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Review
| Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood. Robert Brent Toplin. Lawrence: U Kansas P, 2002. 232 pp. $35.00, cloth; $17.95, paper.
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| This book will interest teachers who use film as a part of their curriculum, for it directly addresses the merits of commercial narrative films as purveyors of history. Toplin claims that "cinematic history" (his term for movies which significantly engage some historical event) comprises a distinct film genre, no less than, say, the gangster film or the screwball comedy. "Cinematic history" cannot be produced, we are told, outside the predictable set of practices and entertainment formulae inherent in its particular genre. Toplin's anatomy of "cinematic history" as a genre is useful insofar as it provides a coherent framework for analyzing and judging the numerous films that he introduces for discussion. (The study does not take epics or documentaries into consideration.) Not every discovery on his list of generic features is particularly earthshaking: "Cinematic history often communicates as powerfully in images and sounds as in words" we are told at one point (50). Such a flat declaration of the obvious can, of course, be brought to life by subsequent discussion, and Toplin's treatments of Das Boot and Saving Private Ryan, for example, do indicate his capacity for careful observation of cinematic technique. |
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Toplin devotes two chapters to the discussion of specific films, many of which are now widely used in class rooms. He argues by example, working through a usefully wide variety of films to demonstrate instances of the proper use and of the abuse of history in narrative films. But he proves to be very, perhaps too tolerant as historian and critic, as exemplified in his plea for the historical respectability of James Cameron's Titanic. I think the film a wasted opportunity. The overall effect of Titanic remains so patently vulgar, and elements of its conception so unpleasantly adolescent, that anyone inclined to labor intensely in its defense opens his other judgements to question. |
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The chapter entitled "The Study of Cinematic History" is the most strenuously argumentative. It begins with a plea for Toplin's fellow historians and film scholars to bridge the "chasm" that divides their disciplines, portraying them as blind to (or unwilling to endorse) the constraints under which commercial films are produced and according to which they will inevitably be consumed (or shunned) by audiences. This is well enough, though the artistic license granted by the author is indeed a generous one. The depiction of historians as a nagging and philistine bunch of fuddy-duddies is difficult to accept because the widespread use of film in history class rooms and in supplementary assignments argues otherwise. Nor do those who point out glaring errors and gross oversimplifications in films necessarily deserve the epithet "cynical." However, the second half of the chapter finds Toplin in top form. Here he demolishes the inconsistencies, the shoddy thinking, the solipsism, the pretension, the conformity and the mere trendiness that fill the pages of much recent academy-driven "cinema studies" and "film theory." Given his negative assessment of this field, one must ask why historians should be taken to task for steering clear of the obfuscating mess—the exceptional pieces of true worth (more examples would be welcome) excepted, of course. |
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Thankfully Toplin does not succumb to one of the hallmark offenses that he notes in film studies: its penchant for jargon-filled, numbingly abstract and convoluted prose. He expresses his ideas clearly, and proffers plainly articulated value judgements. A number of small errors mar the text, with the repeated references to Edgar Reitz's Heimut (sic.) being the only mistake serious enough to call into question the credibility of the discussion. The author's habit of stringing successive questions together to form a paragraph begins to wear thin, especially since those questions are not always systematically addressed in subsequent paragraphs. Even for those who do not agree with his particular judgements, however, Toplin's study will be of practical benefit for those seeking criteria by which to judge the merits of a film. (Should I use this movie with my students? Does this or that historical elision ruin the film?). The neophyte to the study of film-as-history will profit from reading Professor Toplin's book thoroughly; its repetitiousness in regard to main themes could actually prove a desirable quality if it were to be used as an assigned textbook, as would its concentration on readily accessible, recent movies. Advanced scholars will want to take the aforementioned chapter on "The Study of Cinematic History" under consideration. It is a clear looking glass for the academic age, but will those who need to behold themselves in this glass be capable of doing so? |
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| Boston University |
Matthew Stewart |
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