ABSTRACT
In an increasingly image-oriented world, historical documentary films are a double-edged sword: they provide a means for people who otherwise care little about history to learn about the past, while simultaneously posing the threat that the screen image becomes their only memory of that past. Historical documentary films thus run the risk of becoming the tool of mythologizing and creating monolithic interpretation. 1 Or, as aptly put by Frank Tomasulo, “our concepts of historical referentiality (what happened), epistemology (how we know it happened), and historical memory (how we interpret it and what it means to us) are now determined primarily by media imagery.” 2 We are compelled to ask how best to view and judge a documentary that recreates the past on the screen. What can the viewers learn from these films that is unavailable in other sources, such as history books? Are documentary films the best (as claimed by R.J. Raack) or the worst (as posited by Ian Jarvie) 3 medium through which to present meaningful history? What is at stake when knowledge of a country’s past is transmitted visually? If, as Bill Nichols asserts, “documentary adds a new dimension to popular memory and social history,” 4 we need to examine not only what is presented to the audience, but also how it is constructed; we must probe the filmmaker’s agenda and the claims to truth.
