Cinema and History – The Telling of Stories

With its unparalleled capacity for realism, cinema seems uniquely positioned to bring history to life for a mass audience. Whether retelling stories about past events or reflecting more contemporary issues, cinema has been arguably the primary source of historical knowledge for many people from its earliest years right up to the present. This volume examines some of the key historical issues raised by popular film, including what film might tell us about the past, the reliability of movies as sources of historical knowledge, and how film might compare to more ‘serious’ works of history. Combining historical methods with insights from linguistics and film studies, this study discusses the historical resonance of films such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Gangs of New York (2002) and United 93 (2006), and investigates the parameters and limitations of fiction film as a way to access history.