History on Film / Film on History - Softcover

Rosenstone, Prof Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0582505844 ISBN 13: 9780582505841

Publisher: Longman, 2006

Synopsis

Fictional films tell true historical stories…

Film and History is a compelling and unique overview of the cinema and its relationship with history, ranging from the ancient world to the modern day.

This is the first book of its kind to offer such a broad historical and theoretical portrayal of the rapidly-growing sub field of history and film.

Rosenstone introduces the varieties, types and traditions of historical films made worldwide and sets this against the changing ways in which historians and other public critics debate the portrayal of history in modern film.

 

About this title

About the Author

Professor Robert A Rosenstone of the California Institute of Technology is currently the leading scholar in the world in the controversial and growing field of history and film. He was the historical consultant on Warren Beatty's Academy Award winning film Reds.

Rosenstone is the Founding Editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practiceand his other publications include Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War (1969),  Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan(1988),  King of Odessa (2003), and The Man Who Swam Into History (2005). He also wrote the award winning Romantic Revolutionary (1975) upon which the film Reds was based.

From the Back Cover

 

History films have often been criticised by academics and journalists as inaccurate depictions of the past. Yet there is no escaping the fact that blockbuster history films, documentaries and docudramas are increasingly influential in shaping our understanding of historical people and events. The very controversies that erupt over so many historical films are testament to the central role that films play in making history accessible.

 

Robert A. Rosenstone argues that to leave history films out of the discussion of the meaning of the past is to ignore a major factor in our understanding of past events. He champions the dramatic feature as a legitimate way of doing history, even though it is largely fictional. He examines what history films convey about the past and how they convey it, demonstrating the need to learn how to read and understand this new visual world. Integrating detailed analysis of individual history films, including Glory, Reds, October and Schindler’s List, Rosenstone examines:

·         different types of films – American, European, Mexican and Soviet – made in different political systems and climates

·         the dramatic feature, the Biofilm, the documentary and the Innovative or Opposition drama.

·         the filmmaker as historian, focusing on Oliver Stone as a brilliant historian of the Vietnam era.

·         how a group of works devoted to a single topic, such as the Holocaust, can engage the larger discourse

 

 

Professor Robert A. Rosenstone of the California Institute of Technology is a leading scholar in the controversial and growing field of history and film.  His award winning biography of John Reed, Romantic Revolutionary (1975), was used as the basis of Warren Beatty's multiple Academy Award winner, Reds, on which Rosenstone served as historical consultant. He is author of several works of history, including Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995) Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War (1969) and Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Japan (1988). He is editor of Revisioning History: Film and the Construction of a New Past (1995) and Experiments in Rethinking History (2004). He is the Founding Editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice.

Edition details

• Publisher: Longman
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0582505844
• ISBN 13: 9780582505841
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200