Hope to See You Again Sometime in the Near Future
Ken Burns' Benjamin Franklin — the documentary filmmaker's latest deep dive into an important effigy in American history — is at present out on PBS. When I heard the moving picture was coming out, I got excited. Through the magic of filmmaking, documentaries like this i tin can make the past come alive. They can take historical scholarship and turn it into an exciting drama. The music rises and falls; you tin can't help only feel carried away.
That feeling is pretty compelling; it's besides tough to let get of it. Historical documentaries attempt to make you feel like you've been through an feel, and that now you lot understand, but I retrieve that feeling is a little dangerous. It's so important that nosotros learn about the events of the by, but it'due south also really important that we don't call back we know everything. More and more than, we seem to be looking to history every bit a source of amusement, and that has all kinds of complicated implications in how we recall well-nigh the past.
Looking to the Past for Certainty
You may have noticed that there are a whole lot of documentaries around these days. Information technology feels like every fourth dimension I peek at the offerings on Netflix or other streaming services, I'grand presented with options for everything from true-criminal offense docs about serial killers to docuseries about cults to deep dives on historical figures like the same Benjamin Franklin.
There are, of course, lots of reasons why and so many documentaries are getting made. To be certain, the pandemic has been a huge gene, merely across that I wonder if we're also craving a kind of settled narrative that just isn't available to us in the present moment. Life is pretty confusing these days. We're living through global wellness crises, wars, divisive politics, and the terrifying implications of ongoing climate change. It feels actually hard to know anything.
Under those circumstances, yous can come across the appeal of plopping yourself down in front of something similar a history documentary. You lookout, and you get to feel like you know the story of something that happened. The past, in that mode, can experience settled and certain in a way that feels comfortable to us in the present.
The Positive Side of History equally Entertainment
There are, of course, some good things about all of this. The best documentaries ask compelling questions and leave u.s. feeling a sense of wonder about the world. When I was a kid, I remember beingness so bored in history classes that I idea I had no interest in the topic any. As an adult, I've go actually interested in the history of the American Ceremonious War, but I remember bravado off entire reading assignments on the subject in loftier school.
The success of historical documentaries like Burns' The Civil War, dated and problematic as it undeniably is, is admittedly part of why I've come to realize that I really love learning about the past. With so many documentaries available — and the proliferation of history podcasts and companies like MasterClass that sit on the edge of education and entertainment — it's more possible than ever for people to realize, outside of the context of schoolhouse, that they actually savour learning. The take a chance is that these learning opportunities can pb to a situation where the ascendant historical narrative is being curated by people and companies driven by profit rather than past the rigors of historical inquiry and truth.
How We Experience Virtually the Past
As who we are changes, how nosotros feel near who nosotros used to be changes too. Contemporary criticisms of Burns' The Civil War are a good case of this. Burns himself has admitted that he "would probably be making a different kind of moving picture now," from the one he made in 1990. The film he made, though, was incredibly influential, and for many people it concretized a lot of what the American Ceremonious War became in our collective memory.
There is a lot of excellent material in the documentary, but unfortunately, on the whole, its formulation of the American Civil State of war itself is securely flawed. From perpetuating the thought that the war was about a failure to compromise to the idea that a homo like Robert East. Lee "disapproved" of slavery, The Civil State of war presents a limited and occasionally troubling perspective. That perspective becomes fifty-fifty more problematic when it becomes the dominant way the state of war itself is remembered. Information technology takes a lot of fourth dimension and energy to undo these misconceptions — to help people open up their minds to the idea that things might have been dissimilar than how they were portrayed.
History Isn't Just Facts
In the end, information technology'southward of import to remember that history is a field of study and a soapbox. History isn't just a set up of facts that nosotros receive and know how to translate, merely an ongoing chat that happens over time. That chat changes, as I said above, based on who we are and what we value in a given catamenia. Information technology too changes based on how the facts are presented and who controls the power to present them.
Documentaries are not, generally, conversations; they are statements. The all-time ones — and Burns' Benjamin Franklin might very well end up being one of these — encourage us to explore farther and to inquire more questions. They might even leave us feeling a little unsettled, like we aren't sure whether the great historical figures of the past are heroes or villains. That's a good matter, because nigh of the time, the figures of the by are neither. They are people, similar u.s.a., full of flaws and doubts. Hopefully, when we learn about them, we larn most the importance of existence willing to change our minds and ourselves.
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/when-we-look-to-history-for-entertainment?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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