The Historian and Film

Book excerpt: Film is increasingly engaging the attention of students of history at all levels. In its manifold forms from the newsreel to the 'feature', it is a major source of evidence for, and an important influence upon, contemporary history, and a vivid means of bringing the recent past to life. For earlier periods, it provides a medium in which the often widely dispersed visual evidences of the past can be brought together for the student. It offers the historian a new form in which to interpret and present his subject, and, as television has shown, it is by far the most important vehicle for the presentation of history to mass audiences. The analysis of its content and impact and the exploration of its uses are especially fitted to bring history into an interdisciplinary relationship with other fields, from sociology to the visual arts.