From Havana to Hollywood

Philip Kaisary is the 2023–2025 Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor of Cultural Mediations and Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies, the Department of English Language and Literature, and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University. He is the author of The Haitian Revolution in the Literary Imagination: Radical Horizons, Conservative Constraints.

"Kaisary's writing is refreshing and crisp, as he deftly guides the reader through the oft-labyrinthine arguments undergirding cultural studies that sometimes estrange more than they rally. The contributions of From Havana to Hollywood to cultural history, the sociology of film, Black studies, and Latin American studies cannot be overstated. Also informed by comparative and transnational methodologies, the book's approach to postcolonial studies and postmodernism makes it an excellent addition to graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on the politics of historical production, comparative film studies, slavery and media, and Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean." — Slavery & Abolition"…From Havana to Hollywood makes a well-developed argument for narrative and aesthetic strategies that empathize agency, liberation, and power." — Cineaste"Kaisary provides an insightful analysis of portrayals of Black agency in films of the period, and he shows how selected films emphasized or neglected Black resistance to slavery. This study is particularly valuable by bringing often-neglected films to the attention of new audiences and linking the complex interrelationships between slavery, media representations, global capitalism, and imperialism." — CHOICE"In bringing Cuban films to the fore, From Havana to Hollywood expands our understanding of films about slavery globally and illuminates the distinctive perspectives and contributions of Afro-Latin American histories and cultures. The book's lessons about depictions of oppressive regimes and resistance to them will be pertinent for students of Black cinema across national contexts." — Reighan Gillam, author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media"From Havana to Hollywood offers a fascinating examination of Black agency and resistance as portrayed in film. The study is a joy to read, recuperating lesser-known films and offering important critiques of more famous ones such as 12 Years a Slave. Overall, Kaisary shows that, when films make slavery's evils seem individual rather than systemic, they hamper efforts to achieve reparative justice in the present." — Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, author of Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games"From Havana to Hollywood reshapes how we think about the history of slavery. It can be read by a range of publics, from film fans to undergraduates to professional scholars. Anyone who does not know the films here will go on a mission to see them. Anyone who knows the films will learn far more about them." — Jerry W. Carlson, The City College and Graduate Center CUNY

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Havana, Hollywood, and the Politics of Slave Resistance in the Cinematic Imaginary1. "Our First Cry of Freedom": From Revolution to Liberation in Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn!2. "Cinema Must Be Revolutionary in Itself": Afro-Cuban Resistance, the Haitian Revolution, and Black Comedy in Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's La última cena3. Sergio Giral's "Negrometrajes": Subverting Sentimental Abolitionism and Reconstructing the History of Slavery4. The Slave Narrative in Hollywood: Steve McQueen's Adaptation of Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a SlaveConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex