Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century America ed. by Matthew Christopher Hulbert and John C. Inscoe

Abstract

Reviewed by: Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century America ed. by Matthew Christopher Hulbert and John C. Inscoe David B. Sachsman Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century America. Edited by Matthew Christopher Hulbert and John C. Inscoe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019. ISBN 978-0-8071-7046-5. 352 pp., cloth, $55.00. Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century America presents an intriguing puzzle. With all the possible feature films to choose from, why were these movies selected? The decision to replace some of the "usual suspects," such as Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Red Badge of Courage (1951) with films such as Bright Leaf (1951) and Mandingo (1975) certainly raises questions (6). If editors Christopher Hulbert and John C. Inscoe's "intent is to explore how America's love affair with cinema has shaped collective understandings of an entire century's worth of history," why did they choose films that had little influence on contemporary views of the nineteenth century? (4). Why include an essay, for example, on two films about Andrew Jackson, The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) and The President's Lady (1953), about which the author, John Marszalek, writes, "a film can be lacking in historical accuracy and still have a major impact if it draws large audiences and much attention from the media. Such was not the case with these two films" (56). In the end, the choice of films can be justified only by the quality of the essays themselves. And here the editors are supported by their authors, who in almost all cases bring something new to the discussion of which films best represent the American past—both the era they describe and the time period in which they were produced. The Andrew Jackson essay, for example, is definitely worth reading for what it tells us about the film industry. The book is organized chronologically by historical events through the nineteenth century, beginning with The Far Horizons (1955), the story of Lewis and Clark, and ending with Daughters of the Dust (1991), in which an African American family of the Gullah, or Geechee tradition prepares to leave its home in the Sea Islands for the mainland in 1902. Given this structure, the chapter on Quentin [End Page 239] Tarantino's The Hateful Eight (2015), for example, precedes the chapter that compares the depictions of George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (1941) and Little Big Man (1970). This makes it difficult to view the book as a history of film, since most of the authors bring twenty-first-century views to their discussions of the time periods in which their films were actually made as well as the historical era depicted. A number of authors make it clear that some of these films say more about the era in which they were produced than they do about the nineteenth century. But did these films play a greater role in shaping our popular culture and our knowledge of the nineteenth century than the actual history itself did? Do our images of the frontier or the Civil War come from the movies or from history books? The Birth of a Nation (1915) clearly influenced its viewers, and the images of the Civil War period in Gone with the Wind (1939) are with us still. But some of the films discussed in this volume had little or no influence on their audiences, and some, like Mandingo, are best left forgotten. In the end, this book reminds us that "not all historical movies are created equal" and that there are as many trivial movies about nineteenth-century American history as there are films that have affected our knowledge and popular culture (3). Writing History with Lightning will interest historians and film buffs alike. That its choice of films is new and different and that it discusses bad movies as well as good ones make the book attractive for its own sake. Finally, most of the individual essays are excellent and worth reading on their own. All factors considered, this collection is a valuable contribution to both the history of the nineteenth century and...