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

TITLE_DISPLAY:

個人著者:

Rosenstone, Robert A.

出版資訊:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995.

格式:

圖書

物理描述:

viii, 271 p. ; 22 cm.

主題詞彙:

Motion pictures and history.

Historical films -- History and criticism.

ISBN（国际标准书号）:

9780674940970

9780674940987

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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 questions, Robert Rosenstone offers a 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 venture into the investigation of a 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.

評論 (2)

Kirkus 評論

A muddled series of essays investigating the limits and possibilities of film as a medium for comprehending the past. While Rosenstone is an accomplished historian (Calif. Institute of Technology; Mirror in the Shrine, 1988, etc.), he approaches film with all the zeal and incomplete understanding of a novice, particularly regarding film history. For example, the multiple perspectives, untraditional structure, and experiments with time that he identifies as hallmarks of the postmodern historical film have all been utilized in Hollywood as far back as the silent era and D.W. Griffith's Intolerance. Many of his arguments also have a warmed-over quality, as he rehearses the tired paradigmatic posturings of postmodernism (i.e., limits language of meaning impossible make). Still Rosenstone offers some worthwhile analysis of why films so often fail as history, especially when it comes to complex and/or nonvisual material. How do you show, after all, something like the rise of Portugal or the moral decline of the French aristocracy? Rosenstone offers some useful criteria for what makes a good historical film, what liberties it should and shouldn't take with the past. Then, in a game but vain bid for popular relevance, he proposes film as a fully viable alternative to history books. He wants cinema that ``create[s] a historical world complex enough so that it overflows with meaning; so that its meanings are always multiple; so that its meanings cannot be contained or easily expressed in words.'' But the decidedly obscure films he champions, such as Walker and Sans Soleil, are hardly encouraging models. The brave new multimedia world may make books seem a little dull, but despite Rosenstone's high hopes, ``Western Civilization: The Movie'' is unlikely to be playing at the local multiplex any time soon.

Choice 評論

Rosenstone's study does two things well. It reviews the subject of history on film and it attempts, somewhat successfully, to break some new ground in this ongoing debate. Central to the book's thesis is the concept that "all history, including written history, is a construction, not a reflection." Rosenstone (California Institute of Technology) adheres firmly to this line throughout his fascinating analysis of the traditional and nontraditional historical film; however, his is not a doctrinaire voice. He reflects on opposing views, letting the reader know that other interpretations exist. His use of a personal discovery theme is sincere but wears a bit thin for the informed reader. His case studies of two films he worked on--the blockbuster feature film Reds and the modest yet substantial documentary The Good Fight--are insightful and informed. Rosenstone's discussion of other films will be most valuable to readers who have seen them. His final attempts to evaluate what he calls "postmodern historical films" is provocative if not totally convincing. This work echoes, but is more understandable than, that of Bill Nichols in Representing Reality (CH, Jul'92) and Blurred Boundaries (CH, Sep'95). This is solid scholarship written in a manner that makes it accessible for a wide range of readers.

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