Cinema and authenticity: Anxieties in the making of historical film

Lees, Dominic

Abstract

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The practice of representing history on film brings the filmmaker into collision with a cluster of concerns around the authentic. While recent articles have considered the historical documentary and historical dramatisation, I seek to extend the debate into narrative fiction film set in historical periods. In this article, I discuss conflicting conceptions of authenticity. Through my own practice-as-research, I examine the decision-making within the preproduction of a historical drama (my short film, The Burning, 2016) in order to demonstrate the ways in which contradictory concepts of authenticity can coexist within a historical film project.

Citation

Lees, D. (2016). Cinema and authenticity: Anxieties in the making of historical film. Journal of Media Practice, 17(2-3), 199-212. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2016.1248190

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 25, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Oct 27, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 18, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 18, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Media Practice
• Print ISSN: 1468-2753
• Electronic ISSN: 2040-0926
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 2-3
• Pages: 199-212
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2016.1248190
• Keywords: historical film, authenticity, verisimilitude, memory, film practice, film directing
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/908603
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2016.1248190
• Related Public URLs: https://research.uca.ac.uk/3234/