Film and the Historian

“Philip Gillett opens Film and the Historian: The British Experience by discussing ways in which film texts can be used as legitimate historical sources, both within film studies and outside the discipline. Beginning with an outline of work conducted by pioneering film scholars of the 1970s, Gillett then highlights important studies by British authors Jeffery Richards and Anthony Aldgate, particularly relevant since Britain is the country of the monograph’s focus. […] Gillett states that, like the disciplines it has borrowed from, including anthropology, sociology and literature, film studies has had to fight for acceptance. He notes that the field earned acceptance only when scholars began applying semiotic, Marxist, feminist and psychological theory. […] As he points out, for historians, film is just one source among many, and historical film remains a contentious issue that raises its own particular problems. […] A wide range of sources are employed throughout the book, clearly divided in the bibliography under sections titled official papers; unpublished sources; reference websites, trade papers, yearbooks and newspapers; books and journal articles. Particularly poignant is the close of chapter four, which states that at the core of cinema lies ‘the illusion that the flickering shadows are real people playing out their lives for the audience’ (p. 67). Furthermore, while many of these stories have ancient roots, they are also interwoven with contemporary concerns. The problem, according to the author, is how to critically approach this since they are ‘difficult to compare and open to varied interpretations’ (p. 67). He concludes that, although anthropologists and ethnologists may be required in order to decipher these, this is no reason for not attempting the task (p. 67).”