Description
Book SynopsisRosenstone investigates how a visual medium, subject to conventions of drama and fiction, might be used as a serious vehicle for thinking about our relationship with the past. Employing such films as
Reds,
JFK, and
Sans Soleil, he considers issues like the rapport between fact and film and the documentary as visionary truth.
Trade ReviewIf you're in search of a thoughtful overview of film and history as rival routes to the past, check out the essays collected in
Visions of the Past...Rosenstone nicely reverses the assumption that history exists only on paper, approved and stamped by historians. -- Carlin Romano * Chicago Tribune *
[A] fascinating analysis of the traditional and nontraditional historical film...This is solid scholarship written in a manner that makes it accessible for a wide range of readers. * Choice *
The pieces represent work over a wide time span and demonstrate Rosenstone's evolving attitude toward the historical movie...The author knows of his subject from various perspectives...[and] presents his arguments simply and clearly, without drowning the reader in jargon or obtuse references. Well recommended. * Library Journal *
In these essays, Rosenstone writes with the fervor of the convert...urging historians to admit that film can often do what books can't...Rosenstone is really rooting for modernist or post-modern cinema--the likes of Alex Cox, Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha--as the only adequate chroniclers of our fractured sense of the past. * Sight and Sound *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Personal, Professional, and (a Little) Theoretical PART 1: HISTORY IN IMAGES 1. History in Images / History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film 2. The Historical Film: Looking at the Past in a Postliterate Age PART 2: THE HISTORICAL FILM 3. Reds as History 4.The Good Fight: History, Memory, Documentary 5. JFK: Historical Fact / Historical Film 6.Walker: The Dramatic Film as (Postmodern) History 7.Sans Soleil: The Documentary as (Visionary) Truth PART 3: THE FUTURE OF THE PAST 8. Re-visioning History: Contemporary Filmmakers and the Construction of the Past 9.Film and the Beginnings of Postmodern History 10. What You Think about When You Think about Writing a Book on History and Film Notes Sources Acknowledgments Index
