The book History and Cinema: Narrating on the Screen explores the representation of history in cinema, a topic that has been subject to long-standing debate and highlights the need to understand cinematic history on its own terms, evaluating its relationship with public history and its influence on shaping historical consciousness.

Eleftheria Thanouli does so by completely changing the agenda and focusing on the close connections between written and cinematic history, which she studies both on macro and micro levels. Her central position argues that cinematic history is the dominant form of historiography in the 20th and 21st centuries, as it has managed to reshape and redefine the fundamental forms, philosophical and ideological practices of 19th-century academic historiography.

Through case studies ranging from fictional films such as The Thin Red Line and Life is Beautiful to documentaries like The Fog of War and The Last Bolshevik, the author bridges the gap between history and film studies and lays the foundation for a new visual historiography.

From the early Soviet experiments to contemporary imaginative narratives, Thanouli's book thoroughly and definitively investigates the complex relationships between narrative and visual forms, and reinterprets the points of connection and distinction between them. This is a study that will serve as a reference model for many years.

Author: ELEFTHERIA THANOULE

Language: ENGLISH

Pages: 480

Dimensions: 210X140X0

Year of publication: 2024