Can film be used to illustrate the past or is it more dangerous than useful?

Postmodernists claim that feature films are just as a valid source at discovering history as any other methods of gathering evidence to create a bigger picture of the past. Cinema and film are undoubtedly of huge cultural and social significance, millions of people go to the cinema, in 2011 1.28 billion tickets were sold in the US alone[1], to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster, so what better place is there to contain a message or tell history? The audiences look on as films look into the past telling us stories of the Second World War, Vietnam War and of racial injustice in America. However, can feature films such as Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986), Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978) and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) be used as evidence to paint a picture of the Vietnam and Second World wars? Or do films like the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation (a film undoubtedly racist but also one of the most important films in American cinema for its technical innovations) present difficulties at using film as a historical source? There are many issues at using film as a historical source, however, there are also many positives and these positives outweigh the dangers of using film as a historical source.

The Woman in Black

It's 11 days into the shortest month of the year and The Woman in Black is the first 2012 film I have actually seen, of course Britain often gets films after the US, but from the 2012 films released so far, very few have been of particular interest to me, and some I have not had the time to see. Anyway, many will know of the stage play of The Woman in Black, which is the second longest running play in the history of West End, which has been terrifying people for the past 23 years, both the book and the play are held in high regard, can the film do both the novel and the play justice?

No Beginners luck required for Sean Durkin as Martha Marcy May Marlene is superb, but The Debt he owns Lizzie Olsen is huge. (Sorry, best I could do.)

Directed by John Madden (the director of the 1998 Best Picture Winner Shakespeare In Love )The Debt is a rather forgettable story of revenge. The Debt is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name and stars Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington and Marton Csokas as MOSSAD (the Israeli intelligence service) agents planning to kidnap notorious war criminal Dieter Vogel – aka The Surgeon of Birkenau – played by Jesper Christensen. These three agents wish to bring back this Nazi war criminal to Israel and give him the justice he deserves. The story is told in a nonlinear narrative as the plot flashes back from the early 60s to the year 1997, and this is done with some success in terms of narrative, but does present some clear casting issues. Within the hour the film loses its spark and its power to entertain despite the rising tensions and tempers between the central characters as they spend far too much time cooped up in a dingy little house.  The two male agents, Stefan Gold and David Pertez (Csokas and Worthington) are rather unprofessional as they develop feelings towards Rachael (Chastain and Helen Mirren) who swings between the two male characters, but this melodrama is rather tiresome and mundane. The performances are fine as the cast is made up of some well known stars (Chastain, Helen Mirren and Worthington) but the older versions of the characters look nothing like their younger selves so, at first, one cannot be certain to who is who, with the exception of Rachel Singer. One does wonder why they couldn’t use make up. That aside The Debt is still rather uninvolving due to the fact that these characters, who we spend a great deal of time with, just are not interesting enough.

Coriolanus review.

The most well known example of Shakespeare’s works being adapted into a modern setting, but with his older form of the English language intact, is Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet (1996) which had all the aspects of the modern age (cars, guns, etc) but kept the Shakespearian dialogue. It was an attempt to get younger people more interested in Shakespeare, it worked to an extent that Leonardo Di Caprio became a teenage heart throb and starred in that little known film Titanic. The film is also more popular among audiences then many Shakespeare adaptations. Ralph Fiennes also adapts Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in a modern setting (with Belgrade standing in for Rome), and this is also a play with some relevant political undertones when considering the political climate of today. 

War Horse review

Steven Spielberg is a master at tugging the heartstrings; films like E.T, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List are a perfect example of this. Spielberg has gotten some criticism for being too overly sentimental, while there is a foundation to build an argument upon it is unfair to use that one critique to discredit the amazing body of work Spielberg has done. War Horse is another one of those tear jerking Spielberg movies, while it is poignant, War Horse is not in the same league as ET.

The Iron Lady

Margret Thatcher is a woman who invites a great deal of strong opinions, her ruthless taxes and cost-cutting policies spilt the nation, undoubtedly she has become one of the most hated Prime Ministers in British history. The Iron Lady (Thatcher was given that nickname by communist Russia) concerns Margret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) in her elderly years and in declining health as she is suffering from dementia which causes her to have hallucinations of her late husband Denis (Jim Broadbent). The main focus of the story is Thatcher’s old age, but the film revisits the major moments of Thatcher’s life, and political career such as the Falkland’s War, her controversial policies and how she became the most powerful person in the country in an area dominated by men.

The Artist

Alfred Hitchcock once said ‘If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on’ The Artist is one of those films. Without dialogue for 99.9% of its running time The Artist is quite a niche product for Harvey Weinstein Production Company and it has turned out to be an absolute critical hit and a favourite for Best Picture Oscar (which would be company’s second Best Picture in a row).