• Text forewords: “ A Long Time
Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far
Away… ”
• Text superimposition
• Voiceover narration (diegetic, non-diegetic)
• Archival footage, still photographs, documents
• Mise-en-scene (set dressing)
• Protagonist as detective
• A “ genre ” with its own rules
• key terms
• Diegetic or non-diegetic
• Frame and composition
• Close-up
• Long-shot
• Point-of-view shot
• High angle; low angle
• cinematography
• Intercutting
• Editing (or film writing): pacing
• pan
• Dolly or zoom
• Freeze frame

An outline of Hollywood ’ s American
Historical Cinema: the Silent Era
• Early “ actualities ” showcase historical figures such as
Annie Oakley
• Reenactments of Spanish American War
• Death of Mary Stuart first historical film?
• Rise of film censorship: controversy over Jesse James biopic and Evelyn Nesbit scandal
• Gettysburg (1913) and Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Griffith ’ s predictions
• Prestige, history and nationalism: The Covered Wagon
(1923)

South’s Racist Legacy in Hollywood Cinema

• Rise of the screenwriter
• Rise of American historical films; transgeneric content and form
• Darryl Zanuck ’ s two-pronged approach
• Avoiding censorship
• Westerns
• Civil War dramas
• Biopics
• Adaptations
• Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane

The red dress is black: miscegenation and demystifying race

• Arthur Penn and Bonnie and Clyde , 1967
• “ Revisionist ” Westerns ( The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valance , Outlaw Josey Wales , Heaven ’ s
Gate , Unforgiven )
• Clint Eastwood
• Oliver Stone
• Historical turn: economic reasons and the presold package; tie-ins; conspiracy history
• Film historiography: two approaches– Argo vs.
Lincoln (2013)

• Scientific and Professional History, est. AHA; exclusion of popular historians and women (Ranke)
• Continued popularity of social history, revisionist interpretations, and exposes (progressivism)
• Caveats: FJ Turner, “ The Significance of History ” (1890)
• Rise of New Social History (James Harvey Robinson)
• “ Detachment and the Writing of History ” : 1910, Carl Becker
• Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913)
• Scandal over historians working for government as propagandists in WWI
• Relativism
• Re-rise of popular history “ Everyman ” Carl Becker
• Consensus History of postwar era
• Return of social history, African American (1960s-), women ’ s (1970s-),
• Postmodernism (White, Rosenstone, Hutcheon) and anti-postmodernists

•
Mainstream Historians
•
Film as historical artifact (a reflection of mainstream ideology and cultural beliefs, aka passive text)
•
The last few pages of a serious sociocultural history, biography, etc. (the
20 th -century afterthought)
• Very little contextual analysis (film seen as part of general trend)
• Film as myth
• Film ’ s inaccurate, simplified projection of history: the ultimate THREAT
• Hollywood the dream factory; massproduced, mindless and mechanical
•
Projection of racial, ethnic, gender stereotypes
•
New perspectives open up with spread of postmodernism
•
Film Historians
•
Industrial histories (American progress narratives, decline and fall, etc.)
Historiographic approaches to writing film histories (Ramsaye versus
Bordwell)
•
Silent film and the challenge of piecing together an early history of film
•
Individual production histories
• Film as a cultural artifact (emphasis on documentary, black cinema, etc.)
• Emphasis on comparative histories, archival research
• Film as a potential interpretation of history (historical cinema, film as mode of historiography, etc.). Poststructuralism/postmodernism replaces the more prescriptive
Marxist/structuralist approaches to film ’ s ideology and discourse

• Marc Ferro argues that a filmic writing of history is impossible; visual and verbal discourse inherently different
• Hayden White comes up with term ‘ historiophoty ’ to distinguish the historical work of cinema
• Robert Rosenstone: films can challenge traditional attitudes toward the past constructed by historians
(postmodern sensibility)
• Rosen, Davis, Rosenstone, White, Ferro all agree that historical films can offer interesting new perspectives on the past, but most of their examples are European or post studio-era Hollywood

• Remember all films start as texts —i.e., the screenplay
• Think about the filmmakers ’ sources for a given period
• What function do intertitles serve, particularly after silent films have been replaced by sound
• What kinds of historical debates does a film generate after its release?

• Film art: style over content
• Break with classical
Hollywood cinema’s linear narrative and ‘seamless’ style
• Auteur’s masterpiece
(Welles)/director’s film
• Turning point in American cinema: new film form
• Biography of William
Randolph Hearst
• Continuity with classical
Hollywood films of 1930s emphasizing flawed hero and failure (Gabriel over the
White House, 1933; A Star is
Born, 1937)
• Impact of screenwriter
• Film as interpreter of history

• Tends to reveal itself in generational narratives or family stories ( The Birth of a
Nation, The Godfather )
• Script often based on original historical research or adaptation of popular history or historical novel
• Focus is, with many exceptions, on white men
• Increasing interest in 20 th -century US history and decline of America

th

• Allegedly reflects a simplified, stripped-down view of American history
• Endorses frontier expansion and extermination of the Native Americans
• Represents myths of American conquest rather than realities
• Binary racial conflicts between whites and
Indians, no picture of multiracial West
• 19 thcentury West acts as entire history of West; de-emphasis on 20 th century transformations; films preserve past

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Vico ’s anti-progressive historiography: The Age of Heroes and the Age of Men
Unreliable text versus the truth in cinematic flashbacks
Public words versus private images

• British Film Institute
• Cinematheque francaise
• Institut Lumiere (Fr.)
• Museo Nazionale del Cinema
(It.)
• National Film Archive of India
• Deutches Filminstitut
• Filmarchiv Austria
• Hong Kong Film Archive
• National Film Archive of Iran
• Steven Spielberg Jewish Film
Archive
• Cinematheque Algerienne
• Academy of Motion Pictures
Arts & Sciences
• American Film Institute
• Library of Congress
• Individual studio archives at
USC, UCLA, Berkeley, U
Wyoming
• State Historical Society,
Madison Wisconsin
• University of Texas, Austin
• New York Public Library