ABSTRACT
The Nietzschean historiographical categories that were the jumping off point for the delineation of historiographical approaches are actually more distinct from each other than the categories used here. This seems to me entirely appropriate, first because my concerns are exclusively mainstream, “classical” films (Nietzsche’s object of study is obviously different and more varied). Furthermore, aside from differentiating between different means of pursuing written history (presumably what Nietzsche was mainly concerned with), Nietzsche’s monumental and antiquarian histories can perhaps best be represented by, respectively, the official monument/memorial (normally war-related) and the museum display case. One seeks to represent the great or terrible actions of the past largely through iconic imagery and text, the other through the “authentic” artefacts of the past. These forms of historicism clearly fulfill very different social functions. However, in the cinema, popular historical films almost always combine their monumental narratives (to paraphrase Nietzsche, the simplified vision of right and wrong, the eschewing of the causes in favor of the effects) with at least a surface attention to the artefacts of the past.
