AND ACTION!: REINTERPRETATION AND SIMULATION OF HISTORY THROUGH FILM IN DELILLO’S AMERICANA AND LIBRA
AND ACTION!: REINTERPRETATION AND SIMULATION OF HISTORY THROUGH FILM IN DELILLO’S AMERICANA AND LIBRA

Summary/Abstract: Linda Hutcheon claimed that the only way to access the past is to use texts and textual recordings of it. Today, we can interpret the mass media as textual evidence of the past which is at the same time an artifact and a means of rewriting history. Modern mass media seem to shape and reshape history and even our whole reality. Therefore, one can argue that history may be interpreted as what Baudrillard defined as a simulacrum. In Don DeLillo’s novels, media are frequently used to give access to or retell past events. In both Americana and Libra, DeLillo introduces the film as a piece of evidence which offers insight into history. In Americana, David Bell sets to make a documentary on one Native American tribe, yet he decides to overtake the film and shoot the story of his life. In Libra, it is the media, and specifically the Zapruder film, which helps Nicholas Branch track the story of Kennedy’s assassination. In both novels, history is revealed to be a simulation, but also a basis upon which our everyday reality exists.

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