winners. The film has been interpreted both as an
exercise in self-analysis, in which Kurosawa worked
through his own battles with depression, and as
symbolic of Japan’s involvement in World War II.
Impact The bottom-line mentality of the corpora-
tions owning the major Hollywood studios led to a de-
cline in the production of traditional epic spectacles,
even as science-fiction spectacles became increas-
ingly popular. The relative lack of competition from
Hollywood allowed foreign film companies to gamble
on historical epic productions that not only pro-
vided spectacle but also offered interpretations of his-
tory for their contemporary audiences, both in the
United States and abroad. After the disillusionment
of the post-Vietnam War era of the 1970’s, the anti-
imperialist messages of epics such asGandhiandThe
Last Emperorfound an enthusiastic audience among
American filmgoers. The prestige and seriousness of
such films, along with their healthy box-office re-
ceipts, would lead Hollywood to rediscover the histor-
ical epic in the 1990’s in productions ranging from
Dances with Wolves(1990) toBraveheart(1995).
Further Reading
Prince, Stephen.The New Pot of Gold: Hollywood Un-
der the Electronic Rainbow, 1980-1989. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002. Historical
analysis of the transition of the Hollywood film in-
dustry from production to distribution. Also ex-
amines the role of new technologies such as the
videotape and cable television. Part of the presti-
gious History of the American Cinema series.
Sklarew, Bruce, et al, eds.Bertolucci’s “The Last Em-
peror”: Multiple Takes.Detroit: Wayne State Univer-
sity Press, 1998. Developed from a scholarly sym-
posium, this text collects essays that reconsider
Bertolucci’s epic from a variety of academic disci-
plines and perspectives.
Sobchack, Vivian. “‘Surge and Splendor’: A Phe-
nomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic.”
Representations29 (Winter, 1990): 24-49. Provides
an overview of the epic genre, including an analy-
sis of its diminution during the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Wright, Will. “The Empire Bites the Dust.”Social Text
6 (Autumn, 1982): 120-125. Argues that theStar
Warstrilogy is essentially an epic Western set
in space: The Empire is a technology-driven mod-
ern society, against which the individualistic hero
Luke must combat with his humanizing “Force.”
Luke Powers
See also Academy Awards;Back to the Future;Empire
Strikes Back, The; Film in the United States;Full Metal
Jacket; Ford, Harrison;Heaven’s Gate;Last Temptation
of Christ, The;Platoon; Scorsese, Martin; Stone, Oliver.Erdrich, Louise
Identification Native American author
Born June 7, 1954; Little Falls, Minnesota
An Ojibwe, French, and German American writer, Erdrich
became an important voice in an increasingly multicul-
tural American literar y culture.
Louise Erdrich gained prominence in 1984, when
she won the National Book Critics Circle Award
for her novelLove Medicine(1984; revised and ex-
panded, 1993). This innovative tribal saga presents
its story through multiple narrators. The author
used this technique to represent Native American
traditions of storytelling and egalitarianism.
Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band
of Chippewa of North Dakota, was raised by parents
who worked at a North Dakota boarding school for
Native Americans. Her mother’s French Ojibwe cul-
ture and her German American father’s traditions
came to inform her writing. Erdrich was inspired as a
teen by Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday, who won
the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his novelHouse Made
of Dawn(1968). His example inspired a literary
movement that came to be known as the Native
American Renaissance. By the 1980’s, greater num-
bers of young Native American writers like Erdrich
pursued college educations rather than training for
vocations. Erdrich attended Dartmouth College and
Johns Hopkins University, where she earned an M.A.
in creative writing in 1979. She married writer Mi-
chael Dorris in 1981 and wrote collaboratively with
him until his death in 1997.
Erdrich’s novels challenge stereotypes of Ojibwe
people. Her Native American characters embody
a pantheon of spiritual beings that includes Deer
Woman,Windigo, andMissepeshu(Water Monster).
Humor and other Ojibwe sensibilities appear in her
works. She weaves French Catholic traditions along-
side these. Her work also often represents a Native
American sense of time. For example,Love Medi-
cine’s narrative begins in 1980, procedes backward
in time to 1930, and then returns to 1980. This re-
arrangement of chronology connects the past to theThe Eighties in America Erdrich, Louise 341