Traditional historical documentaries strive to project a sense of objectivity, producing a top-down view of history that focuses on public events and personalities. In recent decades, in line with historiographical trends advocating “history from below,” a different type of historical documentary has emerged, focusing on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efrén Cuevas categorizes these films as “microhistorical documentaries” and examines how they push cinema’s capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions. Cuevas pinpoints the key features of these documentaries, identifying their parallels with written microhistory: a reduced scale of observation, a central role given to human agency, a conjectural approach to the use of archival sources, and a reliance on narrative structures. Microhistorical documentaries also use tools specific to film to underscore the affective dimension of historical narratives, often incorporating autobiographical and essayistic perspectives, and highlighting the role of the protagonists’ personal memories in the reconstruction of the past. These films generally draw from family archives, with an emphasis on snapshots and home movies. Filming History from Below examines works including Péter Forgács’s films dealing with the Holocaust such as The Maelstrom and Free Fall; documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Rithy Panh’s work on the Cambodian genocide; films about the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War such as A Family Gathering and History and Memory; and Jonas Mekas’s chronicle of migration in his diary film Lost, Lost, Lost.

Operating between film theory, media philosophy, archival practice, and audiovisual research, Jiri Anger focuses on the relationship between figuration and materiality in early films, experimental found footage cinema, and video essays. Would it be possible to do film theory from below, through the perspective of moving-image objects, of their multifarious details and facets, however marginal, unintentional, or aleatory they might be? Could we treat scratches, stains, and shakes in archival footage as speculatively and aesthetically generative features? Do these material actors have the capacity to create “weird shapes” within the figurative image that decenter, distort, and transform the existing conceptual and methodological frameworks? Building on his theoretical as well as practical experience with the recently digitized corpus of the first Czech films, created by Jan Kríženecký between 1898 and 1911, the author demonstrates how technological defects and accidents in archival films shape their aesthetic function and our understanding of the materiality of film in the digital age. The specific clashes between the figurative and material spheres are understood through the concept of a “crack-up.” This term, developed by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and theoretically reimagined by Gilles Deleuze, allows us to capture the convoluted relationship between figuration and materiality as inherent to the medium of film, containing negativity and productivity, difference and simultaneity, contingency and fate, at the same time, even within the tiniest cinematic units.

History on Film/Film on History has established itself as a classic treatise on the historical film and its role in bringing the past to life. In the fourth edition of this widely acclaimed text, Robert A. Rosenstone argues that to leave history films out of the discussion of the meaning of the past is to ignore a major means of understanding historical events. This book examines what history films convey about the past and how they convey it, demonstrating the need to learn how to read and understand this new visual world and integrating detailed analysis of films such as Schindler’s List, Glory, October, and Reds. Advocating for the dramatic feature as a legitimate way of doing history, this edition includes a new Preface and a new chapter that focuses on films produced in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, India, and East Asia. Examining the codes and conventions of how these films tell us about the past and providing guidance on how to effectively analyse films as historical interpretations, this book is an essential introduction to the field for students of history and film.

Acclaimed historian Jane Kamensky chronicles an indelible twentieth-century American life—and offers an entirely new understanding of the so-called sexual revolution. Whether in front of the camera or behind it, Candice Vadala understood herself as both an artist and an entrepreneur. As Candida Royalle (1950–2015)—underground actress, porn star, producer of adult movies, and staunch feminist—she made a business of pleasure. She helped crystalize the broader hedonistic turn in American life in the second half of the twentieth century: a period when the rules of sex were rewritten; when the white-hot “sex wars” cleaved feminism and realigned American politics; when Big Freud, Big Drugs, and Big Porn all came into looming focus; when the sex industry of the 1970s and ’80s radically upended conventional understandings of law, technology, culture, love, and human desire. The sexual revolution was Royalle’s war—even when other avowed feminists exited the field or became her opponents—and pornography emerged as the arena in which she would wage it. With the founding of her adult film company, Femme Productions, in 1984, Royalle became an owner of the means of pornographic production, infusing her sets with the ideals of labor feminism. On-screen and off-, she was, by turns, exuberant and thoughtful, self-possessed and gleefully shameless. A trailblazer who lived along the cultural fault lines of her generation, she danced at Woodstock, marched for women’s liberation, survived the AIDS crisis, and became a talk show regular, interviewed by Phil Donahue, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Morton Downey Jr., Jane Pauley, and many others. As a performer, director, producer, and writer, she moved the needle of her industry. But she never transcended the politics of pleasure. With full access to Royalle’s remarkable archive, historian Jane Kamensky has spent years examining the intersection of Royalle’s life with the clashes that have defined her era—and ours. Deeply informed by these never-before-studied materials, Kamensky explodes the conventions of biography, with its assumptions about who makes history and how. Written with cinematic verve, Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution evokes Royalle’s times in their broadest contours as Kamensky traces the rise of an improbable heroine who broke the mold and was herself broken in turn.

