Cinema as Historian: Agnotology and the Politics of Historical and Fictional Representations of the Vietnam War
Naveen John Panicker
Publication: Volume 1 Issue 3
Abstract
Cinema is visual storytelling, and is therefore a medium that tells by showing; in order to do that, it is required to ‘create’ that which it aims to present. There is a certain degree of artifice inherent in this form of ‘telling by showing’ and cinema, therefore, is mostly placed under the umbrella term of fiction. However, films that deal with historical content and, in this instance, films that deal with the American involvement in Vietnam, elude this easy and simplistic form of categorization; they are thought not to simply create but, more specifically, to ‘recreate’ a reality that has already been memorialized through literature and academic history. This paper, therefore, thinks through the concept of Agnotology, the study of ignorance, and certain ideas concerning historiography in order to examine the liminal space between memory and history, between fiction and fact, that historical cinema occupies.
Keywords: Memory, History, Authenticity, Cinema, Hollywood, Agnotology, Vietnam War, Film Studies.
Naveen John Panicker (naveenew007@gmail.com) is an M.Phil. research scholar in the Department of English, University of Delhi. He finished his B.A. (Hons) in English from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, and completed M.A. from the University of Delhi. His areas of interest include Suicidology, Cinema Studies and Contemporary Literature.