No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2014
My article focuses on the film California Dreamin’ (Endless) in order to examine the way the movie problematizes and brings in dialogue contemporary overlapping and contradictory Romanian ideologies in relation to the US. By taking the movie as a lens for the Romanian context, my paper analyzes how the US is signified and decoded in the aftermath of communism in Romania. I discuss how the movie envisions a continuous questioning and interrogation of the precommunist past and the postcommunist present upon which images, perceptions, fictions, and appropriations of “America” are predicated in the post-1989 Romanian context. My argument is that by mapping the overlapping terrain of the foreign and the domestic past and present, the film critically reconfigures the space between the US and one of its main supporters in the “New Europe.” It explores axes of local, national, and international interests, pointing to the contradictory, ambiguous sociocultural representations that accrue to “America” as it is caught up in itineraries and mis/translations across a “Second World” site. I contend that the dialogic examination Romania–US that the movie successfully achieves can become an ideal model for approaching the US in the Eastern European space.
1 The scene can be watched online with English subtitles at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwj1lg85wps.
2 The most-read daily newspaper at the moment, Evenimentul Zilei, figured huge headlines: “Nato blocat la Pielești” (Nato Blocked at Pielești), Evenimentul Zilei, 4 June 1999, available at www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/nato-blocat-la-pielesti-dolj-569358.html, accessed 2 Aug. 2010; and “Americanii, jupuiţi la Pielești” (The Americans Ripped off at Pielești), Evenimentul Zilei, 5 July 1999, available at www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/americanii-jupuiti-la-pielesti-567693.html, accessed 2 Aug. 2012.
3 Esterházy, Péter, “How Big Is the European Dwarf?”, in Levy, Daniel, Pensky, Max, and Torpey, John, eds., Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War (London: Verso, 2005), 74–80, 75Google Scholar. The book brings together the 2003 responses in several European publications which were triggered by Habermas's indictment of US policy and Eastern European support.
4 Barbu, Bogdan, Vin americanii! Prezenţa simbolică a Statelor Unite în România Războiului Rece (The Americans are Coming! The Symbolic Presence of the US in Romania during the Cold War) (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2006)Google Scholar, offers a very informative and comprehensive historical view of the US influence and symbolic presence in Romania between 1945 and 1971.
5 For the warm welcome of the NATO base see: “Vin americanii!” (The Americans Are Coming!), Curentul, 24 Oct. 2005, available at http://stiri.acasa.ro/politica/vin-americanii-74152.html, accessed March 20, 2013.
6 Taxi, “Criogenia salvează România,” in Trag un claxon, 2000 (translation mine, emphasis mine).
7 For the impetus to analyze the US from “outside” its borders see Fishkin, Shelley Fisher, “Crossroads of Cultures: The Transnational Turn in American Studies. Presidential Address to the American Studies Association,” American Quarterly, 57, 1 (March 2005), 17–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Previous views highlighting the importance of an international, comparative, or transnational approach to the US have been put forth by Dominguez, Virginia R. and Desmond, Jane, “Resituating American Studies in a Critical Internationalism,” American Quarterly, 48, 3 (Sept. 1996), 475–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Giles, Paul, “Virtual Americas: The Internationalization of American Studies and the Ideology of Exchange,” American Quarterly, 50, 3 (Sept. 1998), 523–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rowe, John Carlos, “Post-nationalism, Globalism, and the New American Studies,” Cultural Critique, 40, special issue on “The Futures of American Studies” (Fall 1998), 11–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaplan, Amy, “Violent Belongings and the Question of Empire Today,” American Quarterly, 56, 1 (March 2004), 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kadir, Djelal, “Defending America against Its Devotees,” Comparative American Studies, 2, 2 (June 2004), 135–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recent ones include Fluck, Winfried, “Inside and Outside: What Kind of Knowledge Do We Need? A Response to the Presidential Address,” American Quarterly, 59, 1 (March 2007), 23–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Edwards, Brian T. and Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar, “Introduction: Globalizing American Studies,” in Edwards, and Gaonkar, , eds., Globalizing American Studies (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Băsescu is also infamous in the national media for the unconventional way in which he voiced Romania's ‘submissiveness’ to American policies in general. See Gabriel G. Stănescu, “Axa lui Băsescu şi Sexul Oral” (Băsescu's Axis and Oral Sex), available at http://stiri.itbox.ro/stiri-citeste/Diverse/stiri-AXA-LUI-BASESCU-SI-SEXUL-ORAL.html, accessed September 2, 2010. The colourful language of the former ship's captain turned President actually used in a private conversation turned public became huge headlines in the Romanian media.
