Social commentary in historical films

"Altough historical films may contain an element of social commentary -in other words, they do connect on some level with social reality- and they are frequently interpreted in these terms, this is not generally their only, nor even primary, concern. Rather, they use the cinematic medium selfconsciously to explore our imaginary relationship with past events, presenting history as a collection of mementoes, as fragmented and partial, accesible only through the mediation of personal perceptions and emotional responses. In doing so, these films contribute to debates about the status of historical truth and objectivity."

Pam Cook. Screening the past. Memory and nostalgia in cinema. Routledge, London and New York, 2005, p.218.

Images which determine correct representations

"It is a memory consisting largely of images that have by now become so conventionalized that they determine what is a "correct" representation of the period and what is not. Images of Hitler or of the war have engraved themselves so indelibly on the public consciousness that new images are hard to imagine. Thus history films increasingly replace not only historical experience but also historical imagination."

Anton Kaes
From Hitler to Heimat: the return of History as film, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1989, p.196.

Mass media shapes Historical consciousness

"The mass media have become the most effective (and least acknowledged) institutional vehicles for shaping historical consciousness."

Anton Kaes
From Hitler to Heimat: the return of History as film, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1989, p.196.