Vintage Science Fiction Films, 1896-1949 (review)

Regular Feature | Book Reviews Since the 1960's diverse groups ofthe Chicano civil rights movement have struggled to foster social change which would improve the position ofthe Mexican-American. Fighting outside as well as inside the system—with a liberal or a radical agenda— they initiated a discourse on stereotypical versus correct notions about Chícanos prevalent within the White majority population and, at the same time, a debate on the ethnic group's identity. As with other minority groups, the fight for equal rights went along with the construction of an identity and the invention of a tradition , a process in which writers and filmmakers played a significant role. This book focuses on the development of a Chicano cinema as part of the civil rights movements and the articulation of this identity. It is film history related to television, media reform, and state regulation. As Noriega convincingly argues, Chicano activists and filmmakers did not articulate their grievances detached from institutional or state intervention. On the contrary, acting through the institutional frames of the U.S. broadcast television and state regulations, the movement tried to influence regulations and was in turn influenced by themin its search foridentity. This central thesis of the book is stated even more pointedly: minority identities are to be seen as the "product of the state's efforts to contain social movements in the name of corporate capitalism" (xii). In eight chapters the author unfolds the history of Chicano activism and filmmaking. He examines the impact of a Chicano poetic consciousness as expressed in "film poems" such as "I am Joaquin" or "Entelequia," situates Chicano media activism within a U.S. public sphere that is rooted in a national telecommunications infrastructure, analyzes campaigns against stereotypes as employed in Western films or the Frito Bandito commercials in the late 1960's, and painstakingly follows the meandering path of changing regulations and institutions and the reaction of the activists towards these transformations. By the mid-1980's, the practitioners ofthe Chicano cinema had conquered some ground. They gained a better position in noncommercial circuits, directed several studio-released feature films, and participated in the discourse on a New Latin American Cinema. Thus, the struggle to situate the Chicano cinema within the institutional contexts of Latin, New American Cinema and Hollywood has not been in vain. Some progress has been made toward the ultimate goal of getting access and achieving success in theAmerican film and television industry. However, as the guild figures of 1999 indicate, this progress is far from satisfactory. Angela Schwarz University of Duisburg, Germany dr.a.schwarz@uni-duisburg.de Michael Benson. Vintage Science Fiction Films, 1896-1949. McFarland and Company, 2000. 219 pages; $25.00 paper. Worth the Read For fans of old science fiction films and serials, the reissue of Michael Benson's Vintage Science Fiction Films, 1896-1949 illustrates the continued popularity of this subject as well as the problems of reprinting older, dated works. First published in a library edition in 1985, Benson's book was barely noticed and reviews ofit were not positive. Despite such a reception, his book does have something to offer to fans of "vintage" sci-fi and horror movies. Benson's study devotes a chapter each to silent, sound, and serial science fiction films that were produced between 1896 and 1949. This comprehensive overview is complemented by an extensive filmography of science fiction pictures produced during the same era. The opening chapter on silent science fiction films chronicles the early history from Georges Méliès' 1902 masterpiece, A Trip to the Moon to Fritz Lang's 1927 landmark, Metropolis. Benson shows the international dimension of silent sci-fi film production. Before the end of World War I, French and Danish production companies , such as Pathé, made many of the early silents, with titles like The Invisible Thief'(1906) and The End ofthe World (1916). The so-called "golden age" of German cinema after World War I contributed new silent sci-fi masterpieces, among them ConradVeidt's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and, naturally, Lang's Metropolis . Benson does not consider Caligari to be a real science fiction film, but he notes that its expressionist style...