9 Castronovo, Russ and Gillman, Susan Kay, “The Study of the American Problems,” in Castronovo, and Gillman, , eds., States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies, 1–17Google Scholar, 3, put forth the following definition: “The object can be anything, an artefact drawn from popular culture, a text culled from the archive, even something that is more of a moving target because of its location across or between cultures … [the] object could be lowbrow or highbrow, material or virtual, national or transnational.” Further, “Objects, after all, are not only located in spaces such as archives and anthologies; objects are just as easily lost as found in time.” Ibid., 4–5.
10 Giles, 544–45.
11 Krastev, Ivan, “The Anti-American Century?”, Journal of Democracy, 15, 2 (April 2004), 5–17, 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense during the Iraq War, called Eastern and Central European states that were once part of the communist bloc and tended to support US the “New Europe,” while nations that were part of the Western European system after World War II were defined as “Old Europe.” See Donald Rumsfeld, “Secretary Rumsfeld Briefs at the Foreign Press Center,” US Department of Defense, 22 Jan. 2003, at www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1330, accessed 20 April 2013.
13 The 2009 open letter signed by Eastern European leaders and addressed to President Obama in connection to American foreign policy (asking for increased Eastern Europe–US cooperation) is another emblematic moment in the series of such European tensions with regard to the role of the US in global affairs. See David Hayes, “East-Central Europe to Barack Obama: An Open Letter,” openDemocracy, 24 July 2009, at www.opendemocracy.net/article/east-central-europe-to-barack-obama-an-open-letter, accessed March 20, 2013.
14 See, for instance, Someone Else's America, dir. Goran Paskaljevic, New Yorker Video, 1998, Letter to America, dir. Iglika Triffonova, Phanta Vision, Budapest Filmstúdió, 2001; Something Like Happiness, dir. Bohdan Sláma, Film Movement, 2005.
15 In the interview about the making of the movie the director states that the halting of a NATO train on its way to the former Yugoslavia (only for four hours) in a small Romanian village was the trigger of the script he co-authored. See Cristian Nemescu, The Story’ of the Film (2006), available at www.mediapropictures.com/californiadreaminendless/video/video_01.html, accessed 2 Aug. 2012.
16 Although Bill Clinton blocked Romania from joining NATO with the first group of Eastern European countries which joined the alliance in 1999, crowds cheered Clinton's visit to Bucharest in July the same year and offered a “rapturous welcome from tens of thousands of buoyant Romanians.” See Mitchell, Allison, “Clinton Makes Also-Ran Feel Like Winner,” New York Times, 12 July 1997Google Scholar, www.nytimes.com/1997/07/12/world/clinton-makes-also-ran-feel-like-winner.html, accessed 2 May 2013, among other media coverage of the event. Romania joined NATO in the second-wave enlargement, in 2004. The discourses about Romania and NATO on the two sides of the Atlantic share the common denominator of portraying Romania as an eager and willing ally. Both the Romanian press and the US media focus on the close ties between the military of the two countries, and the US media enthusiastically depicts Romania as the “new ally.” Kaplan, Robert D., “The World: Romancing America; A New (Willing) Ally in Europe,” New York Times, 10 Nov. 2002Google Scholar, available at www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/weekinreview/the-world-romancing-america-a-new-willing-ally-in-europe.html?scp=21&sq=Romania+NATO&st=nyt, accessed 2 May 2013; and “comrade in arms” Fisher, Ian, “U. S. Eyes a Willing Romania as a New Comrade in Arms,” New York Times, 16 July 2003Google Scholar, available at www.nytimes.com/2003/07/16/world/us-eyes-a-willing-romania-as-a-new-comrade-in-arms.html, accessed 2 May 2013.
17 Cristian Nemescu, Expectations and Epilogue (2006), available at www.mediapropictures.com/californiadreaminendless/video/video_05.html, accessed 2 May 2013.
18 Armand Assante, Main Characters 1 (2006), available at www.mediapropictures.com/californiadreaminendless/video/video_02.html, accessed 2 May 2013.
19 For reviews approaching the film from this perspective see Scott, A. O., “The Americans Arrive and Cultures Collide,” New York Times, 23 Jan. 2009Google Scholar, available at http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/movies/23drea.html#, accessed May 2, 2013; Kieron Corless, “Review of California Dreamin’ Endless,” Sight & Sound (April 2008), at http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/4251, accessed 2 Aug. 2010; Alissa Simon, “California Dreamin’ (Endless),” Variety Reviews, 4 June 2007, available at www.variety.com/review/VE1117933791?refcatid=31, accessed May 2, 2013, among others; and Schwab, Anamaria, “Crossroads of Traumatic Histories in Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin’,” in Mihăilă, Rodica and Oltean, Roxana, eds., Transatlantic Dialogues: Eastern Europe, the U. S. and Post-Cold War Cultural Spaces (București: Editura Universităţii din București, 2009), 74–85Google Scholar, for an academic paper.
