Authorial Histories: The Historical Film and the Literary Biopic

TY - CHAP

T1 - Authorial Histories

T2 - The Historical Film and the Literary Biopic

AU - Shachar, Hila

PY - 2013/1/25

Y1 - 2013/1/25

N2 - This essay examines a particular type of historical film, the literary biopic. Literary biopics have become increasingly popular from the 1990s onwards and their popularity highlights a particular type of contemporary engagement with history that is mediated by the creative process of literary productions and personal life-narratives. In this essay, I argue that this specific branch of the historical film displays a contemporary postmodern historical consciousness, in which national and cultural histories are self-consciously presented to audiences through an engagement with individual life stories and fictional literary constructions, highlighting the individual and “fictional” nature of the historical film and history itself. Drawing from theories of heritage cinema, I seek to demonstrate how literary biopics display a complex engagement with and construction of history, in which the past is entered into a dialogue with the present through the figure of the well-known author. The portrayal of these authors’ lives is often an avenue to explore contemporary concerns in the films, such as post-feminism, the place of history in the contemporary, the role of love in a mass-market age, the cultural capital and legacy of the canonical author and the postmodern loss of historical consciousness, memory and authenticity. It is through the mediating figure of the author that larger debates regarding history and the historical film are investigated and ultimately, I argue that these films demonstrate how the genre of the historical film has become increasingly aligned with the authorial persona as both an individual and cultural emblem of contemporary historical consciousness.

AB - This essay examines a particular type of historical film, the literary biopic. Literary biopics have become increasingly popular from the 1990s onwards and their popularity highlights a particular type of contemporary engagement with history that is mediated by the creative process of literary productions and personal life-narratives. In this essay, I argue that this specific branch of the historical film displays a contemporary postmodern historical consciousness, in which national and cultural histories are self-consciously presented to audiences through an engagement with individual life stories and fictional literary constructions, highlighting the individual and “fictional” nature of the historical film and history itself. Drawing from theories of heritage cinema, I seek to demonstrate how literary biopics display a complex engagement with and construction of history, in which the past is entered into a dialogue with the present through the figure of the well-known author. The portrayal of these authors’ lives is often an avenue to explore contemporary concerns in the films, such as post-feminism, the place of history in the contemporary, the role of love in a mass-market age, the cultural capital and legacy of the canonical author and the postmodern loss of historical consciousness, memory and authenticity. It is through the mediating figure of the author that larger debates regarding history and the historical film are investigated and ultimately, I argue that these films demonstrate how the genre of the historical film has become increasingly aligned with the authorial persona as both an individual and cultural emblem of contemporary historical consciousness.

U2 - 10.1002/9781118322673.ch10

DO - 10.1002/9781118322673.ch10

M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)

SN - 9781444337242

SP - 199

EP - 219

BT - A Companion to the Historical Film

A2 - Rosenstone , Robert A.

A2 - Parvulescu , Constantin

PB - Wiley

CY - Oxford

ER -