Visions of the past : the challenge of film to our idea of history

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Title:

Author:

Rosenstone, Robert A.

ISBN:

9780674940987

9780674940970

Personal Author:

Rosenstone, Robert A.

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995.

Physical Description:

viii, 271 p. ; 22 cm.

Contents:

Introduction: Personal, Professional, and (a Little) Theoretical -- 1. History in images / History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film -- 2. The Historical Film: Looking at the Past in a Postliterate Age -- 3. Reds as History -- 4. The Good Fight: History, Memory, Documentary -- 5. JFK: Historical Fact / Historical Film -- 6. Walker: The Dramatic Film as (Postmodern) History -- 7. Sans Soleil: The Documentary as (Visionary) Truth -- 8. Re-visioning History: Contemporary Filmmakers and the Construction of the Past -- 9. Film and the Beginnings of Postmodern History -- 10. What You Think about When You Think about Writing a Book on History and Film.

Subject Term:

Motion pictures and history.

Historical films -- History and criticism.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168015775568	791.43658 R815V 1995	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Can filmed history measure up to written history? What happens to history when it is recorded in images, rather than words? Can images convey ideas and information that lie beyond words? Taking on these timely questions, Robert Rosenstone pioneers a new direction in the relationship between history and film. Rosenstone moves beyond traditional approaches, which examine the history of film as art and industry, or view films as texts reflecting their specific cultural contexts. This essay collection makes a radical venture into the investigation of a new concern: how a visual medium, subject to the conventions of drama and fiction, might be used as a serious vehicle for thinking about our relationship with the past.

Rosenstone looks at history films in a way that forces us to reconceptualize what we mean by "history." He explores the innovative strategies of films made in Africa, Latin America, Germany, and other parts of the world. He journeys into the history of film in a wide range of cultures, and expertly traces the contours of the postmodern historical film. In essays on specific films, including Reds , JFK , and Sans Soleil , he considers such issues as the relationship between fact and film and the documentary as visionary truth.

Theorists have for some time been calling our attention to the epistemological and literary limitations of traditional history. The first sustained defense of film as a way of thinking historically, this book takes us beyond those limitations.