The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television and the Modern Event

by Vivian Sobchack (Editor)

The Persistence of History examines how the moving image has completely altered traditional modes of historical thought and representation. Exploring a range of film and video texts, from The Ten Commandments to the Rodney King video, from the projected work of documentarian Errol Morris to Oliver Stone's JFK and Spielberg's Schindler's List , the volume questions the appropriate forms of media for making the incoherence and fragmentation of contemporary history intelligible.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Film

288 pages, Hardcover

First published December 27, 1995

About the author

Vivian Sobchack was the first woman elected President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and is on the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute. Her essays have appeared in journals such as Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Film Comment, camera obscure, Film Quarterly and Representations. Her books include Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film; The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience; and Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, and she has edited two anthologies: Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change; and The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television, and the Modern Event. Her research interests are eclectic: American film genres, philosophy and film theory, history and phenomenology of perception, historiography and cultural studies.

Reviews

[Amy]

Another "bought because she teaches at UCLA" thing. Haven't read it but would like to.