Newsreels and camera eyes : a mirror of america’s intellectual life in John Dos Passos’s USA

Abstract EN

In this article, we explore Dos Passos’s treatment of modernist techniques in his trilogy USA .We want to demonstrate that the writer does not deal simply with the history of a crisis; he also relates his aesthetic activity to the American historical process through the use of some modernist techniques, such as ‘Newsreels’, ‘Camera Eyes’ and sometimes even ‘juxtapositions’ to recreate the collective mind of the time.

These techniques were considered by artists /writers as the main channels for the spread of ideas and information.