Fiction Films In The 20th Century

Fiction films are often stigmatised by historians, as they distort the truth, causing problems when trying to use them as a source. Their wildly varying content matter, inaccuracies, and bias make them hard to use. Film does not simply suggest a worldview; it states, and we experience, its existence as truth, which is the fundamental power and danger it poses to the observer. One cannot deny, however, film’s phenomenal impact in the twentieth century, drastically changing the way we see the world and how we absorb information. In this way, film is best considered as one stage in the ongoing history of communications. As a historical medium, therefore, fiction film can be very valuable, as despite fictitious content, it still has the potential
of illuminating an historical event, be it mimetically through content or as part of a broader reflection on society. Perhaps why films are stigmatised is because they are misunderstood as sources. Whilst we know that we must learn to read before we can understand written historical sources, and to an extent learn some form of ‘objective’ analysis, we tend to believe, mistakenly, that anyone can read a film. However, the better one learns to read and analyse images, the more one understands and has power over it, thus people who are highly experienced in film, highly literate visually, have the opportunity to see more and understand more than people who seldom watch films. This essay, therefore, follows the hypothesis that, as all films have a point of view, they can be used as an important historical source to display contemporary responses from a singular perspective, or the change of a wider consensus through a broader selection of films; however, a historian must first learn how to read a film and understand the importance of complementing fiction films with contextual historical information.