Reviewed by:

• Hollywood in Havana: US Cinema and Revolutionary Nationalism in Cuba before 1959 by Megan Feeney
• Matthew Carey Greenhalgh

Speaking from Little Havana, President Donald Trump drew criticism in 2017 when he reinstated previous sanctions that reversed former president Barack Obama and then Cuban president Raúl Castro’s previous attempts to ease restrictions and restore Cuban-US relations. The speech recalled many to previous Cold War policies and limited ways of seeing Cuba. In Hollywood in Havana, Megan Feeney goes beyond the narrow scope of Fidel Castro, retracing Hollywood’s impact on revolutionary Cuban nationalism “through broad sociopolitical trends and film business practices” (7). The book provides a comprehensive approach to pre–Cuban Revolution relations between Cuba and the United States as seen through economic, political, and cultural encounters with film. The book identifies the film industry’s imperialist practices and presents how Cubans understood Hollywood and the US, showing that films promoting “Americanization” often had inverse effects, some of which were partly responsible for instilling a desire for pro-democracy revolutionary heroes in Cuba.

Feeney explores the intimate relationship of Cuba’s pre-1959 engagement with cinema when cinemas were cultural “contact zones” with the US. She repeatedly uses the term “looking up,” referring to Castro’s visit to the Lincoln Memorial—echoing an iconic scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—to present Cubans as David, who use cinema to see the failures of the US, the Goliath to the north, who often look down on them. Her book returns to when Havana was one of Hollywood’s most important international markets, a vibrant business community referred to as the giro, with film offices, theaters, politically involved film critics, and audiences who cheered for what they liked and loudly disapproved—or even boycotted—what they did not. Feeney recovers the influential role that Hollywood had on Cuban audiences who appropriated the “armed men of action” (10) they saw on the silver screen into their context to show they would not be bridled by foreign hegemony, of which the US was the primary offender.

Hollywood in Havana provides a clear chronological trajectory from Cuban independence to its revolution, focusing more on Cubans’ response to their representation in cinema than providing specific film criticism. The text’s position is sympathetic to Cuba as it views the Cuban Revolution as an organic response to US imperialism. It analyzes the impact of intellectual and politically motivated critics—such as Alejo Carpentier, José Manuel Valdés-Rodríguez, Mirta Aguirre, Mario Rodríguez Alemán, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante—who recognized the effect US films had on audiences and intervened to appropriate them for the benefit of revolutionary Cuban nationalism. Feeney excels at showing how Cuban film criticism served as a platform from which critics cultivated audiences that would recognize injustices [End Page 167] on-screen and use them to speak out and mobilize. She presents World War II as a period when Cuban-US relations were strong, as Hollywood took a stance against dictatorships, producing films that resonated with Cubans’ anti fascist and pro-democratic beliefs, such as Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator and Sam Wood’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Finally, she introduces film noir as the embodiment of postwar disillusionment that Hollywood leftists and Cubans felt at the onset of the Cold War, breaking the bond that wartime cinema created and reinforcing negative beliefs Cubans held toward the United States. Hollywood in Havana explains that film noir and other social-problem films were a hit with Cuban critics who saw them as accurate representations of the real US and used them to denounce its hegemonic practices.

The study stands out through its presentation of politics, economics, and international relations through cinema—how it is produced, distributed, screened, and received—which heavily influenced how many Cubans saw their exploitation by foreign powers. The book is particularly important for readers wanting to better understand prerevolution Cuba, as it contrasts cinematic movements with key historical moments and figures, such as Cuban independence...

审核人：

• 哈瓦那好莱坞：1959年之前在古巴的美国电影和革命民族主义，梅根·费尼（Megan Feeney）
• 马修·凯里·格林哈（Matthew Carey Greenhalgh）

小号的小哈瓦那，总裁唐纳德·特朗普峰值招致批评在2017年，当他恢复是扭转前总统奥巴马，然后古巴总统劳尔·卡斯特罗先前尝试放宽限制，恢复古美关系之前的制裁。演讲使人想起了许多冷战以前的政策，以及看待古巴的方式有限。在哈瓦那好莱坞，梅根·费尼（Megan Feeney）超越了菲德尔·卡斯特罗（Fidel Castro）的范围，“通过广泛的社会政治趋势和电影商业惯例”来追溯好莱坞对革命性古巴民族主义的影响（7）。从经济，政治和文化上与电影的相遇中可以看出，这本书为古巴和美国之间的古巴革命前的关系提供了一种全面的方法。该书指出了电影业的帝国主义作法，并介绍了古巴人如何理解好莱坞和美国，表明宣传“美国化”的电影通常会产生反作用，其中部分原因是在古巴灌输了对民主民主英雄的渴望。

当电影院成为与美国的文化“接触地”时，费尼探讨了古巴在1959年之前与电影院的密切关系。她反复使用“抬头”一词，指的是卡斯特罗对林肯纪念堂的参观-从史密斯先生去华盛顿的标志性场景中回荡，以古巴人戴维的形象出现，后者利用电影院来观看美国的失败，歌利亚在北部，他们经常看不起他们。她的书回到哈瓦那（Havana）成为好莱坞最重要的国际市场之一的年代，这个充满活力的商业社区被称为吉罗（giro）电影院，电影院，有政治参与的电影评论家，以及为自己喜欢的事物而喝彩的观众，大声地拒绝甚至抵制他们不喜欢的影片。菲尼（Feney）恢复了好莱坞在古巴观众中的影响力，他们将银幕上看到的“武装行动人员”（10）分配给他们，表明他们不会被外国霸权所束缚，美国是主要霸主罪犯。

哈瓦那好莱坞从古巴独立到革命，提供了清晰的时间轨迹，更多地关注古巴对他们在电影院中的代表的反应，而不是提出具体的电影批评。案文的立场同情古巴，因为它将古巴革命视为对美帝国主义的有机回应。它分析了具有思想和政治动机的评论家的影响力，例如Alejo Carpentier，JoséManuelValdés-Rodríguez，Mirta Aguirre，MarioRodríguezAlemán和Guillermo Cabrera Infante，他们认识到美国电影对观众的影响，并采取干预措施使其适合观众。古巴革命民族主义的好处。Feeney擅长展示古巴电影评论如何成为评论家从中培养观众认识不公正现象的平台[End Page 167]在屏幕上显示，并用它们说出来并动员起来。她将第二次世界大战描述为古巴与美国关系牢固的时期，因为好莱坞对独裁统治持立场，并制作了与古巴人的反法西斯主义和亲民主主义观念共鸣的电影，例如查理·卓别林的《大独裁者》和萨姆·伍德的《谁的钟声收费。最后，她介绍了黑色电影，作为战后幻灭感的体现，好莱坞左派和古巴人在冷战开始时就感到了幻灭，打破了战时电影建立的纽带，并加强了古巴人对美国的消极信念。好莱坞在哈瓦那 他解释说，黑色电影和其他社会问题电影受到古巴评论家的热捧，他们认为古巴电影是真实美国的准确代表，并利用它们来谴责其霸权主义作法。

这项研究通过其通过电影对政治，经济和国际关系的展示（其制作，发行，放映和接受的方式）而脱颖而出，这在很大程度上影响了多少古巴人看到他们被外国列强的剥削。对于希望更好地了解革命前的古巴的人而言，这本书尤为重要，因为它将电影的动作与关键的历史时刻和人物（例如古巴独立）进行了对比。