Lisa Mazey (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
Historical fiction film and television productions present a life that today’s viewers cannot experience, offering a unique escape. The growing trend revived what Leger Grindon observed in Shadows on the Past (1994), that “[f]rom the earliest days of their artistic practice, filmmakers have engaged in the centuries-old tradition of grappling with the present by writing about the past” (1). But I ask: Why do studios continue to spend the money and effort to look backward? Why is the viewing audience’s attention (and entertainment dollars) captured again and again?
Films such as Forrest Gump (1995) re-popularized the
genre, displaying cultural upheavals from times that defined the American
experience. More recently, Brooklyn (2015) displays immigration during
the 1950s, and Bad Times at the el Royale (2018) recalls 1970s segregation,
anarchy, and greed. Streaming services air originals like Amazon’s The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017). These works do not report how things really
were, though they appear to, but rather “make claims to a persuasive
representation of the past, that arise out of historical scholarship… [and] interpret
and comment on significant past events” (Grindon 2). When educators examine those
significant events in conjunction with film representations in this
storytelling genre, their insights enlighten our current world and therefore enrich
classrooms.
Presenters would investigate an interesting piece of
on-screen historical fiction and examine how the production techniques or
goals, the stories themselves, and characters’ challenges and growth impact its viewers. We can illuminate how
the genre is shaping our perceptions of the time period depicted and how the
production reflects our current culture. We can share those discoveries in our humanities
literature and film-study courses to help students understand, internalize, or
connect to the content.