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History and Film: A Tale of Two Disciplines
History and A Tale of Two Disciplines addresses the representation of history in cinema, a much-argued debate on the need to understand cinematic history in its own terms and develop a certain vocabulary for discussing historical films, their relation to public history, and their impact on public historical consciousness. Eleftheria Thanouli does this by changing the agenda altogether - combining a macro-level perspective with a micro-level one in order to argue that cinematic history is the dominant form of historiography in the 20th century, as it succeeded in remediating and repurposing the key formal, rhetorical, and ideological practices of 19th-century professional historiography. With case studies ranging from The Thin Red Line and Life is Beautiful , to The Fog of War and The Last Bolshevik , Thanouli bridges the gap between history and film studies and lays the foundations for a new visual historiography.
- GenresHistory
296 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 2018
About the author
Eleftheria Thanouli
5 books1 followerEleftheria Thanouli is Professor in Film Theory at the School of Film at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research interests include the representation of history on film, film narratology, digital cinema, film and politics and world cinema.
She has contributed chapters in key publications, such as The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory (London: Routledge, 2013), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013) and The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016).
She is the author of three monographs: Post-classical Cinema: An International Poetics of Film Narration (London: Wallflower Press, 2009), Wag the Dog: A Study on Film and Reality in the Digital Age (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013) and History and Film: A Tale of Two Disciplines (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018).
She has contributed chapters in key publications, such as The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory (London: Routledge, 2013), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013) and The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016).
She is the author of three monographs: Post-classical Cinema: An International Poetics of Film Narration (London: Wallflower Press, 2009), Wag the Dog: A Study on Film and Reality in the Digital Age (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013) and History and Film: A Tale of Two Disciplines (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 19, 2025
I read the majority of this book for university, for Thanouli's class and I finished it because I really liked it. It's a fascinating book that explores the importance of cinema as historiography in a deeper way than it had ever been done before. Admittedly, large parts of this, went over my head, due to my lack of knowledge when it comes to the history and the philosophy of historiography, but I found this incredible, nonetheless. I'm not sure to which degree I agree with Thanouli's conclusions from this work, but it's certainly a book I'll take into serious consideration if I ever work with historical subjects, as a filmmaker. Overall, a really important piece of modern film theory.
April 11, 2019
History and Film: A Tale of Two Disciplines –Eleftheria Thanouli
This thoughtful book raises many questions about traditional history and about history as it is depicted in film. Thanouli is examining both content and modalities. She grounds her discussion in several different theoretical perspectives. In doing so she discusses the nature of history itself and how it has been recorded in the past. The history of history is an intriguing subject which she touches on as she discusses the difference between the image and thw word, a topic others have explored as well. Her analysis of historical films focuses on the fictional and the non-fictional or documentary. She breaks down each of these categories in greater detail and discusses films that exemplify each of these modes. For fictional history films, she discusses the classical, art cinema, the historical-mechanical and the post classical.. For the documentary or non-fiction film, she has five categories, the Expository, Observational, Interactive, Reflexive and Performative. For the fictional examples she looks at films addressing World War II and the Holocaust. For the non-fictional, the topics are the Vietnam War and biographies. This provides a useful framework for evaluating the films and the degree to which they represent history. Their limits also point up the limits of traditional history. In films the ideological position of the representation is more obvious than it may appear in the traditional literary history. On the page the information seems factual; on film the artifice and the creation are more evident. The actor portraying an historical character is not that person and that is obvious to the viewer. How an historical figure is depicted in words is also in some sense not that person but an image of him or her. Looking at history through these different lenses is helpful and makes one appreciate the strengths and limitations of all historical records, literary or visual. The historical past is not the past as it was, but the past as it is seen in the present whether depicted in film of on the page. Although the author of this book does not say this, it is always important to look at the date of the history book you are reading or the film you are seeing.
This thoughtful book raises many questions about traditional history and about history as it is depicted in film. Thanouli is examining both content and modalities. She grounds her discussion in several different theoretical perspectives. In doing so she discusses the nature of history itself and how it has been recorded in the past. The history of history is an intriguing subject which she touches on as she discusses the difference between the image and thw word, a topic others have explored as well. Her analysis of historical films focuses on the fictional and the non-fictional or documentary. She breaks down each of these categories in greater detail and discusses films that exemplify each of these modes. For fictional history films, she discusses the classical, art cinema, the historical-mechanical and the post classical.. For the documentary or non-fiction film, she has five categories, the Expository, Observational, Interactive, Reflexive and Performative. For the fictional examples she looks at films addressing World War II and the Holocaust. For the non-fictional, the topics are the Vietnam War and biographies. This provides a useful framework for evaluating the films and the degree to which they represent history. Their limits also point up the limits of traditional history. In films the ideological position of the representation is more obvious than it may appear in the traditional literary history. On the page the information seems factual; on film the artifice and the creation are more evident. The actor portraying an historical character is not that person and that is obvious to the viewer. How an historical figure is depicted in words is also in some sense not that person but an image of him or her. Looking at history through these different lenses is helpful and makes one appreciate the strengths and limitations of all historical records, literary or visual. The historical past is not the past as it was, but the past as it is seen in the present whether depicted in film of on the page. Although the author of this book does not say this, it is always important to look at the date of the history book you are reading or the film you are seeing.
