Film - A Source of History

Films represent the most widely accepted visual media of the modern period, which can be used as a source of historical research. People take history written by trained historians seriously because they think the historian knows better than anyone else. But there are historical productions outside the world of historians, which may be used as a source of further historical research. One can’t even think of history, especially modern history, without reference to its visual representation. In this regard, films can claim to present an alternative to written history to some extent. History in film form is developed through the story of the individual because of the manner of the medium. The camera creates a connection between the viewers and the individuals on the screen. The actions of the individuals represent the history of a larger group. The film also depicts history through one story, one perspective of the past. History in the film is always told as a story, with a beginning, middle and, end, which delivers a moral message meant to show how history is progressive.

Hayden White and the Concept of ‘Historiophoty'

Hayden White, the American postmodern historian, coined the term ‘historiophoty’ to describe the representation of history in visual images. The concept of historiophoty refers to the “representation of history and our thought about it in visual images and filmic discourse”. Currently, the term is used by historians to understand how films produce interpretations of the past.  Hayden White argues that the historical process that films and written documents use to interpret their data is the same. The historian and filmmaker both construct their version of a historical document. The historian interprets and constructs the written word from facts. Similarly, the filmmaker interprets the written word into a visual representation.

Historical Films and Mainstream Films

Within the world of cinema, with its various genres, there are different types of films. Rosenstone, a professor at the California Institute of Technology divides historical films into two parts: history as a document – the documentary, and history as drama - the mainstream film. Both the historical films and mainstream films, directly and indirectly, serve as a source of history.

Historical Films

These are consciously produced histories, that represent ‘film as a document’, which carefully recreates the past in great detail. A film in this category often relies heavily on oral history to travel between the past and present in the making of historical documentaries. The popular types of historical films are: 

• Historical documentaries: These were produced on a particular theme with a view to document our history and tradition, and are the result of well-designed research work.
• Biopics: This type of film focuses on the life of an individual with a view to documenting his contributions
• Propaganda films: These are intended to propagate different ideologies, especially used for political propaganda.
• ‘Period’ films: These types of films recreates a particular historical period with its unique aspects of people’s life.
• Costume dramas: These films focus on the display of various costumes of different cultures rather than the people.  

The strength of the historical film lies in emotionalising, personalising, and dramatizing the past. Historical films offer the viewers a window to look into the past. The greatest asset of the historical film is its ability to show history as an integrated process to a curious audience. It is this ability of the film which poses the greatest challenge to written history. Historians also try to paint a holistic picture of the past.

Historical films are essentially fiction, but it becomes a preferred mode of receiving and understanding the past in contemporary society. Historical films are fictional to a lesser or greater extent, otherwise, they would bore the audience and fail at the box office. Without the play of imagination, fictional characters invented minor events, and emotional responses of historical persons the historical films cannot be made.

Mainstream Films

Pierre Sorlin asserts that feature films could be considered a more important source of history than historical documentaries. Here, the camera records history unintentionally and this enables us to reflect on geographical and social reality. Outdoor shooting is important here, it might display significant historical details pertaining to various aspects of life, which can rarely escape from the camera like social relations, urban or rural life, geographical features, trees, roads, bridges, monuments, streets, architecture, onlookers, civic amenities or their absence, means of transport, clothes people wear, expressions on people’s faces, etc. Feature films shoot outdoors tend to incorporate valuable information on topography and infrastructure. All this comprises valuable source material for history.

Film as an Alternative Source of History

The positivist and Rankean approaches to history brought the scientific and factual representation of history. This stressed the use of purely historical documents and scientific methods in the writing of history and fixed the necessary characteristics of a historical source. Hence, most historians are reluctant to accept the film and other visual media as historical sources. The fact is that neither a film representation nor a written document can provide a literal truth of history. Instead, the written text generalizes and the film summarizes. Specific images are needed in the film to present a coherent narrative, while the written word can generalize ideas and events. The popularity of historical films beats books. Robert Rosentone’s idea is that “film is a disturbing symbol of an increasingly post-literate world (in which people can read but won’t)”.

Films draw out attention to many emotions that written history either ignores or cannot express. Films often highlight systemic exploitation, the underworld, wage slavery, the emotional trauma of women, or problems of migrant labourers and the unemployed. Written words are often not enough to express complicated feelings in a condensed form. Perhaps this is where the power of film makes a difference.

The viewers’ connection to the film is essential with the film’s use of presenting history through emotion and personalization. Allowing the viewer to experience the history through sensory means immediately makes the viewer feel connected to the past. With its cinematographic and editing techniques, along with the use of sets and costumes, films present the past visually. This, in a sense, brings history to life, or at least attempts to present it in a multi-layered context; the landscape, utensils, homes, clothing, and personal interactions all work together to show the bigger picture, rather than focusing on one fact after another.

While the written text will often sort aspects of history into different groupings, such as politics, religion, economics, and social structure, the film will integrate and connect all the aspects and definitions of history. As Rosenstone states, “history in the film becomes what it most centrally is: a process of changing social relationships where political and social questions…are interwoven.” The film often compresses historical figures into certain stereotypes that offer a diverse representation of the population, using the obvious differences between the characters to illustrate the conflicts and tensions commonly found in that culture or society.

Ultimately every film is a historical artifact or datum. Each is created as mass entertainment; each offers a commentary on the filmmaker’s world through moving images that serve as surrogates for the lived realities of audiences. The patterns of repeated images from the film to film and director to director – the themes they repeat, emotions they stir, and meanings they suggest – allow us to analyze the ‘historical role’ of the cinema of a particular period. The vast holdings of the world's film archives offer to the historian a priceless source material for the study of modern civilisation.