Past and Present: National Identity and the British Historical FilmBloomsbury Academic, 23. 9. 2005 - 400 strán (strany) First and major analysis of the historical film. The author is one of Britain's leading film historians,author of successful Tauris books. This book is a key contribution to the literature on film genre and national identity. This ground-breaking book takes as its focal point director Ken Loach's view that 'The only reason to make films that are a reflection on history is to talk about the present.' In the first book to take on this major genre in all its complexity, James Chapman argues that historical films say as much about the times in which they are made as about the past they purport to portray. Through in-depth case studies of fourteen key films spanning the 1930s up to the turn of the twenty first century, from "The Private Life of Henry VIII" and "Zulu" to "Chariots of Fire" and "Elizabeth", Chapman examines the place of historical films in British cinema history and film culture. |