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Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures
Lights, Camera, History: Portraying the Past in Film (Volume 40)
This important volume addresses a number of central topics concerning how history is depicted in film. In the preface, the volume editors emphasize the importance of using film in teaching history: students will see historical films, and if they are not taught critical viewing, they will be inclined simply to accept what they see as fact. Authors of the individual chapters then explore the portrayal of history—and the uses of history—in specific films and film genres.
Robert Rosenstone’s “In Praise of the Biopic” considers such films as Reds, They Died with Their Boots On, Little Big Man, Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man, and The Grapes of Wrath. In his chapter, Geoff Pingree focuses on the big questions posed in Jay Rosenblatt’s 1998 film Human Remains. Richard Francaviglia’s chapter on films about the Middle East is especially timely in the post-9/11 world. One chapter, by Daniel A. Nathan, Peter Berg, and Erin Klemyk, is devoted to a single film: Martin Scorsese’s urban history The Gangs of New York, which the authors see as a way of exploring complex themes of the immigrant experience. Finally, Robert Brent Toplin addresses the paradox of using an art form (film) to present history. Among other themes, he considers the impact of Patton and Platoon on military decisions and interpretations, and of Birth of a Nation and Glory on race relations.
The cumulative effect is to increase the reader’s understanding of the medium of film in portraying history and to stimulate the imagination as to how it can and how it should not be used. Students and teachers of history and cinema will benefit deeply from this informative and thoughtful discussion.
Robert Rosenstone’s “In Praise of the Biopic” considers such films as Reds, They Died with Their Boots On, Little Big Man, Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man, and The Grapes of Wrath. In his chapter, Geoff Pingree focuses on the big questions posed in Jay Rosenblatt’s 1998 film Human Remains. Richard Francaviglia’s chapter on films about the Middle East is especially timely in the post-9/11 world. One chapter, by Daniel A. Nathan, Peter Berg, and Erin Klemyk, is devoted to a single film: Martin Scorsese’s urban history The Gangs of New York, which the authors see as a way of exploring complex themes of the immigrant experience. Finally, Robert Brent Toplin addresses the paradox of using an art form (film) to present history. Among other themes, he considers the impact of Patton and Platoon on military decisions and interpretations, and of Birth of a Nation and Glory on race relations.
The cumulative effect is to increase the reader’s understanding of the medium of film in portraying history and to stimulate the imagination as to how it can and how it should not be used. Students and teachers of history and cinema will benefit deeply from this informative and thoughtful discussion.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 2007
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October 29, 2021
What factors should be taken into account when assessing a film based on historical events and characters? Any time a film is set in the past, there are usually objections from critics, historians, and other viewers to the film’s presentation of history, from characters that seem too contemporary to inaccuracies in the landscape or costuming or technology. This fraught relationship between history and film was explored in the fortieth Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures, given at the University of Texas at Arlington, in 2005, which are collected here as essays that raise many questions about the often uncomfortable relationship between film and history.
The five essays included in this volume confront a wide variety of historical films, ranging from The Birth of a Nation (1915) through the Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Robert Brent Toplin’s essay, “In Defense of the Filmmakers,” meets the criticism of historical films head on as he discusses whether films that present controversial events and people—such as Gandhi, Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan—influence how audiences view the past. A fine example of how one film can construct the past is in the essay “The Truth Wrapped in a Package of Lies: Hollywood, History, and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York,” by Daniel A. Nathan, Peter Berg, and Erin Klemayk. They discuss not only the multiple contexts in which the film is embedded but also how it is part of Scorsese’s career-long filmic construction of New York. Geoff Pingree's “History Is What Remains: Cinema’s Challenge to Ideas about the Past,” focuses on Human Remains, which uses archival materials to present five twentieth-century dictators: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, and Mao as though they were actually being interviewed. The fabricated questions and answers often focus on banal topics, showing how pedestrian these men were. Robert Rosenstone's “In Praise of the Biopic” also focuses on actual historical characters in three films—Reds (1981), Reed: Insurgent Mexico (1972), and Red Bells (1981)—by directors from the United States, Mexico, and the Soviet Union. In each, Jack Reed is the focus, but the balance between his political ideals and personal relationships is significantly different in each one, as is the scope, style, and vision. The final essay, Richard Francaviglia's “Crusaders and Saracens: The Persistence of Orientalism in Historically Themed Motion Pictures about the Middle East,” is the least successful, relying heavily on Edward Said’s notions of Orientalism, and muddling the Far East and the Middle East.
The five essays included in this volume confront a wide variety of historical films, ranging from The Birth of a Nation (1915) through the Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Robert Brent Toplin’s essay, “In Defense of the Filmmakers,” meets the criticism of historical films head on as he discusses whether films that present controversial events and people—such as Gandhi, Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan—influence how audiences view the past. A fine example of how one film can construct the past is in the essay “The Truth Wrapped in a Package of Lies: Hollywood, History, and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York,” by Daniel A. Nathan, Peter Berg, and Erin Klemayk. They discuss not only the multiple contexts in which the film is embedded but also how it is part of Scorsese’s career-long filmic construction of New York. Geoff Pingree's “History Is What Remains: Cinema’s Challenge to Ideas about the Past,” focuses on Human Remains, which uses archival materials to present five twentieth-century dictators: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, and Mao as though they were actually being interviewed. The fabricated questions and answers often focus on banal topics, showing how pedestrian these men were. Robert Rosenstone's “In Praise of the Biopic” also focuses on actual historical characters in three films—Reds (1981), Reed: Insurgent Mexico (1972), and Red Bells (1981)—by directors from the United States, Mexico, and the Soviet Union. In each, Jack Reed is the focus, but the balance between his political ideals and personal relationships is significantly different in each one, as is the scope, style, and vision. The final essay, Richard Francaviglia's “Crusaders and Saracens: The Persistence of Orientalism in Historically Themed Motion Pictures about the Middle East,” is the least successful, relying heavily on Edward Said’s notions of Orientalism, and muddling the Far East and the Middle East.
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