Film, images & historical interpretation in the 20th century for those who have a general interest in history that draws on photojournalism as primary evidence, and films based on historical events.
Interview - Reflections on Iwo Jima
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来自 University of London 的课程
镜头不会说谎
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从本节课中
The Power of the Image: Mount Suribachi, 1945
The photograph of the raising of the flag at Mt. Suribachi was a Pulitzer Prize winning image, and the base of the film 'The Flag of our Fathers'. We will explore the use of the still and the motion picture to influence our opinion.
与讲师见面
Dr Emmett SullivanSenior Tutor
History Department, Royal Holloway, University of London
So, for those of you who've been watching this course in you must be
thoroughly fed up with watching the fat man in the black suit talk on and
on and on, so I have been very kindly joined, and I appreciate their time,
by two PhD students from SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Which is a whole five minute walk away from where we are in Gower Street today.
And And I'm going to ask them to comment on some of the discussion
we've had on the Mount Suribachi flag raising photograph.
They're going to get to quiz me, on what I may or
might not know from the position that they have with their own studies.
So, I'm going to ask Kim to introduce Akanksha.
And then ask Akanksha to introduce Kim.
>> Okay. So Akanksha is currently doing a PhD.
She's in her first year.
Researching radical right woman's movements involve both Palestine/Israel,
on the one hand and India on the other.
And one of the things she looks at, and that has to do with images is specialties
and how women negotiate them on the levels of body, street and nation.
>> And Kim is my colleague at the center for gender studies.
She is also doing her PhD, she is in her first year.
And Kim's project is really interesting to me.
Interesting to me and there are large overlaps.
She's working on Palestinian feminists in Israel, and
how Palestine feminists in Israel negotiate citizenship.
And she's also talking about spaces and specialties so
there are overlaps in our research.
>> Excellent. So two perspectives very much coming from
a different direction from the Pacific War in 1945.
But this is an image that you're both familiar with.
With, at this point.
Can I just ask your impressions from the the parts of my discussion that you
attended, and also your general knowledge and impression of this particular image?
How does, how, how does it have relevance for you in a historical context?
>> Something that I would like to raise is the issue of the power relationship that
goes into the production of an image, not just behind the camera, not necessarily.
And the fact that we are looking at visibility but also invisibilities and
not just in the image, but also maybe in the image, but we can't see them.
And I'm looking at the faces right now you don't really know the faces.
you don't really know.
Also from a very critical [LAUGH] point of view,
you don't know the class backgrounds.
You don't know the ethnicity backgrounds.
And so it's quite interesting to me that for example,
you mentioned the rasing of the flag on ground zero.
>> Mm-hm,.
>> There were actually two, photographs of that very moment.
And the second one didn't show the faces, of the fireman,
and to me it's quite interesting why the media or whoever was or
had the power to choose which image would be the image chose this time to go for
the image where you see the pictures, the faces sorry.
And again, there's also, as I said, there are a lot of in, invisibilities as
regards to that what came after that moment and that's not being spoken about.
So when you say that we, we, we moved forward from that,
when it comes to interpreting the sto, history, I'm, I'm not quite sure that
the discourses that are produced right now are that much different from back then,
because we still don't talk about the traumas of soldiers.
We don't talk about who is represented in this image and who isn't,
and, and I remember that I saw a quote by the photographer I was somewhere saying,
I took, I took the image, I took the photo, but I didn't take I didn't take.
Iwo Jima I'm not sure if I'm saying it the right way.
And that's really not true.
It's not that easy, it's not that clear cut to me.
And I was wondering whether you, what do you think about this.
>> Well I think that's a number of good important points.
Firstly in terms of, I talked about anonymity I think class is a difficult
topic to discuss in an American situation anyway, but the ethnicity of the soldiers.
at, least in part of the, of the fact that one of them is an indigenous American,
an Amer-Indian is brought very much in the film.
But here, they could be any composition and what it,
it puts to mind is that, a, a, another film, that has come out recently and
something that, I, I I, I knew about for, for some time.
Red Tails, I think was George Lucas movie from last year, that dealt with
African-American squadrons of fighter pilots,
and the segregation and to a certain degree the prejudice they faced,
as being part of the armed forces and serving for their country.
But not being fully integrated into the,
the if you let regular army divisions, or in this case army air force divisions.
so, as,
as much as this reflects anonimity, it also as you say, what is not shown.
What it disguises is the diversity or lack of diversity.
In certainly in, in preparation for these lectures,
while I've tried to give a very much an overview.
