Welcome to PAST TIMES--everything history and movies.
While this blog won't always make the overt connection every given film has with history (or visa versa), I would like to articulate the common connection at least once. And here it is.
Films document a society in more ways than what is just on the screen. They document what was popular at a time. They document who was popular and what sentiments, themes, locations and conflicts were popular. Intellectual dramas as well as wild action movies are indicators of a people and evidence of the society's interests, fears and ambitions. Movies, as historical records, are unique in that they capture a large segment of the American (and, too a lesser extent, world) population yet allow specifics and nuances to be extracted. Movies act both as a window in their time of release and continue as windows throughout their cultural existence as more windows.
"Singin' in the Rain" is a 1952 musical set in 1927. This means we can understand 1950s America itself (through the film's production and popularity) and also understand 1920s America via 1950s America. That is, compare how history changes as it grows more distant.
As another, more complex, example, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" is a 1966 Italian film explicitly about 1864 America, and implicitly about 1966 Italy. Furthermore, the movie was popular in Italy in 1966 yet not seen in American until nearly 1968--and even then, not popular among American critics (such as Roger Ebert). However, the film was accepted by cult audiences and has since become a near-unanimous classic--again, according to Roger Ebert.
Seeing the connection between movies and history cuts both ways, though. History, especially for non-scholars, is generally best understood as a series of stories and characters. People aren't intuitively able to recall many numbers and dates. Think about cavemen: the number of deer killed on the last hunt isn't any more important than how the deer were killed. The stories of success and failure keep us alive and entertained. Learning follows attention, attention follows entertainment--for us and cavemen.
An advertisement so "entertaining" it got its own show--for 6 wonderful weeks.
History is only half what happened. One-forth is what happened before said event and the last fourth is what is going to happen. The Presidential Election of 1876 doesn't mean much to anybody if they don't understand that it set a precedent for the U.S. President being chosen by a 15-person committee and prematurely ended Post-Civil War Reconstruction--dooming the oppressed to more oppression. If nothing else, understand this: everything is just a prologue for what's coming next.
As for what to expect, I plan on publishing a handful of reviews through the end of February for movies likely to be nominated in the Oscars. After that, I plan on reviewing/retelling true stories in history and, of course, writing movie reviews--updating about once a week. If I feel particularly guilty about an update, I'll do more than one in any given week. I may also have guest columns, republished reviews from my personal archive and other experiments.
So be like me and grab a beer, pop, water, jagerbomb or juice pack to drink; and I'll try to write a little faster than you can read before we're all just history.
Now let the show begin.
