Hollywood has a productive, if problematic, relationship with the past. It is problematic from the perspective of those who criticise or dismiss the historical film for its mythic tendencies, factual inaccuracies, fictiveness, superficiality, oversimplification, and narrow or ‘partisan’ point of view, of which scholars of traditional historiography have been the most vocal group. Productive, because the past has provided a bountiful source of characters, narrative situations, and visual ideas for the American film industry, and its representation on film is second only in popularity to the photograph.1 It follows, therefore, that this relationship has also been highly profitable. To the many critics of the historical film, however, this process of commodification is at the root of the numerous inadequacies of the cinematic past. Yet for historical filmmakers, on the other hand, only too aware of the commercial imperatives of the Hollywood film industry, it represents the ‘bottom line’ or ultimate justification for their approach: they recognise that the complexity, abstract distance and analytical nature of written histories are at odds with the priorities of the audience. These tend to an absorbing storyline, sympathetic characters, compelling themes, captivating action and visual spectacle, all qualities strongly influenced—unconsciously and intentionally—by contemporary tastes, values, attitudes and concerns: relevancy being key to success. And while for some such priorities serve to highlight the irreconcilable differences between filmic representations of the past and history ‘proper’, it is precisely these perceived shortcomings that make historical films such informative historical documents, not about the events they represent, but about the period in which they were made.
Proceeding from this premise, this thesis investigates the different ways in which American ‘historical films’ produced between 1967 and 1980, an era commonly referred to as the New Hollywood, mediated the concerns of the present. This was a period of declining and fragmenting audiences, crisis and readjustment within the film industry, and conflict and turbulence within wider society, all factors that gave rise to the diversity of the era’s cinema, which ranged from traditional representations to stylistically bold genre revisionism, as well as movies variously configured in an effort to recapture cinema’s lost mass audience. The past as it was projected on to the nation’s screens during this time was similarly varied, and as a site of both escapist nostalgia and critical reflection, historical films expressed the cultural values, assumptions and contradictions of the period in complex and compelling ways. The meanings and pleasures of the New Hollywood historical film, and how they mediated the concerns of the present are examined across six key case studies.
Scholarly research into the filmic representation of history is wide ranging, and includes books that focus upon the conceptual and methodological approach to historical filmmaking with reference to a varied and diverse range of historical films, as well as on specific generic ‘types’ (e.g., the Second World War combat movie), historical periods (the Tudors), national cinemas (the British historical film), eras of filmmaking (the contemporary Hollywood historical film), historical themes (slavery) and individual figures (Elizabeth I). By critically surveying this discourse, this introductory chapter sets out the approach to and expansive definition of the historical film utilised by this study.2 Likewise, with reference to recent scholarship on the New Hollywood, a broader and more inclusive definition of the term is offered, which reflects the true range and scope of the period’s filmmaking. The method of the thesis, which utilises archival collections and a range of primary sources to analyse contexts of production and reception, alongside close readings of each film, is then explained in depth. A description of each case study completes the chapter.
