Research Catalog

Title

Slave revolt on screen : the Haitian Revolution in film and video games / Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall.

Author

Sepinwall, Alyssa Goldstein, 1970-

Publication

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2021]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

vi, 339 pages : illustrations; 25 cm.

Summary

"In Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games author Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall analyzes how films and video games from around the world have depicted slave revolt, focusing on the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). This event, the first successful revolution by enslaved people in modern history, sent shock waves throughout the Atlantic World. Regardless of its historical significance however, this revolution has become less well-known-and appears less often on screen-than most other revolutions; its story, involving enslaved Africans liberating themselves through violence, does not match the suffering-slaves-waiting-for-a-white-hero genre that pervades Hollywood treatments of Black history. Despite Hollywood's near-silence on this event, some films on the Revolution do exist-from directors in Haiti, the US, France, and elsewhere. Slave Revolt on Screen offers the first-ever comprehensive analysis of Haitian Revolution cinema, including completed films and planned projects that were never made. In addition to studying cinema, this book also breaks ground in examining video games, a pop-culture form long neglected by historians. Sepinwall scrutinizes video game depictions of Haitian slave revolt that appear in games like the Assassin's Creed series that have reached millions more players than comparable films. In analyzing films and games on the revolution, Slave Revolt on Screen calls attention to the ways that economic legacies of slavery and colonialism warp pop-culture portrayals of the past and leave audiences with distorted understandings"--

Series Statement

Caribbean studies series

Uniform Title

Caribbean studies series (Jackson, Miss.)

Subject

• 1791-1804
• Revolutions in motion pictures
• Black people in motion pictures
• Slavery in motion pictures
• Video games > History
• Motion pictures > Haiti
• Video games
• Motion pictures
• Haiti > History > Revolution, 1791-1804
• Haiti > History
• Haiti

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Part I: Foreign views of the Revolution. An unthinkable plot? The Haitian Revolution in US and European feature films ; Invoking the Revolution in Caribbean feature films ; Handling Haiti in HUAC-era Hollywood: 20th Century Fox's Lydia Bailey ; No white hero, no funding? Unmade Revolution epics ; Black lives mattered in the Haitian Revolution: Hollywood and slavery in Chris Rock's Top Five ; Remembering Haiti's Revolution in France and North America: documentaries, dramatic shorts, and animation -- Part II: Haitian cinematic perspectives. From the Duvalier years through the 2004 bicentennial: reflections on the Revolution's legacy ; The rising generation, Toussaint Louverture, and the problem of funding -- Part III: Video games on slavery and the Haitian Revolution. North American and European games; From MECC's Freedom! to Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry ; French Caribbean games: honoring rebel ancestors in Méwilo and Freedom: Rebels in the Darkness -- Conclusion.

Call Number

Sc E 22-794

ISBN

• 9781496833105
• 1496833104
• 9781496833112
• 1496833112

LCCN

2021006498

OCLC

1224513066

Author

Sepinwall, Alyssa Goldstein, 1970- author.

Title

Slave revolt on screen : the Haitian Revolution in film and video games / Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall.

Publisher

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2021]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Caribbean studies series

Caribbean studies series (Jackson, Miss.)

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1791-1804

Research Call Number

Sc E 22-794