Capítulo 9. Visiones de la Revolución Americana desde el cine de Hollywood y las series del siglo XXI.

El audiovisual ha jugado un papel determinante en la definición de la identidad nacional estadounidense, cimentada sobre la base del excepcionalismo de su Historia. Desde los orígenes del cine, Hollywood puso la mirada en el tiempo de la Revolución americana, uno de los grandes mitos de la epopeya nacional de Estados Unidos. Las películas sobre la revolución producidas durante el siglo XX partían de una mitificación previa y selectiva de los hechos históricos y tenían como denominador común el culto a la épica fundacional de la nación. La Revolución americana ha sido objeto de interés en la televisión estadounidense del nuevo milenio. En pocos años de diferencia, entre 2008 y 2015, se han emitido tres series dedicadas a esta temática: John Adams, Turn y Sons of Liberty. El objetivo de este trabajo es establecer una comparativa entre las películas de Hollywood del siglo XX y las series históricas que se remontan a la Revolución americana desde la óptica revisionista del siglo XXI. Palabras clave: Revolución americana; Hollywood; John Adams; Sons of Liberty; Turn.

“A scene of Villainy acted by a dirty Banditti, as must astonish the Public”: The Creation of the Boston Massacre

In the years before the American Revolution, “A scene of Villainy acted by a dirty Banditti” argues, Boston's Sons of Liberty built their claim to govern their community, at the expense of both Loyalists and laboring Bostonians, by transforming a street fight between soldiers and civilians into the Boston Massacre.

Reaching Their Majority

Curtiz was assigned to finishBlackwell’s Island.This was followed by his direction of Sons of Liberty, a patriotic short championed by the brothers Warner.The film won an Oscar for Best Short Subject, and Curtiz was given a $3,000 bonus from a grateful Jack Warner. Building on the original success of Four Daughters, he established a successful franchise with Daughters Courageous and Four Wives. Curtiz also beganhis relationship with the renowned cinematographer James Wong Howe, who would shoot four films for him. The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essexwas a difficult production because of the dueling egos of Errol Flynn and Bette Davis and the dissatisfaction of Olivia de Havilland, whom Jack Warner deliberately cast in a secondary role to punish her.Curtiz made the picture beautifully, but it was a box-office disappointment. Curtiz also had to cope with a family calamity when his daughter Kitty cut her wrists in a Hollywood hotel room. He was also short of cash owing to his and Bess’s careless financial management. Borrowing money from Jack Warner, he got his mother and two of his brothers out of Hungary and resettled in Hollywood. After directing Virginia City, amid the outbreak of war in Europe, Curtiz prepared for an epic swashbuckler.

Sons of Liberty, Sons of Licentiousness

This chapter shows how colonists responded to the transformation of the British Empire. Radical resistance gained strength from economic anxiety and the fact that authoritarian imperial reform was clearly and explicitly designed to subordinate the colonial economy. American radicals, far from being libertarians, were fully committed to using the power of government to achieve their goals. They used the language of political economy to argue for a boycott of British goods, believing that this not only would stimulate American manufacturing but would make the colonies less dependent on the mother country. When a majority of colonists, who were keen observers of Britain's political scene, became convinced that authoritarian reformers had taken control of Westminster and Whitehall, they declared their independence.

1. The Revolution’s origins

The British government had not regarded the thirteen colonies, with their different social structures and political systems, as essential parts of the empire as a whole. ‘The Revolution's origins’ explains that when the French threatened to take control of the continent's interior, the colonists did not unite in the interest of the British Empire. American opponents of the Stamp Act, which Parliament passed in 1765, called themselves Sons of Liberty. This group turned resistance into full-scale revolt. The 1767 Townshend Acts, new revenue laws taxing imports into the colonies, ignited renewed political and social agitation, including a boycott of British goods.