dictionary is “imperial state, authority, spirit, or system of government” (Webster 729). However, imperialism encompasses so much more than this. In comparing the resonations between Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness with Johann Goethe’s Faust, one can see how imperialism affects the political, the social, the psychological, and the spiritual, especially within the past 200 years. Stemming from this is man’s existential freedom, his “mechanical and lifeless existence in society”, explored in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” and Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Dir. Michel Gondry. Perf. Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet. Focus Features, 2004. DVD.
The Early Modern period in England saw the politics of imperial powers “shape the diverse experiences of colonizer and colonized” (1), the number of trips increased and with them the exploration for discovering new territories, so that the questions of national identity were abundant throughout the eighteenth century. The new colonies gave rise to a new type of power over some different races; The relationship between conquerors and conquered meant the formation of new ways of asserting power. In Oroonoko, Aphra Behn represents the minds of some people in search of power and struggle.
Inglourious Bastards. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz. The Weinstein Company, 2009. DVD.
In Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient we see a world completely ravaged by war. The land itself is damaged, sometimes beyond recognition as it is torn apart by bombs. Just as these human-made structures have faced the damage of imperialism, so have female bodies in the novel. Ondaatje creates several parallels between man’s attempt to “own” the land around him and his “ownership” of the female body. As we see in the novel, this attempt at ownership almost always ends in destruction, “war,” and often, death. What I believe Ondaatje is trying to present to us is the impossibility of “owning” something that should ultimately be free, such as the female body (or any body, for that matter.) Though some feminist theorists such as Lilijana Burcar have claimed Ondaatje’s novel perpetuates the idea of male ownership of female bodies, I believe we see several examples of female empowerment hidden throughout the novel; examples of females outwardly rejecting such “ownership,” as Hanna refuses to be seen as a sexual object by Carravagio, and even changes her appearance to “defeminize” herself. We even see gender-roles reverse. The “male gaze” seems to apply not only to males, but to females as well as Hanna views the sapper, Kip, in a “feminized” and often “sexual” way. Most striking of all, however, is Ondaatje’s representation of the character Katharine as an almost voiceless physical body which is undoubtedly “owned” and consumed by Almasy’s desire. As we see, this “ownership” leads to what is arguably the biggest destruction in the novel: the destruction of both Katharine and Almasy altogether.
...h is not restrained by social conventions, Imperialism attempts to justify its savagery. The very fact Imperialists claim to be ‘fighting to the sanity of the world’ demonstrates the corrosive effects it has not only in a confined area, but also to neighboring cultures. By delving deeper into the characters’ subconscious and the true nature of Western Imperialism, the absurdity of what really is considered “true evil” is questioned by both Conrad and Coppola. Despite the fact colonization in various parts of the world officially ended in the 60’s, different systems of indirect rule were put in place because of continued interest in some parts. Both Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and “Apocalypse Now” by Francis Ford Coppola are aware of this continued, albeit unfortunate practice, and represents the futility of expecting the eradication of imperialistic values.
New imperialism was the mid nineteenth and twentieth centuries cultural equivalent to a modern day mafia, its roots entangled in the economic, cultural, and humanistic aspects of life. The sole objective of the nations entailed the exploitation of their controlled state. Gestating from the change in control of Asian and African nations to the Europeans by means of political deviance, malicious sieges, and strategic military attacks. The juxtaposition to the modern equivalent endures as the aforesaid is sheltered by the fairytale that these nations were in need of aid and by doing so the Europeans were the good guys. The ideas of new imperialism are greatly influenced by those of the enlightenment. Taking place during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the enlightenment was an intellectual movement with the goal of social progress (Genova, 1/11). Armed with scientific thought and reason, enlightenment thinkers set out to explore the fields of science, economics, and human nature. Brilliant minds such as Voltaire, Kant and others all across Western Europe collaborated to further knowledge. The enlightenment laid the foundation on which new imperialism sprung, embedding the ideas of an incessant need to explore not only the scientific world but the physical world as well. The enlightenments goals and ideas significantly influenced new imperialism, because the enlightenment created a need for new means and a purpose to accrue them.
Much Ado About Nothing. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Samuel Goldwyn Company and Renaissance Films, 1993.
Twelfth Night. Dir. Trevor Nunn. Perf. Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant and Imogen Stubbs. Fine Line Features, 1996. Videocassette.
To the extent that we see Conrad both criticizing and reproducing the imperial ideology of his time, to that extent we can characterize our own present attitudes: the projection, or the refusal, of the wish to dominate, the capacity to damn, or the energy to comprehend and engage with other societies, traditions, histories.
The Pianist. Dir. Roman Polanski. Perf. Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Emilia Fox. 2001. DVD. Universal Studios, 2003.