I know these, these, these courses are all
being pitched all these lectures are being pitched for introduction first years.
So, I'm trying to maintain that sort of general idea.
There was at least one book that dealt with specifically,
African American experiences at Iwo Jima.
So firstly in terms of the composition of the photograph, to a certain degree,
everyone can get behind it because no one is left out.
Because no one's faces these, you know, looking at the faces.
It's looking at the back of the heads.
In terms of the power relationship between the photographer and
the use of the image, then yes, I, I think,
I think in, in the modern age there's something where we do need to question.
And in this instance, I don't think it's a controversial use of this image,
as opposed to any of the others that Rosenthal took.
But he wasn't aware of the fact that
the iconic image was the one on the newspaper front.
He thought, that it was the gung-ho image.
>> That's what I mean when I
say that there's more that goes into the process of selecting.
>> Yep. >> And producing this image as an image,
the way we look at it now.
It's not just him shooting out of the hip, It's, it's more that, there's people who
are in charge of choosing, who will be looking at this picture.
>> Yeah. And I think in, in,
in the way that we talked, in a previous topic, about.
The choices of Time Magazine and
the images coming out of the battle of Mogadishu.
There is self censorship coming through but there's also
choice which images are going to fit with our leadership.
Now you might put discourse from 1945 and to the present date.
May not have moved on a great deal, and I,
and I think the listing, which is clearly not a comprehensive one,
of reasons why this might be an iconic image could have drawn up at the time.
Now, from your background is there anything there in,
in the photograph that you would pick out.
I mean, clearly.
Something that's analytical, who is excluded?
Implicitly or otherwise, is quite a different way of dealing with this.
What might be a strength from the general public's perception,
might be an academic weakness in interpretating this.
Okay?
Akanksha, do you have any comments around this?
>> For me, this image is, and very iconic image of just gender and nationalism,
make a very gendered version of nationalism there and
the nation is a homogenized entity as and
this builds into this anonymitic issue as well where you can't see faces.
Where difficult issues of race, ethnicity,
class are then dissolved into this sort of general homogenized, community.
>> One of the things that you mentioned that I picked up was
and you mentioned several times is that we're looking at history beyond academia.
>> Mm-hm,. >> And I was wondering whether at
this point in time we're still really looking at history beyond academia,
especially considering post-modern perspective and where we are right now.
>> No, I, I understand, I.
I, I, I find it a little bit difficult in, in, in this regard to differentiate
not because I, I'm not clear about, what is and what isn't academic history
because everything is academic history to a, to a certain degree now.
There are a number of ways to interpret this.
I'm emphasizing James Bradley and
Ron Pauser as people who are not holders of academic posts.
Not working within academic institutions people who have to sell books,
that's not decrying academia, but
you will both appreciate that within your own respective fields.
You're writing papers and through PhDs putting books together
that may have an audience in the tens, if not hundreds across the entire globe.
So writing history for
an academic audience to prove your credentials in the field.
And that you have also shown respect for
the discipline, can be constraining as much as it can be informing.
Now I feel that Flags of our Fathers as a discussion of the events from someone
who is perhaps free to a degree from those type of constraints.
It's refreshing.
It gives a different perspective and it also means that there's someone who's
having to convince their audience, not only that they have a valid point but
it's worth investing their hard earned, hard earned cash in buying these books.
You will know that many academic monographs now, hard copies.
Are 75-85 pounds a shot.
Because it's known that the audience is going to be the institutional market.
It's the libraries who are buying them.
Now, to say something is popularist is not necessarily an endorsement.
Yet I think this is one of the best, books written on the subject, and
certainly appealed to me, from that personal dimension.
Also the degree of division that we have between military history and
academic history.
Military history is academic, can be academic, yet it's not
always the case that you find an military historian, even a very broadly based.
Academic department.
>> It's also a little bit of family history, don't you think?
>> Oh, very much so, but, when we're talking about public history and
the immediacy of, of what history is and, and something I I'd like to talk a little
bit more in, in the next topic who owns what the description of history is?
So, the fact there is a family history there,
there is again, in the context of reminiscences or
at least investigations, the, the journey I keep calling the term, the journey.
I, I think the book has much scholarly merit to it.
Certainly it's thorough research.
But it's a personal account.
As much as it is a retelling of the story which many will find familiar.
So again local history, family history, genealogy.
To the public mind they are history.
It's not always the case.
That an academic environment, that given the same rights of discussion.
As well economic history.
I'm a dying breed guys but social history,
cultural history, gender history, etc.
