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Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema
Deborah A. Starr
2020
In this book, Deborah A. Starr recuperates the work of Togo Mizrahi, a pioneer of Egyptian cinema. Mizrahi, an Egyptian Jew with Italian nationality, established himself as a prolific director of popular comedies and musicals in the 1930s and 1940s. As a studio owner and producer, Mizrahi promoted the idea that developing a local cinema industry was a project of national importance. Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema integrates film analysis with film history to tease out the cultural and political implications of Mizrahi’s work. His movies, Starr argues, subvert dominant notions of race, gender, and nationality through their playful—and queer—use of masquerade and mistaken identity. Taken together, Mizrahi’s films offer a hopeful vision of a pluralist Egypt. By reevaluating Mizrahi’s contributions to Egyptian culture, Starr challenges readers to reconsider the debates over who is Egyptian and what constitutes national cinema.
“A captivating account of Egyptian film director Togo Mizrahi. Starr shows that Mizrahi’s distinct, often comical vision of Egypt captured a dramatic moment of social, political, and cultural transformation in which people of diverse backgrounds coexisted and struggled to achieve better lives.” JOEL GORDON, author of Revolutionary Melodrama: Popular Film and Civic Identity in Nasser’s Egypt
“A remarkable study of a remarkable career. Starr offers a comprehensive analysis of a life in filmmaking that adds nuance to our definition of Egyptian nationalism and enhances our appreciation of Alexandrian cinema. This is a book of recovery, reclamation, and celebration.” NANCY E. BERG, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, Washington University in St. Louis
DEBORAH A. STARR is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies at Cornell University. She is the author of Remembering Cosmopolitan Egypt: Literature, Culture, and Empire and coeditor of Mongrels or Marvels: The Levantine Writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff.
This book is included in DOAB.
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Keywords
- anthropology of Christianity
- Asian history
- Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity
- fasting
- film studies
- Film, TV & radio
- Food
- History
- Humanities
- Jewish Studies
- Media Studies
- mediation
- Middle Eastern History
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Regional & national history
- Religious groups: social & cultural aspects
- Ritual
- Social groups
- Society & culture: general
- Society & Social Sciences
- The arts
- thema EDItEUR::5 Interest qualifiers::5P Relating to specific groups and cultures or social and cultural interests::5PG Relating to religious groups::5PGJ Relating to Jewish people and groups
- thema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATF Films, cinema
- thema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATJ Television
- thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
- thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBS Social groups, communities and identities::JBSR Social groups: religious groups and communities
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHG Middle Eastern history
Links
DOI: 10.1525/luminos.91web: http://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.91/
Editions