My True Reaction to Three Journal Articles on Film and History

I started this week's by reading Natalie Zemon Davis’s “Movie or Monograph? A Historian/Filmmaker’s Perspective.” Throughout her article, Davis encourages historians to grasp the medium of movies and media as a way to access the public about history. Because they have the ability to tell a story through cinematic performances, movies have the potential to narrate about certain people, events, and issues of the past. While movies do have this possible positive influence on the teaching and narrative of history, Davis qualifies that movies often leave out the specifics and instead focus on the historical context of a certain time. This especially bothered her when the costume director of The Return of Martin Guerre decided to dress judges of Parlement in red robes instead of black robes during a trial. Discrepancies like this, explains Davis, should encourage historians to question movies portraying historical events and to research and discuss the topic at hand.

Yes, that makes sense, I thought.

After reading Davis’s article, I moved onto Robert Brent Toplin’s “Cinematic History: Where Do We Go from Here?” Like Davis, Toplin sees the potential of “historical cinema” in accurately portraying history. Through entertaining Blockbusters, the more analytical “experimental movies,” and television specials, historical cinema has interpreted historical people, events, and issues. Toplin does go beyond Davis’s argument, saying that historians need to perform behind the scenes research of various film projects. He encourages historians to read and analyze correspondence, to interview artists on their vision of a certain costume, to discover the director’s vision. By performing this level of research on historical cinema, the meaning and intention of the film is better understood.

I nod in agreement in my cozy chair.

Once I reached Vivian Ellen Rose and Julie Corley’s “A Trademark Approach to the Past: Ken Burns, the Historical Profession, and Assessing Popular Presentations of the Past,” I admit that my blood pressure went up a little. As a Ken Burns junkie, it was hard for me to grasp and understand some of their negative commentary. Sure, I am guilty for crying here and there during The War, a usual response to a Burns documentary which Rose and Corley scoff at. And yes, I admit that I have all the DVDs and the box set of music to The War. So does this make me a horrible person for owning this documentary? Should I feel ashamed for liking this “formulaic” version of telling history?

My finger nails dig into my poor cozy chair. I somehow feel offended.

Yes, I agree that Burns should be more open-minded and apply more of the research the professional historians provide for the documentaries. Yes, historians and history students alike should discuss the discrepancies present in Burns’ documentaries. And yes, it is a little strange that a historian cited Burns in her journal article. Although I agree with Rose and Corley on these issues, I still felt their argument lacked in certain areas. What did those historians who were hired by Burns for the Not for Ourselves Alone documentary truly feel about their experience? Like Toplin discussed, do not directors have creative licenses in writing and creating historical films? Like any historian, is not Burns entitled to create his own argument with the information he is given?

My pulse is back to normal and I have a smile on my face. I just realized something – I am becoming an inquisitive historian.

Oral History in the Eyes of Two Americans

This week’s readings delve into the importance of oral history as historical evidence and to collective memory. In Studs Terkel’s Touch and Go, he describes oral history as more of a colloquial medium of collecting historical evidence. Throughout his own life experiences and interviews, Terkel expresses the importance of empathy in capturing a truly emotional, yet integral part of historical narrative. In Michael Frisch’s A Shared Authority, oral history is more of a procedural, systematic practice that is riddled with questions. Who is speaking? What is he/she talking about? Who has the authority in writing history? While Terkel's writing may be more captivating and easier to grasp than Frisch's, both are important in spelling out the importance of oral history in narrating the American historical narrative.

According to Terkel, oral history is more than just drilling someone with questions off a questionnaire; it is also more than just being an expert at using recording equipment. Instead, oral history is the art of need, naturalness, and true appreciation. Whenever Terkel interviewed someone, he made sure the interviewee felt needed. Terkel, historians, and the community needed the memory of the past recorded and preserved. Oral history, according to Terkel, was also meant to be a natural conversation rather than a scripted, almost robotic procedure. One of his secrets, Terkel explains, is “logorrhea” – the inability to stop talking. By engaging in informal conversation, not only does the interviewee tend to open up more, but he also understands the need of his story to historical narrative. In the end, Terkel explains that the overall appreciation of the oral history is essential. Not only is the spoken history appreciated by the interviewer, but it should also be spread, understood, and incorporated into the memory of a nation. Unfortunately, Terkel explains, this appreciation by the public is absent in today’s American society. Instead of opening a book and taking more than a second to look at a newspaper, the American public has only absorbed what they deem satisfactory – pop-culture, bottom-line news, and sports updates. In the end, this has led to an American culture stripped of intelligence and the absence of a sense of decency. (233)

While Terkel successfully expressed the importance of oral history by relating it to his life experiences, Frisch takes a more research-based approach in A Shared Authority. Through various essays, Frisch takes a look at the seemingly complex nature of oral history and other aspects of public history. Some of the issues he discovers are how oral histories are conducted and how they should be conducted, how oral histories have been used by the media, how oral history has been influenced by certain events, and so forth. A lot of his findings are based out of an American Studies program he chairs at SUNY-Buffalo. Rather than being focused on the emotional, almost sentimental side of oral history like Terkel’s book displayed, Frisch takes on a more systematic, almost drone explanation of an otherwise interesting topic.

While I liked Terkel’s book more and Frisch’s book did little to capture my interest (let alone gave me a headache because the text was too close together!), both are important glimpses into what oral history really is. On the one hand, Terkel successfully transformed oral history by placing a potential face, feeling, and understanding to an interview. On the other hand, Frisch poses the reality and complexity of oral history and public history. Together, Touch and Go and A Shared Authority create a coherent description of oral history.

John Bodnar’s Look at Commemoration in America

According to John Bodnar’s Remaking America, commemoration in America through pageantry, monuments, and festivals has entailed more than just parades and waving the nation’s flag. Instead, it is a story centered on “ordinary” and “official” people in certain forums and how their ideals on commemoration progress through time. Another important factor expressed by Bodnar is the influence of patriotism on commemoration. While both ordinary and cultural leaders express patriotism for their country and its history, each share a different view on it when related to commemoration.

Throughout Bodnar’s book, he describes the different views of commemoration shared by ordinary and official people. Ordinary people are those individuals who can be found in the American public, while official people are those cultural leaders and government officials who express power in society. In relation to commemoration, Bodnar believes that ordinary people display a vernacular ideal, focusing on the individual and smaller local communities. In contrast, commemoration to official people is a unifying force and a tool often used in the twentieth century in attempt to calm the public when political dissolution occurred.

In his argument, Bodnar displays the difference in ideals between these groups in three different forums. In the communal forum, Americans in various ethnic groups view commemoration as a way to “consent” and “descent” from their ancestral heritage. To Norwegian-Americans during the early twentieth century, they shared a desire to remember and commemorate their ancestral descent while also sharing the consent of incorporating the ethnic group’s influence on the founding of America. In a regional forum, Bodnar used the Midwest as an example of how a specific area and group of people search for symbols when commemorating their past. Throughout the Midwest, the pioneer was used as a symbol depicting the region’s progress and individuality. In the national forum, Bodnar describes the influence of the National Park Service (NPS) on historical interpretation starting in the 1930s. While the NPS had the final say in what historic sites were recognized and commemorated, Bodnar argues that their decision and information related to the sites were influenced by the efforts of local and ordinary people throughout the nation.

Within these forums, patriotism played an integral role in how commemoration and American history were presented. To ordinary people, patriotism meant individual valor and how one influenced a community through their progressive thinking. The pioneer in the Midwest retained this influence as people looked up to their ancestors as a way to remember traditions and the past. In contrast, government and cultural leaders view patriotism in relation to commemoration as a unifying force and an effort to create a broader national history. At the local level, cultural leaders and upper class citizens lead various state centennials and other celebrations, influencing how history was celebrated at more personal levels. The NPS influenced historical narrative of the nation by relating historic sites to the overall narrative of the creation and progression of America.

Overall, Bodnar’s Remaking America is an interesting look into commemoration practices throughout American history. Through the influence of ordinary people and cultural leaders, commemoration has evolved into a complex national pastime. As time progressed and ideals changed, so did commemoration practices. Various ethnic and regional groups lost their individual commemoration as leaders at the national level consumed their history as part of the whole historical narrative of the nation. To some extent, cultural and national leaders popularized commemorative celebrations for capital gain. What once seemed to be a reflective, personal look into one’s past has now become an effort to create a popularized, and an almost desensitized national practice.