March 20, 2024
After many disappointing book on the filmic representation of history finally a positive example again. That is quite remarkable, because I have considerable reservations concerning some of her sources of inspiration.
The book starts with a useful account of former theoretical discussions on the representation on history in film. Then she formulates her approach takins inspiration from White's theory on various forms of emplotment in historiography, which I consider very original but in the end problematic, in particular in the way Rosenstone applies it to film (the second source of inspiration). Her third source of inspiration, David Bordwell's theory of narration in the film, is also an approach I admire, as he demonstrates, that narration in film is an action performed by the viewer who constructs the story on the basis of a variety visual and audible cues, usually with the help of genre conventions. Furthermore she follows him with regard to three major forms of narration (classical, historical-materialist, art cinema) to which she adds the category post-classical which she has defined in a previous book.
With this tool box Thanouli analyzes fiction films on WW II / The Holocaust and historical documentaries on the Vietnam War. I did not profit from the latter as I did not know the documentaries, but that it is not her fault. When it comes to the analysis of fiction films she demonstrates that the combination of Bordwell and White can serve very well to understand the interplay of plot and style in the chosen examples.
The main weak point of the book ´, however, remains her equation of filmic representation of history which goes back to White's lack of differentiation between authors who present interpretations of history and those who investigate history. The films Thanouli present or events or interpret them in fictional terms, none of them is based on research in the academic sense. Their written counterparts are hence historical nocels (or as an intermediate form dramas) as well as history books for the general reader. In this respect the approach based on White's understanding of emplotment makes sense.
Furthermore I wonder (this applies to the whole film and history literature) why practically no attention is paid to the representation of history in painting an other visual arts.
One more minor critical point: When Thanouli equates art cinema with left-wing politics I saw Bergman and Fellini rotating in their graves.
My review of White's Metahistory: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and of Rosenstone's History on Film / Film on History: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
________________________________
P.S.: The day after I had written this review, David Bordwell has passed away:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/memor...
The book starts with a useful account of former theoretical discussions on the representation on history in film. Then she formulates her approach takins inspiration from White's theory on various forms of emplotment in historiography, which I consider very original but in the end problematic, in particular in the way Rosenstone applies it to film (the second source of inspiration). Her third source of inspiration, David Bordwell's theory of narration in the film, is also an approach I admire, as he demonstrates, that narration in film is an action performed by the viewer who constructs the story on the basis of a variety visual and audible cues, usually with the help of genre conventions. Furthermore she follows him with regard to three major forms of narration (classical, historical-materialist, art cinema) to which she adds the category post-classical which she has defined in a previous book.
With this tool box Thanouli analyzes fiction films on WW II / The Holocaust and historical documentaries on the Vietnam War. I did not profit from the latter as I did not know the documentaries, but that it is not her fault. When it comes to the analysis of fiction films she demonstrates that the combination of Bordwell and White can serve very well to understand the interplay of plot and style in the chosen examples.
The main weak point of the book ´, however, remains her equation of filmic representation of history which goes back to White's lack of differentiation between authors who present interpretations of history and those who investigate history. The films Thanouli present or events or interpret them in fictional terms, none of them is based on research in the academic sense. Their written counterparts are hence historical nocels (or as an intermediate form dramas) as well as history books for the general reader. In this respect the approach based on White's understanding of emplotment makes sense.
Furthermore I wonder (this applies to the whole film and history literature) why practically no attention is paid to the representation of history in painting an other visual arts.
One more minor critical point: When Thanouli equates art cinema with left-wing politics I saw Bergman and Fellini rotating in their graves.
My review of White's Metahistory: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and of Rosenstone's History on Film / Film on History: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
________________________________
P.S.: The day after I had written this review, David Bordwell has passed away:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/memor...
August 29, 2019
excellent thought-provoking book about the relationship of history and cinema
November 15, 2023
A reading for class, learned much about how film can be a mode of history and the categories of that. Very well researched and written.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews