Screening the Past: Film and the Representation of History

by Tony Barta: Research Fellow in History at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia
Film and television have been accepted as having a pervasive influence on how people understand the world. An important aspect of this is the relationship of history and film. The different views of the past created by film, television, and video are only now attracting closer attention from historians, cultural critics, and filmmakers. This volume seeks to advance the critical exploration scholars have recently begun. Barta begins by addressing the various ways the past is "screened" for our understanding and relates the art of film to other media. The essays that follow deal primarily with the changing perspectives of political and social developments--and changing concepts of ideology, gender, or culture--in films and television programs made for historically shaped reasons. Chapters by filmmakers explore issues of context and intent in their own projects. Scholars and general readers interested in film and cultural studies will find this an important volume.