Module Information

History has been a source of raw material for film-makers since moving pictures were first made in the late 19th century. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots provided one early subject (1895) and the Early Modern period has continued to dominate film-makers’ interests because of its combination of richly-documented and melodramatic events, colourful lives and costumes. Our view of the period, and perhaps of ‘the past’ as a whole, is heavily influenced by the films which have depicted it on screen. But historians have only recently begun to study the impact of such films, and to use the medium themselves. This module explores a range of films made for the cinema, TV or other media to consider their potential as vehicles for historical representation, and their relationship with both the primary evidence, and with historians’ own accounts of the past.

The module will introduce history students to the history of film-making itself, and to the process whereby films are conceived, researched, scripted and shot. The use by 20th-century historians of film as primary source material will be considered briefly, alongside the development of sophisticated market analysis tools and the study of audience response as means of gauging the cultural and economic impact of particular films. The idea of ‘early modernity’ as understood by historians will be explored, and the uses to which this period has been put by film-makers, particularly since the 1940s. Long-term changes in the ways in which history has been presented will be discussed, and the rationale behind the choice of subject and treatment adopted. The skills in question will be both those of the historian, tasked with reconstructing the past as accurately as possible, and of the film-maker, committed to the creation of a vivid and persuasive reconstruction of the past. How far the ethical, professional and commercial ambitions of the two vary will also be considered. After 4 introductory sessions, discussion will be organised around a number of themes: culture, gender, race, religion, monarchy and empire.