Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision [Anglais] [Broché]

A history professor at Princeton University, Natalie Zemon Davis (The Return of Martin Guerre; Women on the Margins) is also a seasoned critic of historical film. With Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision, she discusses how movies represent history differently than books do. Can narrative films achieve the accuracy and authenticity that writers can? "Can there be lively cinematic equivalents to what prose histories try to accomplish in prefaces, bibliographies, and notes and through their modifying and qualifying words 'perhaps,' 'maybe,' and 'we are uncertain about'?" In order to answer these questions, Davis looks at a handful of films that have attempted to capture themes of slavery, struggle and rebellion (Spartacus, Burn!, The Last Supper, Amistad and Beloved) and analyzes the devices they've used to convey history, as they understand and wish to express it. It is her hope that "with patience, imagination, and experimentation, historical narration through film could become both more dramatic and more faithful to the sources from the past." (Harvard Univ., $22.95 176p ISBN 0-674-00444-2; Sept.) Given that Shakespeare is one of the world's most famous interpreters of history, it seems fitting that the 14 academics whose essays form Shakespeare, Film, Fin de Si?cle believe that the recent surge of Shakespearean films (Shakespeare in Love, Hamlet, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet) reflects modern man's association of millennium-sized issues with the Bard himself. Edited by Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray (respectively, a reader and a lecturer in English at Queen's University of Belfast), the volume tackles such topics as advancing technology, families at risk and cultural intolerance. Included among the provocative pieces is a gem of an interview with Kenneth Branagh. (St. Martin's, $42 272p ISBN 0-312-23148-2; Aug.)
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Davis (history, emeritus, Princeton Univ.) branches off from her central studies on 17th-century French and women's history to assess the historical truths of five films on slavery: Spartacus, Burn!, The Last Supper, Amistad, and Beloved. Here, slavery itself serves as a springboard for a larger consideration: respect for the historical record vs. a need for dramatic effect. Davis argues convincingly for the historical film as a source of "thought experiments" about the past rather than pure presentation of fact. Although brief, this monograph is a fitting companion volume to the library of film history works, including Robert A. Rosenstone's Visions of the Past (Harvard Univ., 1995) and Robert B. Toplin's History by Hollywood (Univ. of Illinois, 1996). Recommended for all film studies collections.DAnthony J. Adam, Prairie View A&M Univ. Lib., TX
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Davis, a historian with a concentration on people outside traditional power centers, explores the treatment of slaves on film from a historical perspective. She analyzes five films: Spartacus as an example of resistance and survival, Burn and The Last Supper as reflective of ceremony and revolt, and the more contemporary films Amistad and Beloved as witnesses of trauma. In each topic area, Davis sets up the complex interplay between historically supportable fiction and imagination. Clearly, each of these films reflects strong foundations rooted in historical research. Yet the various film applications merit different responses. As in much of "history," much in films is unknown. That is due to the filmmakers inclination to embellish through speculation and imagination; but the historical alterations that take place, Davis advocates, should be acknowledged to film viewers so that they may distinguish between historical fact and fiction. This short work should be very informative for those interested in an analysis of the historical treatment of slaves in American films. Vernon Ford
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The written word and what the eye can see are brought together in this fascinating foray into the depiction of resistance to slavery through the modern medium of film. Davis, whose book The Return of Martin Guerre was written while she served as consultant to the French film of the same name, now tackles the large issue of how the moving picture industry has portrayed slaves in five major motion pictures spanning four generations. The potential of film to narrate the historical past in an effective and meaningful way, with insistence on loyalty to the evidence, is assessed in five films: Spartacus (1960), Burn! (1969), The Last Supper (1976), Amistad (1997), and Beloved (1998). Davis shows how shifts in the viewpoints of screenwriters and directors parallel those of historians. Spartacus is polarized social history; the films on the Caribbean bring ceremony and carnival to bear on the origins of revolt; Amistad and Beloved draw upon the traumatic wounds in the memory of slavery and the resources for healing them. In each case Davis considers the intentions of filmmakers and evaluates the film and its techniques through historical evidence and interpretation. Family continuity emerges as a major element in the struggle against slavery. Slaves on Screen is based in part on interviews with the Nobel prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison, and with Manuel Moreno Fraginals, the historical consultant for The Last Supper. Davis brings a new approach to historical film as a source of "thought experiments" about the past. While the five motion pictures are sometimes cinematic triumphs, with sound history inspiring the imagination, Davis is critical of fictive scenes and characters when they mislead viewers in important ways. Good history makes good films.

Natalie Zemon Davis is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Emerita, Princeton University.