Introducing Theoretical Issues Through Popular Historical Films

Abstract

     Having enjoyed (or endured) linguistic and cultural turns, we historians are now faced with a "pictorial turn."¹ As a number of commentators and practitioners in the rapidly burgeoning sub-discipline of "history and film" have observed, we now inhabit a post-literate society in which the majority of people gain historical information from movies and television.² After teaching courses on historical film for seven years, I am convinced that popular historical films (Hollywood) provide an effective means of not only engaging (sometimes reluctant) students with the past but also of demonstrating key elements of all historical knowledge and its representational modes.³  These are professionally-central historiographical and theoretical concerns that are difficult to broach without a degree of abstraction usually beyond the experience and interest of most undergraduates. I now teach a first-year course "History on Film" that coheres around a study of films illustrative of themes, processes, events, and personalities in late medieval and early modern Western Civilization. The following discussion outlines the introductory class in this course and its connection with later teaching themes and strategies. It shows how popular historical films provide a uniquely effective means whereby students can acquire "high-order [historical] skills."⁴
     In all my teaching, I take care to construct the initial class in a course as a miniature version of the entire course. I outline the content and model the skills that I expect students to acquire throughout the semester. In many ways, the rest of the course provides reinforcement, elaboration, and practice in these themes, skills, and content.