The Historical Film: Discourse and Definition
Central to the development of the debate over the contribution historical films make to our understanding of history was the creation of the academic journal Film and History in 1971, which advocated the use of film in historical research or as a pedagogical tool. While the main focus of discussion within the ‘film and history’ movement was the use of actuality footage or documentary film as a primary source, the representation of history in feature films was also considered an important area of inquiry. This centred on issues of accuracy and authenticity, but was also informed by the recognition that film was inescapably shaped by its historical ‘moment’ of production, or was understood to ‘reflect’ the social and political concerns of the period in which it was made.3 The idea of film as a ‘mirror’ of society was posited in From Caligari to Hitler (1947), Siegfried Kracauer’s seminal study of 1930s German cinema. Kracauer’s analysis was subsequently criticised for its reliance upon speculative social psychology and its lack of historical rigour, but nonetheless established a key foundational concept in this area of film scholarship. A revised version of Kracauer’s reflectionist model is employed in a number of important studies from the 1970s, including Jeffrey Richards’ Visions of Yesterday and Robert Sklar’s Movie-Made America.4 Research into the evidential value of cinema during the 1980s, such as the influential edited anthology American History/American Film (1988), however, rejected the fundamental notion of film as a reflection of society. In the book’s preface, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. contends that cinema ‘is a notably ambiguous, even duplicitous art’, and as such its relationship to contemporary society is far more complex and challenging. To unlock ‘the rich potential … of film as historical artifacts’, he writes, requires ‘analysing them in their broader cultural context, and paying close attention to historical content, production, background and audience reception.’5
The inextricable link between the filmic past and the concerns of the present is also the central premise of Marc Ferro’s Cinéma et Histoire (1977) and Pierre Sorlin’s The Film in History (1980). In the latter study, the author defines the historical film as ‘a reconstruction of the social relationship which, using the pretext of the past, reorganises the present.’6 Yet in spite of this conceptual common ground, significant differences distinguish the approach of these studies from the ‘film and history’ school of thought. Taking the form of a theoretical reflection on the nature of the historical film, Ferro’s and Sorlin’s analyses are less concerned with issues of accuracy or authenticity than they are with the ideological construction of film texts. Assessing the role of ideology in shaping filmic history, Ferro, for example, makes the ‘distinction … between films inscribed in the flow of dominant (or oppositional) currents of thought and those that propose an independent or innovative view of societies.’ As well as having ‘separated themselves from ideological forces’ the other criterion for inclusion in this latter grouping of ‘good’ historical filmmaking, which includes the work of ‘auteur’ directors Sembene Ousmane, Jean Renoir and Luchino Visconti, is that ‘the writing be cinematic.’7
The theoretical orientation of these studies, and the underlying conviction that clear distinctions should be drawn between cinematic history and history in written form, laid the foundations for the second major paradigm of historical film analysis which emerged in the last two decades. Robert Brent Toplin and Robert Rosenstone, two leading proponents of this conceptual approach, strongly assert that historical filmmaking must be judged according to its own conventions and characteristics, and that it has the potential to be more than simply a primary source document. Thus, it is crucial to acknowledge that compared to written history, argues Toplin, history on film, owing to the constraints of time or the commercial priorities of movie drama, is variously individualised, emotionalised, morally uplifting, simplified, compressed, ‘partisan’, ‘closed’ and a blend of factual truth and fictional invention.8 Yet, contrary to the view of many traditional historians, these qualities are not necessarily grounds for disparaging film as a medium of history, not least because they make the past compelling to a broad and diverse audience. Neither do they preclude a film from achieving a reasonable fidelity to the documentable ‘truth’, and conveying ‘thoughtful, even insightful perspectives of history.’9 In fact, written history, as Rosenstone points out, is not fundamentally dissimilar to historical film. It is an interpretative narrative or ‘story’ that lends emphasis or gives meaning to a selection of raw data, or in other words, at its basis, is an ideological construct that is part objective science and part creative invention.10 Any judgement over the historical value of film, he notes, should consider its distinctive strengths: its ‘factuality and texture’ or ‘objects of history’, and its representation of metaphorical or symbolic ‘truth’.11
For these two scholars, however, only a small minority of films with past settings exhibit the requisite qualities and characteristics to qualify as ‘historical’. First and foremost a film must be based on actual events and real personages. Thus costume dramas are excluded, such as Gone With the Wind (1939), for example, because, writes Rosenstone, it ‘ignores’ the ‘ongoing discourse about both the Civil War and race relations in America’, and ‘uses the exotic locale of the past as no more than a setting for romance and adventure.’12 Similarly, for Toplin ‘Faction’, a category that includes Gladiator, U-571 and The Patriot (all 2000), for example, falls outside the bounds of serious and insightful historical filmmaking, because they ‘do not place real events or people at core of narrative.’13 But a film’s basis in the documentable past is not the sole criterion, he argues, and it may fail to make the grade for a number of other reasons; for example, for taking too many liberties with the historical record (Mississippi Burning [1988] and Amistad [1997]), or for the ‘failure to deliver exciting drama’ (Heaven’s Gate [1980]).14 Models of success in historical film are the recipients of Toplin’s awards for special achievement, and include: Das Boot (1981) and Saving Private Ryan...