Revisioning History: Film and the Construction of a New Past

by Robert A. Rosenstone (Editor)

In Revisioning History thirteen historians from around the world look at the historical film on its own terms, not as it compares to written history but as a unique way of recounting the past. How does film construct a historical world? What are the rules, codes, and strategies by which it brings the past to life? What does that historical construction mean to us? In grappling with these questions, each contributor looks at an example of New History cinema. Different from Hollywood costume dramas or documentary films, these films are serious efforts to come to grips with the past; they have often grown out of nations engaged in an intense quest for historical connections, such as India, Cuba, Japan, and Germany.


The volume begins with an introduction by Robert Rosenstone. Part I, "Contesting History," comprises essays by Geoff Eley (on the film Distant Voices, Still Lives ), Nicholas B. Dirks ( The Home and the World ), Thomas Kierstead and Deidre Lynch ( Eijanaika ), and Pierre Sorlin ( Night of the Shooting Stars ). Contributing to Part II, "Visioning History," are Michael S. Roth ( Hiroshima Mon Amour ), John Mraz ( Memories of Underdevelopment ), Min Soo Kang ( The Moderns ) and Clayton R. Koppes ( Radio Bikini ). Part III, "Revisioning History" contains essays by Denise J. Youngblood ( Repentance ), Rudy Koshar ( A Film from Germany ), Rosenstone ( Walker ), Sumiko Higashi ( Walker and Mississippi Burning ), and Daniel Sipe ( From the Pole to the Equator ).

Genres: Film

232 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

Robert A. Rosenstone, who was born in Montreal, Canada, but has lived most of his life in Los Angeles, is the author of a dozen books in various genres, including history, biography, criticism, and fiction. The latter has been his major focus in recent years. Among his fictional works are the novel, King of Odessa (2003), a book of stories, The Man Who Swam into History : The (Mostly) True Story of My Jewish Family ( 2005), and the recent novel Red Star, Crescent Moon: A Muslim Jewish Love Story (2010).

Rosenstone’s scholarly works include Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed (1975), one of the sources for the Academy Award winning film, Reds, on which he served as historical consultant; Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters in Meiji Japan (1988), an experimental, multi-voiced biography of three American sojourners in nineteenth century Japan; Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil war (1969, reprinted 2009), and two works about historical film: Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995), and History on Film / Film on History (2006).

He has also been active in visual media projects, including time spent as consultant or writer for the following dramatic features and documentaries: Reds (1982), The Good Fight (1983), Darrow (1991), and Tango of Slaves (1999), and he has appeared on screen in several documentaries, including Screening Histories: The Filmmaker Strikes Back. (BBC, 1998), Rebels. (CBC, 1999), and Emma Goldman: A Troublesome Presence (PBS, 2004)

He is married to Nahid Massoud, a photographer, who is at once his best friend and his muse.