Researchers are fond of saying that there is no film history , only film histories.For some, this means that there can be no intelligible, coherent ―grand narrative‖ that puts all the facts into the place. The history of avant-garde film does not fit neatly into the history of color technology or the development of the Western films. For others, film history mean that historians work from various perspectives and with different interests and purposes.
Film history is more appropriately thought of as a set of film histories, because research into film history involves asking a series of questions and searching for evidence in order to answer them in the course of an argument. When historians focus on different questions, turn up different evidence, and formulate different explanations, we derive not a single history but a diverse set of historical arguments.
Film historians mount research programs, systematic inquiries into the past. A historian research program is organized around questions that require answers. A research program also consists of assumptions and background knowledge. For a film historian, a fact takes on significance only in the context of research program. Historians in any discipline do more than accumulate facts. No facts speak for themselves. Facts are interesting and important only as part of research programs.
But facts help us ask and answer questions.
Historians research programs aims to do at least two things. First the historian tries to describe a process or state of affairs. She asks what and who and where and when. What is this film, who made it, where and when? In what ways does this director‘s work differ from that of others? What evidence is there that a studio was nearly bankrupt? Who is the actor in the shot? Who was responsible for scripts at this company? Where was this film shown, and who might have seen it? Here the historians problem is largely one of finding information that will answer such questions.
Accurate description is indispensable for all historical research. Every scholar is indebted to descriptive work for identifying films, collating versions, compiling filmographies, establishing timelines, and creating reference works that supply names, dates and the like. The more sophisticated and long lived a historical discipline is, the richer and more complete its battery of descriptive reference material is.
Second a historian tries to explain a process or state of affairs. He asks, How does this work? And Why did this happen? How did this company assign tasks, lay out responsibilities, carry a project to completion? How did this directors work influence other films from the company?The film historian , like a historian of art or politics, proposes an explanatory argument. The historian‘s argument consists of evidence to create a believable explanation for an event or state of affairs.
Most argument about empirical matters-and the history of film is principally and empirical matter-rely on evidence. Evidence consists of information that gives grounds for believing that the argument is sound. Evidence supports the expectation that the historian has presented a plausible answer to the original question. Film historians work with evidence of many sorts. For many, copies of the films they study are central pieces of evidence. Historians also rely on print sources, both published(books, magazines, trade journals, newspapers) and unpublished (memoirs, letters, notes, production files, scripts, court testimony).Historians of film technology study cameras, sound recorders and other equipment. A film studio or an important location might also serve as a source of evidence.
Usually historians must verify their sources of evidence. Often this depends on the sort of descriptive research we have already mentioned. The problem is particularly acute with film prints. Films have always circulated in different versions. In the 1920s, Hollywood films were shot in two versions, one for the United States and one for export. These could differ considerably in length, content, and even visual style. To this day, many Hollywood films are released in Europe in more erotic or violent versions than are screened in the United States. In addition, many old films have deteriorated and been subject to cutting and revision. Even modern restorations do not necessarily result in film identical to the original version. Many current video versions of old films have been trimmed, expanded or otherwise altered from their theatrical release format. Often, then the historian does not known whether the print she is seeing represents anything like and original , if indeed there can be said to be a single ―original‖
version.Historians try to be aware of the differences among the versions of the films they are studying and try to account for them; indeed the fact that there are different versions can itself be a source of questions.
Historians generally distinguish between primary and secondary sources. As applied to film, primary sources usually refers to the people directly involved in whatever objects or events are being studied. For example, if you were studying Japanese cinema of the 1920s, film, interviews with filmmakers or audience members, and contemporary trade journals would count as primary material. Later discussions concerning the period, usually by an earlier historian, would be considered secondary. Often, though one scholar‘s secondary source is another‘s primary source, because the researchers are asking different question.
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