Burgoyne, Robert, 1949-. Film nation : Hollywood looks at U.S. history / Robert Burgoyne. [0816620709 (hardcover : alk. paper)] Minneapolis, Minn. : University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H5 B87 1997

 

    Robert Burgoyne writes Chapter 5 about interpretations of recent American historical events in film. He uses Forrest Gump as his main example to argue the “powerful role that social memory plays in constructing concepts of nation.” Clearly, All the President’s Men contributed to the American social memory of the Watergate scandal, as Woodward and Bernstein are the first names that come to mind when most people think of this dark period in the history of the American presidency. Further, the film was made just a few years after the actual event took place, molding the memory of people who had actually lived through the media coverage of Watergate and reemphasizing the role that the journalist played, while ignoring the role of others. Watergate, as well as many events portrayed in Forrest Gump, can be interpreted through a historically accurate account, or through “the narratives of nation sustained in popular memory.” Historical films about events of the past few decades surely influence these narratives.
    Films like Forrest Gump, Burgoyne argues, allow the audience to re-experience the past more dramatically and sensuously. It is their way of more personally experiencing the event – a way to more closely examine it. Through film, the viewer can feel as if the memory of the event is his own rather than a recompilation of facts and images interpreted with the benefit of hindsight. In this sense, memories “circulate publicly,” and become part of the psychology and the identity of a nation, serving as “the basis for mediated collective identification.” Ultimately, films like All the President’s Men and Forrest Gump, which deal centrally with recent cultural and historical events, help to reorganize the historical past by creating a collective memory in the form of a film.