That there is a, a body of academics out there who are looking at this material
through a certain set of theoretical filters or disciplinary constraints.
And that can be as exclusive an event
as seeing a book published for a public do, oh, you know, ha.
Rather, let me rephrase that.
That the academic discipline can be make that history exclusive to
the general public and therefore it is the preserve of quotes, specialists.
So when I say beyond academic history.
One way of thinking about public history is the way that
history is interpreted by the population as a whole.
And with both the film and
the book I think that's an interpretation which is open and accessible, which i see as a positive.
>> Well unfortunately so was Clint Eastwood's film.
And, again, there's a power relationship.
I know I keep talking about this but again, there's someone who
has the power to produce
>> Mm-hm, >> A work like this.
And who produces history or presents history to the public as a whole.
How do you come for the, what should inspire young historians if you have these
powerful productions of history or presentations
of history really and to, to consciously decide to take a different path.
By taking into account these different types of production.
>> No, I don't [CROSSTALK].
>> It can be quite.
>> Well I always take this into of you're making the point,
and again this goes back to an older concept.
And I'm not decrying that, but
Steve Luke's view of power from the 60s and 70s.
Who sets the agenda.
Yeah? >> Yeah.
>> Who, who gets to, who gets to give the green light on the production.
>> And we have to struggle, using images for
our own research as methods or as presentations even of our research.
And we have to go through books of, you know, ethics involved in this.
And where do we position ourselves, in this process, of producing these images
and using these images and interpreting these images and, and passing them on.
And I don't think people who produce these movies necessarily have to go through that
process and have to, have to justify and, and make sure that they go through pro,
process where they get you know, the right of passage.
>> You know what, I understand.
[CROSSTALK] So very fundamental is about the nature of history.
>> Sorry. >> No,
no, but I first in terms of inspiring young historians.
That's a little bit on tangent to your point,
but I actually see histories in movies as quite a positive way.
Because if the film is well made.
And, is at least authentic to the spirit if not the actual literal what went on.
>> Okay. >> Okay, it will engage people to
look beyond.
That simply the film and start reading into the topics themselves.
Of course, history can be distorted in that way.
I know that one critic has described
JFK by Oliver Stone as an irresponsible piece of
film making from the historical slant that he puts on it.
If you're watching, I like the movie, yeah, but
I know the limitations as well, alright.
So they comes to the point that perhaps this can be a way in and
certainly we have a first year histroy unit in the history of meanings where
we actually look into the philosophy of history.
But also in terms of not only academic history.
But how that moves onto the public sphere.
Now the second point in terms of making decisions about what to show.
There are artistic, elements in the decision making, but
these are commercial enterprises.
Totally.
>> What sells?
And again talking about Red Tails George Lucas makes the point that.
He had to wait untill he could make a movie,
which had a predominantly African-American cast.
I think that tells you something about,
what someone who's very much steeped in to.
If not Hollywood then popular film making,
had to consider before going ahead with the project.
>> Okay, I just want to ask you a very classic question when it comes to
image about authenticity.
>> Mm-hm,. >> I think you touched upon in
briefly as to what is authentic and
you also mentioned that as long as it's public history, authenticity is not.
As you alluded to that authenticity, clear authenticity, whatever that means it's not
a requirement because it does invoke some sort of curiosity.
But I have a big problem with that because if films like Argo and
Zero Dark Thirty that all came out last year, Homeland, all these films that.
Supposedly are, you know, based on real events, but
then they give out very altered histories of events and altered histories that
are sync with the current politics that are very problematic.
And very jingoistic.
So, I mean, perhaps you can comment on the fact of
your authenticity specially given now that it's so easy images.
>> Yeah. I, I, I,
I'm not going to defend history through film.
I'm happy to use it as a tool.
I'm always cautious in saying it is conveying, the spirit.
Of a story, but it cannot possibly in a two hour movie deal with the same
material in the thoroughness that you might find in an academic study.
For instance, Black Hawk Down was a film that we talked about in a previous topic.
The History Channel's documentary,
90-minute documentary was the true history of Black Hawk Down.
And what they've actually done.
>> The true history.
>> I think that's correct.
I apologize if I managed to get that wrong History Channel,
I actually enjoyed the documentary.
But what they had done was reconstruction.
And as you had the men interviewed, who were part of the action,
what they were describing was then recreated.
But also shot as if it was realtime fuzzy images, disjointed et cetera.
Now I don't have a problem with that.
Because, if you like, it is reinforcing the message of the men who are speaking.
But it's also a case of how much is that a,
a need to keep the attention of the audience?
