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.

Cameron, Kenneth M., 1931-. America on film : Hollywood and American history / Kenneth M. Cameron. [0826410332 (hardcover : alk. paper)] New York : Continuum, 1997.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H5 C36 1997

 

    Chapter 8 deals with American historical films of the 1970’s. Cameron argues that this decade ushered in the decline of traditional histories about 19th century events that focus on “poetic justice and the rightness of America,” and it marked the beginning of a trend for movies to focus on more current issues. A section called Outsiders deals with films about people outside traditional areas of power. All the President’s Men certainly fits this criterion, portraying journalists as the underdogs against the most powerful men in politics.

    Cameron states that this film is somewhat narcissistic, perhaps as a result of being based on the book that the main characters had written a couple of years earlier; it uncritically depicts the acts of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and belittles the importance of others’ actions by omission. As Cameron complains “All the President’s Men would have us believe that Woodward, Bernstein, and Ben Bradlee [managing editor of the Washington Post] were all that stood between the republic and its end.” As Toplin also pointed out in his book History by Hollywood, the typewriter at the beginning and end of the film represents a weapon of war against corruption in government, and places the journalist in role of the soldier. Unlike Toplin and Sorlin, Cameron does not excuse the films glorification of Woodward and Bernstein. He asserts that the film tells us more about “the vanity of the filmmakers and of two newsmen” than about the history of the event.