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What Does Film Tell Us About History
legend. It is interesting to note that the source to which the film was based upon is credited to actual military documents and yet how historically accurate does it turn out to be?. The film attempts to create a false impression that the Australians were the ones who bore the brunt of the campaign and fight when in actual fact. The British and French forces suffered even heavier casualties. A British officer is highlighted in the film, repeatedly giving the orders for the Anzac unit to charge up the trenches, effectively signing their death warrants. This is a glaring inaccuracy as in fact, it was an Australian officer who orders the attack which sends the Anzac unit to their matyred deaths. If painstaking analyzed and taken apart by traditional methodologies, the film would easily be dismissed as a misrepresentation of history.
However, in light of Marshal Fluam’s ‘celluloid mirror’ stand, we begin to see that film-based history is not only a source about the period for which they talk about, but also a source for the period in which they are made. During the course of history, the ever-changing society, its values, concerns and attitudes are reflected in film. When we analyze the period in which Gallipoli was produced, we realize that Australia was a young nation awaking to national consciousness. Through the film’s many anti-British sentiments, we begin to understand that this sense of national identity was forged through a common anti-Western stance prevalent at that time. Many Australian films produced at that time likewise carried similar undertones. Gallipoli not only shows a historian the horrors and futility of the failed Anzac campaign, it also demonstrates a period of Australian nationalism many years later, concerned with the process of Americanization. It is through such a medium of film study, that a historian can add to his understanding of the creation of an Anzac myth in the hearts of every Australian such that the infamous day is declared a national holiday. We cannot deny the merits in using analysis of motion pictures for gaining insights into the general society’s attitudes, tensions, and aspirations at a particular time in history
Final words
Through studying film, we gain a broader understanding of the historical, political, social and cultural contexts within which the films are made and received. Particularly because of its appeal to a mass audience, film has an enormous power to construct and disseminate popular ideas about history. The strength of film lies in its ability to convey atmosphere and to involve the spectator – to 'evoke' history rather than to 'analyze' it and to come up with his own personal interpretation that can be drawn from so many various aspects of film study. It is amazing when considering the speed at which this information is presented as compared to written history that we cannot simply dismiss this form of studying and opening an access to historical studies.
Biblography
Davis, Natalie Zemon. '"Any resemblance to persons living or dead": film and the challenge of authenticity'. [next page]