Otherwise you'll have 90 minutes of still pictures
disjointed radio recordings from the actual raid itself, and
a number of men talking about a very difficult time in
their professional careers in the professional terms.
Rather than giving that realism.
There might also be a change in expectation.
Ridley Scott's film technically is terrific,
and therefore someone watching a documentary,
is at least in part expecting that they're going to have a similar representation.
Not the quality but, if you'll reenacting someone being shot in
a Humvee as it's been described then it, then takes you back to the movie as well.
So I really facetious example for
end of term one of my one of my courses I said.
We should really watch, 13 days about the Cuban missile crisis,
but it's been a long year, etc.
So lets watch X-men first class and decry that as a distortion of history.
Because clearly you have a historical event that lots of people have heard of.
There's no attempt whatsoever to be historically accurate there, yet
suddenly we have a secondary story put in place, completely fanciful,
no attempt whatsoever to be realistic, yet, it sort of, well, maybe.
Yeah?
Go ahead.
>> I had just one more question for
you [CROSSTALK] I might be pushing you a little bit but where do you think.
History ends and entertainment starts.
>> Oh I'll take this question.
>> Even on a personally level maybe.
>> No, no, no, no.
>> Where do you really >> Eric Hobsbawm died recently.
Now, when I was a secondary school student I I've been
doing economic history since I was 14.
Okay be a good idea actually find something else to do but
that's a different matter.
There were two key textbooks.
One written by Eric Hobsbawm, a man who applied his professional career
not more than a stones throw away from this building at Birkbeck college.
A man who was a Marxist historian.
And that was clear from his writing.
And his book, Industry and Empire, caught my imagination.
Now, the other book by Peter Mathias, The First Industrial Nation, is, is a,
is a terrific piece of work.
In fact, one of my lecturers at Kent said we know this decision,
if you're running this course, do you actually put it on the reading list or
do you just use it as your lectures and read out of it.
Okay?
But, Peter Mathias, although it is an accessible history,
it's not heavily laden with references etcetera, could not convey the immediacy
and if you lack the commitment to telling the story that Eric Hobsbawm did.
Now, to say that Eric Hobsbawm was quote wrong is inappropriate.
But he was writing with particular biases.
From a post-mortem perspective, I now know what those biases are.
I know read The Economist even though that I
know it's a free market right of center journal.
But it still gives a better quality of analysis [INAUDIBLE]
Taking those biases into account, the many of the other journals that I might read.
So, History isn't purely entertainment.
History is definitely not the new rock and roll.
Given the number of my colleagues who are appearing on the TV fairly regularly.
One might think that it's going in that direction.
But the fact there is a broad interest in the history of the past, and it can made,
be made in a way that's accessible, then hopefully promotes further in-depth study.
Does history need to be as focused, as the academic monograph.
I think there are very important points where the academic monograph is
the bedrock of historical study.
You three are in PhD studies, will be contributing to the,
the capital stock of knowledge.
It's how your works thereafter are then interpreted by other historians in your
field is how you're going to make your contribution.
Whether you think in either or
your cases that subject matter, the interpretation is is of
a nature that it will attract an audience beyond academia is a different matter.
And I think what you're doing is both interesting and
valid, which is not a platitude but
it's these are years which I have not been properly covered in the past.
That there has been a clear gender bias in the way that history has
written just because its been older men,
normally Caucasian, older men who have written history.
So both in your own instances and the, you know, your own state of being, and
the areas you're studying, you're contributing to how history expands.
How much history has to be entertainment?
No, history doesn't have to be entertainment, but
you also need to work out who your audience is.
You're writing for a very specific audience now.
Whereas James Bradley is writing for a more general audience.
Not least which because he has a different mm-hm.
The story has to tell is of a, of a different nature.
So. >> I was actually also thinking about it
from the different.
And go, if someone walks into a cinema and
sees a movie about Pearl Harbor or whatever.
>> Mm-hm,.
>> He, or
she might perceive that as history >> As history.
>> And it's not.
>> It's not history.
>> And what, what is our responsibility as historians?
To not just write books and sit at tables, but to say.
Actually, maybe we should change the way we, we present or
we make history accessible.
>> Yeah. >> Real history.
>> And I, I mentioned the BBC documentary on Hiroshima and I think in some context,
that represents a very good the best instance of
public history because it blends.
Testimony contemporary footage and reconstruction.
In a way that I think enlightens.
And I think there's a difference between sensationalism for entertainment.
>> Exactly.
>> And authority in telling a story.
