Invented Lives Imagined Communities

<p><b>How Hollywood biopics both showcase and modify various notions of what it means to be an American.</b></p><p>Biopics-films that chronicle the lives of famous and notorious figures from our national history-have long been one of Hollywood's most popular and important genres offering viewers various understandings of American national identity. <i>Invented Lives Imagined Communities</i> provides the first full-length examination of US biopics focusing on key releases in American cinema while treating recent developments in three fields: cinema studies particularly the history of Hollywood; national identity studies dealing with the American experience; and scholarship devoted to modernity and postmodernity. Films discussed include <i>Houdini</i> <i>Patton</i> <i>The Great White Hope</i> <i>Bound for Glory</i> <i>Ed Wood</i> <i>Basquiat</i> <i>Pollock</i> <i>Sylvia</i> <i>Kinsey</i> <i>Fur</i> <i>Milk</i> <i>J. Edgar</i> and <i>Lincoln</i> and the book pays special attention to the crucial generic plot along which biopics traverse and showcase American lives even as they modify the various notions of the national character.</p>