Moving Ahead into the Past. Historical Contexts in Recent Polish Cinema (original) (raw)
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In the past three decades, due to the work of some distinguished historians, the discussion of film is being slowly integrated into Western historiography. However, while relatively few academic historians would deny today film’s ability to instigate awareness to and enrich the understanding of historical experiences, many fewer are willing – and able – to incorporate film analysis in their own research and teaching. This impasse is particularly apparent in the case of “historical films,” in which past events and experiences are reconstructed, invented and framed in varying degrees of sophistication. The convincing arguments that established film as a “legitimate” narrator of historical reality often fell short of explicating how film should be integrated into academic history discourse. This article reads Rosenstone and Parvulescu’s recent collection of essays A Companion to Historical Film as a demonstration of different approaches taken by contemporary historians in an attempt to meet this challenge. Within this context, it identifies four paradigms, each involves different premises about the nature of film’s realism, its role as an agent of social change, and its dialog with “conventional” (national, institutional, etc.) narration of the past. The analysis of these paradigms – and the ways they have been implemented by the contributors to A Companion to Historical Film – shows their potential contribution to the study of historical realities, as well as their weaknesses and limitations. Insightfully presenting and discussing these approaches, I argue, Rosenstone and Parvulescu’s volume is an important step forward in the ongoing endeavor to methodologically incorporate film analysis in the academic research of history.
Res Historica , 2020
Abstract The article deals with the issue of strategy of historicizing film narrative and the world presented on a screen in historical cinema. It shows with what elements the film narrative and the world presented on a screen are historicized. In the introduction of the article, the most important analytical categories such as historical film and strategies of historicizing film narrative and the world presented on a screen are conceptualized. Historical film is defined as an operational category requiring conceptualization relativized to a cultural context of its use. A historical film is described as a screening work covering various genological structures, the subject of which relates to the past. The strategies of historicizing the film narrative and the film world presented on a screen are understood as numerous ways of equipping the film with various signs of historicity that allow the viewer/researcher to get an impression of the screen effect of a time shift towards the past. In the following parts of the article, the signs of historicity that have the function of historicizing the film narrative and the world presented on a screen are analyzed on the examples of various films covering a wide spectrum of history from ancient times to the present day. The Signs of historicity include the following elements: (1) scenery, stage design, costumes; (2) language; (3) music; (4) characterization; (5) events and characters. Strategies of historicizing the world presented on a screen and film narrative, which have been analyzed in the article, play a particularly important role in the so-called classic films made in the aesthetics of zero style cinema. Key words: visual history, historical film, film narrative, depicted world, staging, historicizing, set design, costumes, language, music, events, characters, makeup, mise-enscène.