This book critically examines how exploration and discovery films—movies that feature real or imagined explorers and expeditions—creatively feature the geography of Latin America. It focuses on how places and geographical features are scripted into film plots and artistically depicted, and demonstrates that place is as important as any [other] character in a film, especially in this genre.
Nineteen key films are analyzed. Some, like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, The Other Conquest, Embrace of the Serpent, and The Lost City of Z are based on the exploits of real explorers. Others are fictional, including Apocalypto, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Dora and the Lost City of Gold. Through a close reading of these films, with an eye on colonialist and post-colonialist exploration, the author reveals that there are many more compelling exploration-discovery films to come, including those that treat marginalized explorers more equitably.

Over the last fifty years, geographer Richard Francaviglia (professor emeritus, University of Texas at Arlington and associated scholar, Willamette University) has studied varied places and published fourteen books about them. He lives in Salem, Oregon.

Richard Francaviglia
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: ca. 85 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9252-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4967-2
Imprint: McFarland