Robert A. Rosenstone: Inventing Historical Truth on the Movie Screen

Academics normally think of dramatic historical films as works which alter, trivialize, or distort the past. In this lecture, as in books he has written, Rosenstone argues that rather than destroying history, the best of such films provide their own sort of historical insights, which comment upon, interrogate, and sometime contest traditional historical discourse. The lecture will be illustrated with clips from Glory, a 1989 history of an African American regiment in the American Civil War.