The Routledge Companion to History and the Moving Image takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding history in moving images. It engages this popular and dynamic field that has evolved rapidly from film and television to digital streaming into the age of user-created content. The volume addresses moving image history through a theoretical lens; modes and genres; representation, race, and identity; and evolving forms and formats. It brings together a range of scholars from across the globe who specialize in film and media studies, cultural studies, history, philosophy of history, and education. Together, the chapters provide a necessary contemporary analysis that covers new developments and questions that arise from the shift to digital screen culture. The book examines technological and ethical concerns stemming from today’s media landscape, but it also considers the artificial construction of the boundaries between professional expertise and amateur production. Each contributor’s unique approach highlights the necessity of engaging with moving images for the academic discipline of history. The collection, written for a global audience, offers accessible discussions of historiography and a compelling resource for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in history, film and media studies, and communications. Both Chapter 17 and the Afterword of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Over the last century, many 16th- and 17th-century events and personalities have been brought before home, cinema, exhibition, festival and theatrical audiences. This collection examines these representations, looking at recent television series, documentaries, pageantry, theatre and popular culture in various cultural and linguistic guises.

The fourth edition of Bill Nichols's best-selling text, Introduction to Documentary, has been vastly altered in its entirety to bring this indispensable textbook up to date and reconceptualize aspects of its treatment of documentaries past and present. Here Nichols, with Jaimie Baron, has edited each chapter for clarity and ease of use and expanded the book with updates and new ideas. Featuring abundant examples and images, Introduction to Documentary, Fourth Edition is designed to facilitate a rich understanding of how cinema can be used to document the historical world as it is seen by a wide variety of filmmakers. Subjectivity, expressivity, persuasiveness, and credibility are crucial factors that move documentary film away from objective documentation and toward the thought-provoking realm of arguments, perceptions, and perspectives that draw from a filmmaker's unique sensibility to help us see the world as we have not seen it before. Exploring ethics, history, different modes of documentary, key social issues addressed, and both the origins and evolution of this form, this updated volume also offers guidance on how to write about documentaries and how to begin the process of making one. Introduction to Documentary, Fourth Edition will be of use not only to film students but also those in adjacent fields where visual representations of reality play an important role: journalism, sociology, anthropology, feminist and ethnic studies, among others.

This volume examines Ibero-American as well as Slavic literatures of the 21st century and studies how historical imaginaries in family narratives are functionalized for both individual and collective and (post-)national identities. The analysis proceeds along three conceptual axes. What these narratives have in common is that they construct specific constellations of the historical imagination and of family, whereby 'family' is here conceived not so much as an organic micro-unity, but rather as changing, multiple relations between individual members, godparents, first- and second-degree relatives, non-blood-related family members, present and absent members, adopted children, etc. Furthermore, these novels are often grounded in trans-generational memories. They are written by members of a generation that, as a rule, did not directly experience these historical events. It is also significant that these narratives are no longer conceived as representing national identities, but paradigmatically speak for a collective that defines itself in regional, ethnic, religious or ideological terms. It seems, therefore, that these narratives of family constellations are in need of more flexible typological rubrics and interpretive frameworks. Intended as a sustained comparative study of these family narratives, this volume is a contribution in understanding how historical caesura, experiences, and their literary representation work on the self-understanding of the present.

This unique collection of writings and interviews highlights the important role that cinema can play for understanding Russian history, politics, culture and society in all phases-Tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet. "This is the book for the Russian movie aficionado - personal, pointed, funny, frank and full of all kinds of inside stories and political folk tales. It is a fascinating window on Soviet/Russian pop culture that only a cultural Marco Polo and fanatical movie-goer like Louis Menashe would even dare attempt."-Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Russians and The New Russians"Menashe combines an encyclopedic knowledge of Russian history and society of the past 50 years with a broad-ranging and sensitive eye for cinematic meaning and detail."-Anthony Anemone, The New School University"This sparkling collection of film reviews, essays and interviews with filmmakers is a cultural history of Russia over the past 25 years. Highly recommended to everyone interested in Russia and the movies."-Denise J. Youngblood, University of Vermont, and author of Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds."A great national cinema is explored in its myriad colors and textures. Not a traditional history, the book is an archive of insights captured across years of passionate viewing."-Jerry W. Carlson, The City College and Graduate Center CUNY, host of the popular program, "City Cinematheque.""Menashe allows us to see both Russia's present and her past through his crisp, clear and fresh lens of a true expert who loves the country and its films, but always remains critical enough to see their flaws and merits."-Birgit Beumers, University of Bristol

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.