20 As American envoy Rudolf E. Schoenfeld reported in August 1948 (quoted in Barbu, Vin americanii!, 74–75), “The most frequently heard question addressed by a Romanian to an American, when he dares speak to one, is: Why don't you do anything?”.
21 This reverence is well documented by archival information in Vin Americanii!. A relevant instance would be a January 1946 article in the popular magazine Viaţa Românească which hyperbolically presented the “benefits” of the bombing of Bucharest: “We waited for a long time and most of us thought we had waited in vain … But behold, something did come. These planes. apparently destructive, they in fact brought salvation. Each American bomb was dropped in the service of high ideals of humanity, freedom, respect for human dignity and security.” Barbu, 110.
22 The Dallas Ranch built by a local entrepreneur near a small town Slobozia, which is presented in the movie and to which the Americans are taken to visit, is a case in point. For other appropriations of US icons in Romanian popular culture see Luca, Ioana, “Postcommunist American Dreams in Romanian Music,” in Davis, Rocio, ed., The Transnationalism of American Culture: Literature, Film and Music (New York: Routledge, 2013, 88–104)Google Scholar.
23 The news about a short stay of NATO troops at a base in the seaside resort of Constanta in 2005 abounded in recording the number of beautiful Romanian girls who “charmed” and married US soldiers.
24 See the interviews about the making of the movie, Jamie Elman, Main Characters 2 (2006), available at www.mediapropictures.com/californiadreaminendless/video/video_03.html, accessed 2 Aug. 2010; and the longer version of the Making of the Movie (available only on the DVD), where Armand Assante meets and discusses with the “real” stationmaster. Assante asks pertinent questions about the “real” marine commander and his attitude to the event.
25 I refer to Eastern European movies in which, though the American presence in the region is featured, it is mostly a caricature or just part of the background. See Fuse, dir. Pjer Žalica, First Run Features, 2003; A Wonderful Night in Split, dir. Arsen Anton Ostojić, First Run Features, 2004.
26 Edwards and Gaonkar, “Introduction.”
27 Herzfeld, Michael, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation State (New York: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar.
28 See Judt, Tony, “Romania: Bottom of the Heap,” New York Review of Books, 1 Nov. 2001, 1–10Google Scholar, available at www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/nov/01/romania-bottom-of-the-heap, accessed 10 March 2013; or the highly successful travelogue by Kaplan, Robert, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History (New York: Picador, 1993)Google Scholar.
29 Uhlich, Keith, “The 10th Annual Sarasota Film Festival,” Slant magazine, 19 April 2008Google Scholar, available at www.slantmagazine.com/house/2008/04/the-10th-annual-sarasota-film-festival, accessed 27 March 2013.
30 Şerban, Alex Leo and Gorzo, Andrei, “Critica de stînga faţă cu ‘reacţiunea’ din cinema – dialog între Alex. Leo Şerban şi Andrei Gorzo,” Dilema Veche, 3 Dec. 2010Google Scholar, available at www.dilemaveche.ro/sectiune/dileme-line/articol/critica-stinga-fata-reactiunea-cinema-dialog-alex-leo-serban-andrei-gor, accessed 27 March 2013.
31 The word “endless” in the title is ambivalent as it also carries the meaning of “unfinished,” because of the death of the director and sound designer during the postproduction process. The film was, however, released as it stood, 155 minutes long, at the moment of the young director's premature death in a car crash in August 2006.
32 Bollobás, Enikő, “Dangerous Liaisons: Politics and Epistemology in Post-Cold War American Studies,” American Quarterly, 54, 4 (Dec. 2002), 563–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 565.
33 Fluck, “Inside and Outside,” 25.
34 Hornung, Alfred, “Transnational American Studies: Response to the Presidential Address,” American Quarterly, 57, 1 (2005), 67–73, 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Kadir, Djelal, “Introduction: America and Its Studies,” PMLA, 118, 1 (2003), 9–24Google Scholar, 22.
36 Giles, Paul, “Response to the Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, Hartford, Connecticut, October 17, 2003,” American Quarterly, 56, 1 (2004), 19–24, 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Kaplan, Robert D., “Romania Longs for the West, and the West Needs Romania More Than It Knows,” Atlantic Monthly (Sept. 1998)Google Scholar, available at www.theatlantic.com/past/issues/98sep/fulcrum.htm, accessed 20 March 2013.