Sayers, William David;
(2018)
"A place that has its own identity": Boston and New England as filmic imagined community.
Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis analyzes the imagination and construction of the New England region in American audiovisual media, and the resulting filmic identity of the region and its people. As a result of this presentation, filmic New England can be understood in audiovisual media as a type of imagined community that can stand as an analogue for the idea of a nation. Primarily, this thesis examines the ways the American film industry, through filmic cues in narrative, dialogue, and image, temporally imagines and spatially constructs a filmic New England identity. American audiovisual media seems to create this identity as a byproduct of a larger negotiation of an American national identity. Importantly, this thesis argues that specific “local” films, produced in the last two decades, subvert this imagined otherness by presenting an identity that allows citizens of the region to imagine their own community. Examining this constructed identity through the varying theoretical lenses of otherness and identity, history, memory, and space, this thesis argues that the filmic representation of New England exists as a type of imagined community. Organized in a chronological manner, this thesis first focuses on early American films depicting an epochal event in American pre-history, the Salem Witch Trials. It next examines a group of films from mid-century in which New Englanders travel throughout the US. Finally, the thesis follows the filmography as it turns towards urban space, and focuses primarily on Good Will Hunting, a turning point in both the presentation and construction of the New England filmic identity.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil |
| Title: | "A place that has its own identity": Boston and New England as filmic imagined community |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > CMII |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10059492 |
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