Hollywood's History Films

(Hardback)

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Description

In a cinema that has presented John Wayne interpreting Genghis Khan as a medieval gunslinger, the idea that Hollywood filmmakers have historical consciousness might seem strange. However, they do and they did and in fascinating ways, which are revealed by David Eldridge in this innovative and detailed analysis of the film industry's use of history. Grounded in exceptional resources and rich in close readings of the films, "Hollywood's History Films" focuses on the Fifties, when Hollywood's interest in the past was at its peak. It reconstructs how filmmakers understood their treatment of the past, suggesting why many of them saw their work as superior to that of professional historians. The book embraces westerns, romances, biblical epics, biopics and the like, exploring the overlapping anxieties that encouraged an unprecedented turn to history, including the Cold War's ever-present nuclear threat, McCarthyism and the industry's fears about a haemorrhaging box-office. In an environment shaped by such tensions, filmmakers were not ignorant of the facts, nor simply exercising dramatic licence.
David Eldridge considers researchers, advisors and outside interference from proponents of particular versions of the past and uncovers the different - and limited - ways in which producers, directors and screenwriters were exposed to historical debates and ideas. Challenging preconceptions, his book helps us to understand just how and why Hollywood blurs the boundaries between fiction and historical reality.

Reviews

'Exhaustively researched, highly readable exploration of a subject overlooked by both historians and cinema buffs - how some 1200 Hollywood historical films shaped America's collective memory in the 1950s.' -David Culbert, John L. Loos Professor of History, Louisiana State University; and Editor, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

Author Bio

David Eldridge is a Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Hull. He has published on various subjects including the CIA's involvement in the film industry, and is the author of American Culture in the 1930s(forthcoming).