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Historians using film as a resource to understand the past is a comparatively recent trend.Before the 1970s historians tended to dismiss film as purely entertainment as, even whenbased on actual events, films inevitably include interpretations, distortions and invention tomeet the expectations of the audience. Whilst there has been some recognition that historyfilms can provide some understanding of the past, in terms of 'felt' history, or giving newperspectives, most historians still look at historical films from a purely evidentialstandpoint - how does the film relate to the facts - rather than whether they give an addeddimension to understanding the past.Ever since the Civil War ended, it has been used as a cultural symbol and vehicle,originating and reinforcing myths, inculcating American values and, by the middle of thetwentieth century, as a critique of America and its foreign policy - especially in relation toVietnam. Hollywood became interested in the Civil War in 1908 at a time when the whiteNorth and the white South had become reconciled, the African American marginalised andthe Southern version of the Civil War predominated in popular culture and in academia. Ithelped transform a story of 'bitter sectional conflict into one of human courage andbravery,' assisting in 'reconciling the competing versions of what constitutes the UnitedStates...into a blame-free experience' to provide a narrative 'that would appeal to Northand South alike.' 7 The Hollywood image portrayed a cultured Southern civilisation, a'moonlight and magnolia' world, of large plantation houses, loyal servants, honourable,heroic men and beautiful, supportive women who were only defeated by superior forces. 8Then followed the hardship of Reconstruction - the South ground down by northerncarpetbaggers. 9 This was the myth that Hollywood took and built upon in film after filmuntil D. W. Griffith, in his 1915 film The Birth of a Nation (Birth), added the final myththat freed African Americans would revert to animalistic, sexual brutes if not controlled bykindly whites. 10 This representation of the Civil War remained unchanged for thirty years.Myths are important in society. They interpret the past to give meaning and value to lifeand present an ideology to defend the status quo. The truth, says William H. McNeil, iswhat people believe. Myths can become reality and, in doing so, blind people to otherevidence. 11 What 'actually happened', says David Goldfield, and 'what people thoughthappened belong to a single historical process, and history and memory are indeliblyintertwined........history is not learned - it is remembered, handed down.' 12 All theparticipants in the Civil War developed their separate myths and reinforced them through2
ituals, monuments, oral reminiscences and history syllabi. David Blight has argued thatthree overall visions emerged from the Civil War: visions of reconciliation, whitesupremacy and emancipation. The first two gradually 'locked arms' to form, by the early1900s, 'a segregated memory of the Civil War on racist terms.' But the emancipationistmemory of the African Americans persisted, and its revival, through the Civil RightsMovement, helped to transform America. 13World War II became the catalyst, which changed Hollywood's approach to the Civil Warfilm. The need to mobilise the whole nation brought African Americans into the industriesof the North and West and into the armed services. Federal policies worked to reducediscrimination, building on the advances made under the New Deal. 14 African Americansgained self-confidence in fighting tyranny abroad and racism at home whilst academicsdemonstrated that race was a cultural, not a natural, concept and pointed to theinconsistencies of American democracy. 15 Before the war Hollywood's vision of the CivilWar had been that of the static, pro-South, planter aristocracy where the question of whitesupremacy was barely challenged. 16 Afterwards, the plantation film virtually disappearedas the Civil War film moved west, the issues of race relations and equality were addressed- although not consistently - and the African American eventually emerged from thebackground. l7 This is a different view from that of Edward Campbell Jr., who commentsthat Hollywood's portrayal of the South remained consistent for seventy years, or that ofBruce Chadwick, who says that it was only in the late 1970s that there was a radicaldeparture from the entrenched myths of the nineteenth century.radical change had already occurred.1 RHowever, by that time,Film and academic historians who have studied the Civil War in popular culture haveconcentrated on the years before 1940 highlighting the iconic films Birth and Gone withthe Wind (1939). Those who have looked at the Civil War films after 1945 haveconcentrated on the Civil War either as part of the 'western,' or as part of 'America atwar', genres. More recently attention has been given to the television mini-series Roots(1977), Ken Burns' Civil War (1990) television documentary and by Glory (1989). Therehas been no systematic study of the intervening period, 1945-75.Hollywood's representation of the Civil War after 1945 was animated by the complexinteraction of the Cold War and civil rights. From the end of World War II the Cold War3
Page 1 and 2: Greenwich Academic Literature Archi
Page 3: REEL WARS: COLD WAR, CIVIL RIGHTSAN
Page 6 and 7: ABSTRACTThis study is an examinatio
Page 8 and 9: ABBREVIATIONSAMPASAHRBirthCommissio
Page 12 and 13: dominated America's foreign policy
Page 14 and 15: Mary L. Dudziak explores this relat
Page 17 and 18: pure and simple' and were therefore
Page 19 and 20: historical texts. Hayden White comp
Page 21 and 22: Historians, history films and film
Page 23 and 24: How have sympathetic film historian
Page 25 and 26: Therefore historians can, with over
Page 27 and 28: identity and these were taken as th
Page 29 and 30: 21 George F. Custen, 'Hollywood and
Page 31 and 32: 63 Rosenstone, The Historical Film,
Page 33 and 34: of Honor dedicated to, and listing,
Page 35 and 36: War.....[it] defined us as to what
Page 37 and 38: The Civil War and popular cultureJu
Page 39 and 40: memory,53 the place where Union and
Page 41 and 42: Despite being a new medium Hollywoo
Page 43 and 44: From the late 1940s Hollywood was u
Page 45 and 46: 1 William Faulkner, Requiem for a N
Page 47 and 48: 36 Blight, Race and Reunion, 77, 81
Page 49 and 50: mainly composed of members of the w
Page 51 and 52: there was cowardice, it was either
Page 53 and 54: This was another Lost Cause myth -
Page 55 and 56: stuff with plenty of clothes, rich
Page 57 and 58: women into or within slavery. 47 Th
Page 59 and 60: departure when, in the discussion o
