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Influence of media on history
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Filmmakers engage the past as a historian but not specifically in a way actual historians are doing. Historians use archived facts ranging from documents, photos, or objects from a specific time era to understand history. Contrastingly filmmakers as a historian can only bring to life a certain part of history without altering the past by focusing specifically on an aspect of the subject at hand. Scholars Marita Sturken and Barbie Zelizer argue how well-known filmmakers use film techniques or credibility in order to portray what happened in the past. Filmmakers as a historian is limited to only details they can use based on documents and archived history to re-tell a history through mise-en-scene to become a faux “historian”. Sturken and Zelizer would argue that filmmakers are not real historians; specifically how film can be made to manipulate the past towards the vision to get a narrative through that appeals to the film viewer and director. Filmmakers are not real historians since they can be biased to specific details of what occurred in the past.
Sturken wrote how Oliver Stone uses his own credibility to create his films about the Vietnam War from a soldier’s perspective. With Stone’s film Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Platoon (1986) is produced in a sense that interpreted, creates a narrative, and makes meaning of the history that has occurred in late American twentieth-century (Sturken, 65). Sturken is questioning the authenticity of Stone being a filmmaker with his status of being a historian and how the facts within the film are presented to accurately interpret of what actually happened in the past. The argument that Sturken makes about media texts and the reception films get only show a perspective from the fil...
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...nput in their own production. With the filmmaker selecting certain scenes or how narratives should play out, there is a re-telling of history. The input makes the filmmaker have a biased opinion to how history is told and that how the media texts operate in order to reinterpret the past. The past is different from how it is told within media texts unless it is a documentary since having well-known actors pulls the viewer out of the sense of authenticity and accuracy of the film.
Works Cited
Sturken, Marita. (1997), Reenactment, Fantasy, and the Paranoia of History: Oliver Stone's Docudramas. History and Theory, 36: 64–79. doi: 10.1111/0018-2656.00031
Zelizer, Barbie. "Every One in a While Schindler's List and the Shaping of History." Spielberg's Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler's List. By Yosefa Loshitzky. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997. 19-35. Web.
The Vietnam War has become a focal point of the Sixties. Known as the first televised war, American citizens quickly became consumed with every aspect of the war. In a sense, they could not simply “turn off” the war. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo is a firsthand account of this horrific war that tore our nation apart. Throughout this autobiography, there were several sections that grabbed my attention. I found Caputo’s use of stark comparisons and vivid imagery, particularly captivating in that, those scenes forced me to reflect on my own feelings about the war. These scenes also caused me to look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a soldier, which is not a perspective I had previously considered. In particular, Caputo’s account of
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Film making has gone through quite the substantial change since it’s initial coining just before the turn of the 19th century, and one would tend argue that the largest amount of this change has come quite recently or more so in the latter part of film’s history as a whole. One of the more prominent changes having taken place being the role of women in film. Once upon a time having a very set role in the industry, such as editing for example. To mention briefly the likes of Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker and so forth. Our female counterparts now occupy virtually every aspect of the film making industry that males do; and in many instances excel past us. Quite clearly this change has taken place behind the lens, but has it taken
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In Schindler’s List, as the Jews in Kraków are forced into the ghetto, a little girl on the street cries out, “Good-bye, Jews,” over and over again. She represents the open hostility often shown the Jews by their countrymen. After all, the little girl did not contain this hatred naturally—she learned it. Through her, Spielberg sends the message that the evil of the “final solution” infected entire communities.
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“Movies seem more natural than reality,” writes Cavell, “not because they are escapes into fantasy, but because they are reliefs from private fantasy and its responsibilities; from the fact that the world is already drawn by fantasy” (Cavell 102), the audience in Chance’s film seem to lose touch with reality while Besieged becomes the only reality they know. Chance declares himself a devotee of Griffith in believing that “the motion-picture camera would end conflicting interpretations of the past” because “all significant events would be recorded by movie cameras and film would offer irrefutable proof as to what had really happened” (Vanderhaeghe17). Although people are quick to fall victim to the intentional fallacy of film, there is always that chance of omitting an important significance that can change everything. Chance takes advantage of the audience knowing that what is seen on film projects a reality which viewers either accept or refuse and because “What’s up there on the screen moves too fast to permit analysis or argument” (Vanderhaeghe 107). Cinematic pictures are visible proof that cannot be argued (Vanderhaeghe 107). Time has the power to distort things, events, and facts. The camera can only capture so much, leaving room for the reality to alter. When Harry gives Chance his version of Shorty’s story, Chance insists that he rewrites it, saying, “Change the girl. The enemy is never human” (Vanderhaeghe
The movie “Schindler’s list” is a compelling, real-life depiction of the events that occurred during the 1940’s. It illustrates the persecution and horrific killings of the Jewish people. It also exemplifies the hope and will of the Jewish people, which undoubtedly is a factor in the survival of their race. The most important factor however is because of the willingness of one man, Oskar Schindler, to stand out and make a difference.
Sterritt, David. “HOLLYWOOD'S HOLOCAUST”. Tikkun 24.3 (2009): 60-62. Literary Reference Center. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.
Oliver Stone is best known from his portrayals of Vietnam in film. His movies “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July” have won him Academy Awards for best director. These movies not only depicted the violence of war, but also the cultural and psychological issues that the soldiers in these wars had to endure. The majority of his earliest and best known movies center around the Vietnam War. Oliver Stone’s experience in the military gave him a special insight that made his movies feel more authentic and convincing to audiences. These movies portray the struggles that soldiers and veterans of the Vietnam War had to face on and off the battlefield.
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Schindlers List "Memory is all we have, and when the memories are dreadful- when they hold images of the pain we have suffered or, perhaps inflicted- they are what we are try to escape" (Corliss 110). Steven Spielberg captures the audience in this critically acclaimed movie about the Holocaust. Schindlers List is a movie made to induce the mind into the unknown, the horrors of World War II. David Ansen states "Schindlers List plunges us into the nightmare of the Holocaust with newsreel-like urgency- and amazing restraint" (Newsweek 113). Spielberg brings out all emotions in recapturing this monstrous time period. Schindlers List is about Oskar Schindler, a German Nazi who uses the Jews to make money off the war. At the beginning of the movie Schindler is portrayed as a womanizer, gambler, and heavy drinker. He becomes friends with some top Nazi officials to better himself. As the movie progresses Schindler begins to produce war materials using the Jews as a labor force. As he sits back and watches the various actions of the Nazis he begins to question his morals. His accountant, Itzhak Stern, begins making a list of around 1200 Jews. These Jews were to come and work in Schindlers' factory. When Germany surrendered all of the Nazis were to be hunted. Many Jews thanked him and all of the workers wrote a letter explaining Schindlers' actions. Also, a gold ring was given to him inscribed, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire" (Talmud). Schindler said good-bye to his workers and fled. Only now the Jews are liberated to have nowhere to go and nowhere to leave. Many great directors concentrate on dialogue, scenery, and plat; however, Spielberg stresses the importance of camera angles and the effect of black and white film, scenes and characters, on viewers in Schindlers List. With his outstanding work on camera angles, Steven Spielberg holds the audience at breath while waiting for the next scene. Spielberg uses a hand held camera to grasp the effects. David Denby explains how the use of a handheld camera is much more accurate. "The camera keeps moving […] moving fast, chasing corners and up stairways […]." Spielberg makes the movie look "like and advertent look of newsreel footage" (1282). Life magazine quoted Spielberg discussing the image of Amon Goeth sunbathing. A man named Raymon...