A CRITICAL HISTORY OF HISTORY IN MOVING PICTURES
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Emmanuel Leutze's famous 1825 painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River captures the gritty determination of its participants, the inspiration of their leader and the hazards of this now legendary event. Yet a movie made in the 2000s entitled `The Crossing' utterly failed to convey any of this to its audience. Worst yet, it provided no insight in to why Washington undertook such a hazardous project or why it turned out to be one of the most important events in the history of the American Revolution. How could a film maker who had available to him the enormously powerful potential of film media imagery fall so short of the accomplishment of an artist who utilized the traditional medium of the graphic artist ? Does it matter that he didn't accomplish any of these things ? Are film histories somehow a genre of their own that answer to specific requirements such as maximizing box office revenues while `history be dammed' ? Historical analysis shows that the manner and the accuracy of the presentation of historical topics on film has changed significantly. Few early films in the United States and Britain dealt with historical topics: those that did seriously distorted historical truth by injecting elements, typically of a romantic nature, whose principal purpose was to enhance their entertainment value as that was understood at the time. The road to better historical films began with the biopic films of Warner Brother Studios and some similar films made by the British in the 1930s. World War Two saw the emergence of the film documentaries with an emphasis on historical accuracy. Dramatic films about the war made at the time and immediately afterwards were typically not historically accurate: their purpose as `combat genre' films was to elevate morale on the home front for continuing the war. After the War fundamental and widespread changes in societies and the `entertainment' industries opened the way to the production of the superb historically accurate films and documentaries that are available today. Those changes included the dissolution of the Studio System in the United States, the downgrading of film censor boards in both nations, the appearance of television and later electronic media that opened up and responded to new market forces and the general post war evolution of more open and egalitarian societies in which truth in all things, including representations of the past, mattered to many people. The societal importance of this shift derived from a parallel change in the nature of twentieth century literacy: visual media became the mode of choice by means of which many people obtained information on a wide variety of topics, including stories of what happened in the past. As a new and popular form of `historical literacy', film presentations of historical topics have thus become powerful elements in the ways in which societies function. The level of accuracy of knowledge of the enfranchised about their collective pasts ultimately determine their efficacy as voters who contribute significantly to the establishment and maintenance of just and equal societies based on informed and reasoned discourse. The European and American Enlightenments of the eighteenth century provided the tools of rational based knowledge and discourse, including the profession of academic history, which ultimately enabled the founding of the great democracies and republics of the contemporary world. As inheritors of these gains enfranchised members of the body politic must utilize these tools for the sustenance of those social gains at the voting booth. Ignorance of the past works against that end; accurate knowledge of the past enables it. This is the main reason why historical accuracy in films is important and why we can all be thankful that it is an end to which contemporary film makers routinely aspire.
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About the Book
In the first book of its kind in the English language historian Dr. John Dunbar provides an overview of attempts throughout film history to put historical topics on screen in the United States and Great Britain. The earliest attempts were biographic films about famous people and some great epic films such as Gone With the Wind that were not claimed to be accurate histories of a period. World War Two paved the way for post war developments through the evolution of the documentary film that were often accurate portrayals of events in the war. After WW 2 a number of social, political, technical and economic developments opened the way for the making of historically accurate films. The dissolution of the Studio System in Hollywood, the disappearance of film censor boards, the arrival of television and later the internet, the appearance of greater market segments than those traditionally served by motion picture all opened up market opportunities for films of greater historical accuracy than had traditionally been available. The emergence of film makers and production companies dedicated to the accurate telling of history now engages the resources of professional historians in the making of films of unequalled accuracy. As items in the modern world of media literacy and political discourse, these films play an important role in the sustenance of the open society in which the ideals of the European Enlightenment can be continually realized.
About the Author
John Dunbar lives in retirement in his city of birth, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. After obtaining degrees from both local universities he worked in business for a while before returning to university to obtain his Ph. D. in the history of science. He has written and published on a wide variety of topics in both professional journals and popular publications. These include articles on social, historical and the ethics of, psychology and even articles and a book on the history of classic cars. He can be contacted by e-mail at: johndunbar@execulink.com.