ABSTRACT

Placing films in context in order to understand their meaning is a common approach in film studies and indicates a further shift from studying a film in isolation or simply in the context of auteur theory. The analysis of films in a historical context can be approached in a variety of ways. Another way of considering historical contexts is to examine the way in which films represent the past to a contemporary audience, often focusing on traumatic events. The importance of studying films in their wider contexts emerged in the 1970s, another aspect of film studies which was influenced by the developments in related subjects such as media and cultural studies. In film studies, this meant that films couldn’t be fully studied through auteur theory or judged on ideas of artistic excellence, but should also be seen as ways of understanding society.