Guy Westwell

Critical approaches to the history film—A field in search of a methodology

This article reviews Robert Rosenstones book, History on Film/Film on History (Pearson, 2006). The review evaluates three key contributions: first, the description of the development of a field of study dedicated to examining the relationship between film and history; second, Rosenstones demand that history on film be judged not in relation to written history but as a valid and productive form of representation in its own right; and, third, the books presentation of a taxonomy of the history film.

Regarding the Pain of Others: Scenarios of Obligation in Post-9/11 US Cinema

This article examines how the experience of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks has prompted both a hardening of a narrow version of US national identity figured in prejudicial terms and, conversely, an increased willingness to explore difference as it occurs both within the US (i.e. in the relations between Americans) and abroad (i.e. in the relations between Americans and foreigners). Through close textual analysis of two feature films – 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002) and Rendition (Gavin Hood, 2007) – this article profiles this increased willingness to explore difference as it is indexed in both the form and content of the films under discussion.

Accidental Napalm Attack and Hegemonic Visions of America's War in Vietnam

Through a close examination of the initial dissemination and subsequent reproduction of the iconic Vietnam war photograph, Accidental Napalm Attack, this article indicates how hegemonic cultural/ideological processes have set the parameters for the circulation and consumption of this photograph, enabling this seemingly difficult and challenging image to be brought into line with relatively sympathetic reporting of the war in the early 1970s and to be appropriated by hegemonic revisionist accounts in the 1980s and 1990s. A key aim here is to offer something of a corrective to those accounts that state that upon initial publication the image had a powerful, almost traumatic, impact on the American public and that this impact was subsequently elided by the cultural/ideological work of revision and forgetting. This article argues that the initial shock potential of the photograph must not be exaggerated nor mythologized at the expense of a full acknowledgment of the photographs centrality to the larger ideological/cultural framing of the event it depicts, a framing that was from the outset limited and limiting in nature. Properly historicized in this way we are reminded that, even though difficult and challenging iconic images such as Accidental Napalm Attack may display the potential to foster a more detailed and critical apprehension of wars costs, they more often than not operate hegemonically to screen out wars horror.

Book review: Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to IraqBinnsDanielThe Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq. Bristol/ Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017, 180 pp.: ISBN: 978 1783207541, £32.50 (pbk).

footage sounds like war, or what we know of war from the cinema, so it must be war, and like cinema the drama and pacing of the narrative keep us firmly attached to our seats in front of the television’ (p. 159). Regarding what is erased from the lived experience of war, Harris considers her own choice to present the debrief of a group of soldiers with a series of long takes, deliberately making the sequence fairly tedious. ‘I was trying to show the event as a bureaucratic accounting for bullets and bodies spent, where the matter-of-fact attitude of soldiers towards their job of killing was as much a part of war as the drama of the killing and the fighting’ (p. 162). The upshot of the discussion is that, with both examples, Harris argues that ‘questions about what sort of war these soldiers are fighting, their reasons for fighting (other than survival) and the reasons behind the engagement of the Iraqi militia are not considered’ (p. 165). Amid the actual conflict acted out on the battlefield, there is another battle ever-raging: between objective truth and that which must be edited down for a primetime audience. While by no means a thoroughgoing review, this brief discussion should afford some insight into the potential value of this volume. This value will be most keenly felt by researchers interested in cinematic representations of war and conflict, and what must be removed from such representations. This removal could be purely practical, as in the case studies discussed by Harris, or it could be ideological as discussed by Goldstein and others throughout the collection. Regardless, such volumes justify and reinforce the constant need for critical attention on the images and films that emerge from and around conflict: such attention ensures that questions are consistently asked of those responsible for such conflict and the suffering and erasures that inevitably ensue.