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1 William Dean Howells, Los Angeles
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37 Melvyn Stokes, The Civil War in
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All races and religions, that's Ame
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Hollywood almost abandoned Civil Wa
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charged with disloyalty and silence
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ecover from the HUAC investigations
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a living. The daughters grow up to
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Gettysburg. 'You know,' says Henry,
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combining two great myths, which co
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(1948), Tom Dunson's style of autoc
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Patriotism became a white attribute
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In the absence of African Americans
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(Horizons West) and businessmen (An
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year later, and there was no lead f
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20 Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War, Civil
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56 Richard White, 'Western History'
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7 have seen the promised land.' 'Th
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those between whites and African Am
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change, to forget what made him, he
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eported that the film had 'already
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campaigning for Lincoln. John's rea
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lack/white relationships, in Civil
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McCarthy discredited and a more rel
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dispute which once divided our nati
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pressure, continued to hold. The me
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discrimination, attempts at univers
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talks about Lincoln pleading that '
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creativity. The Confederates use a
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police in Birmingham and Kennedy's
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1 Martin Luther King Jr.'s, speech,
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44 Blight, Race and Reunion, 8-11,
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- self-belief, reasons for fighting
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Sexploitation - which reversed the
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would surely recognise the Mexicans
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There are similar examples in Major
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on working class whites nor receive
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The conflict between civil rights a
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e trusted from the wiles of the mis
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field-hands are too valuable an inv
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moving the civil rights agenda to a
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McBurney, even though he is wounded
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Most reviewers were sympathetic, se
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conservatism,' as a natural ally fo
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By the early 1970s, Hollywood's opt
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20 Enoch, in Friendly Persuasion (1
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62 Johnson called what happened the
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The world is white no longer; and i
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proceed with civil rights legislati
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would have been counter to the poli
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mid-1990s was rejected as the compa
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those historians who were contestin
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1 James Baldwin, Stranger in the Vi
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39 Robert Brent Toplin, Reel Histor
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1210mmmto3sCT>The number of America
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There is a third problem - that of
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the Library of Congress and the Uni
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mainly contain copies of correspond
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killing. There were two other areas
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are 'no compensating moral values a
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epresented.' 32 However, this was t
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Reference has already been made to
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It is in the final period that anti
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22 Letter from Shurlock to William
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Year Director Company190819091910Ba
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191119121912Grant and LincolnHe Fou
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19131913Call to Arms, TheCarpenter,
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1915 Birth of a Nation, TheColonel
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19341935193619371938193919401941194
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Searchers, TheShowdown at AbileneTh
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Alien, Robert C., and Douglas Gomer
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Cassidy, John M., Civil War Cinema:
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Foner, Eric, Who Owns History, (New
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Landy, Marcia, (ed.), The Historica
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Prince, Stephen, A New Pot of Gold:
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Sternsher, Bernard, Consensus, Conf
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