This book develops the idea of the "Eastern" as an analytically significant genre of film. Positioned in counterpoint to the Western, the famed cowboy genre of the American frontier, the "Eastern" encompasses films that depict the eastern and southern frontiers of Euro-American expansion. Examining six films in particular-
Gunga Din (1939),
Lawrence of Arabia (1962),
Heat and Dust (1983),
A Passage to India (1984), Indochine (1992), and
The English Patient (1996)-the author explores the duality of the "Eastern" as both aggressive and seductive, depicting conquest and romance at the same time. In juxtaposing these two elements, the book seeks to reveal the double process by which the "Eastern" both diminishes the "East" and Global South and reinforces ignorance about these regions' histories and complexity, thereby setting the stage for ever-escalating political aggression.
1. Introduction.- 2. The Western and The Eastern.- 3. Treasure and Thugs: The East as Mystery and Disorder.- 4. The Eastern Desert and the Lone Hero.- 5. The Colonial Gaze, Modernism, and the Trauma of the Tropics.- 6. The East and Love in the Time of Decolonization.- 7. Conclusion.
Nalini Natarajan is Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. She is the author of six books, including
The Atlantic Gandhi: The Mahatma Overseas (2012) and
The Unsafe Sex: The Female Binary and Public Violence against Women (2016).
