Intimate strangers: Blacklisted filmmakers in postwar Europe

My dissertation examines an overlooked dimension of the Hollywood blacklist: the experiences of blacklisted filmmakers in postwar Europe. Personae non gratae in Hollywood on account of their refusal to cooperate with the investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), over 40 Hollywood film industry professionals fled to Europe during the 1950s and early 1960s. Between 1949 and 1964, this fluctuating group of exiles directed, wrote, or starred in almost 90 European productions. Their contributions to European cinema range from noir masterpieces like Du Rififi chez les hommes (dir. Dassin, 1954) to international blockbusters such as The Bridge on the River Kwai (scr. Foreman and Wilson, 1957) to acclaimed art films like The Servant (dir. Losey, 1963). By creating a critical mass of Hollywood film talent in Europe, the blacklist had the unanticipated effect of invigorating the European film industries. At the same time, the exiles' European triumphs played a significant role in weakening the blacklist's hold over Hollywood.;Was the presence of the blacklisted Americans in Europe at a time when European cinema's influence was expanding and Hollywood's diminishing simply an ironic twist in the history of HUAC, or did the blacklisted play a more active role in shifting Hollywood's attention towards Europe? How did the exiles' contradictory status as Hollywood Communists and American political refugees further complicate European concern with protecting their national cinemas from Hollywood's influence? As these questions suggest, the role of the European blacklisted community in the postwar shift from national to "transnational" cinema has yet to be fully considered. I argue that the experiences of the blacklisted in Europe challenged and disrupted strict perceptions of national identity and national cinema and, in doing so, foreshadowed the film industry's new cosmopolitanism.