'Casting' the Neohellenic Other: Tourism, the Culture Industry and Contemporary Orientalism in Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)

The present article explores Hollywood narrations of Neohellenic and Mediterranean identity through a relatively recent film adaptation of Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. It also looks at film reviews and other texts to reflect critically on its reception by an international audience, and its relationship with the tourist industry. The theoretical trajectory of the analysis comprises a combination of Marxist theory and cultural studies. The chosen subject areas include representations of Mediterranean habitus, the uses of Greek landscape and folk culture and the strong association between historical narrative and stereotyping. An overall conclusion will suggest that most of these representations appeared in past Orientalist discourses. The contexts of late capitalist economy in which such discourses are mobilized invite scholars to examine affiliations between the tourist and the culture industries.