Gendering History on Screen: Women Filmmakers and Historical Films

by Julia Erhart, Claire Nally (Editor), Angela Smith (Editor)

Overview

Movies about significant historical personalities or landmark events like war seem to be governed by a set of unspoken rules for the expression of gender. Films by female directors featuring female protagonists appear to receive particularly harsh treatment and are often criticised for being too 'emotional' and incapable of expressing 'real' history. Through her examination of films from the United States, Europe, Australia and elsewhere, Julia Erhart makes powerful connections between the representational strategies of women directors such as Kathryn Bigelow, Ruth Ozeki and Alexandra von Grote and their concerns with exploring the past through the prism of the present. She also compellingly explores how historiographical concepts like valour, memory, and resistance are uniquely re—envisioned within sub—genres including biopics, historical documentaries, Holocaust movies, and movies about the 'War on Terror'. Gendering History on Screen will make an invaluable contribution to scholarship on historical film and women's cinema.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784535285
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/30/2018
Series:	Library of Gender and Popular Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Julia Erhart is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Creative Arts at Flinders University, Australia.

Claire Nally is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature in the Department of English Literature, Linguistics and Creative Writing at Northumbria University, UK. She is the author of Steampunk: Gender, Subculture and the Neo—Victorian (Bloomsbury, 2019), co—editor or Bloomsbury Library of Gender and Popular Culture and Deputy Editor (including reviews) of the open access journal C21 Literature.

Angela Smith is Professor of Language and Culture at the University of Sunderland, UK. She has written numerous articles and book chapters on media discourses, gender, the portrayal of immigrants and the representation of politicians.

Table of Contents

List of Figures xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Series Editors' Foreword xvii

Introduction 1

Chapter Summary 5

1 Women Writing History Through Film 9

Women Writing History: Contexts and Opportunities 11

Performative Authorship 13

History on Film: from Robert Rosenstone to A League of Their Own 17

'Citable in all its Moments': In-between Spaces and Sewing Machines 25

Conclusion 33

2 Reclaiming Undeserving Women: Contemporary Female Biopics 35

From Positive Images to Undeserving Subjects: A Place for Women? 38

Oppositional Medicine: The Case of Augustine 40

Class and Voice: Ambiguity in Monster 48

Affect and Ageing: The Iron Lady 57

3 Feminist First-Person Documentaries: Migration, Internment, Reconciliation 63

First-Person Documentary: Terms and Terrain 65

First-Person Documentary: Women Directors 66

Performing Memory 89

4 Revisiting Resistance and Occupation in Holocaust Films 93

Complicating Collaboration 95

Europeanising the Holocaust 98

Reconfiguring Resistance 101

Women and Resistance 104

Mimicry and Doubling 107

Vergangenheitsbewältigung 113

5 Gendering Iraq and Afghanistan War Movies 121

The Paradox of Exceptionalism 125

Gendering the War 'Back Home' 138

Movies from the Periphery: Occupation 145

Conclusion 153

Conclusion 155

Notes 159

Bibliography 183

Filmography 197

Index 201