Inventing Historical Truth on the Silver Screen

PASADENA, Calif. -- When dramatic historical films and docudramas become controversial (such as JFK, or the recently cancelled TV film on Ronald Reagan), the charge often made is that they are worthless because they fictionalize and invent the past.

Not so, says Robert Rosenstone, a professor of history at the California Institute of Technology. On Wednesday, March 3, his talk, "Inventing Historical Truth on the Silver Screen," will present his argument as to why such dramatized films do indeed have merit. His talk is part of the 2003-04 Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series at Caltech.

After working on films for two of his own books (including Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed, which was used as the basis of the Academy Award winning film Reds), and researching the topic of historical films for 15 years, Rosenstone argues that it is precisely by fictionalizing and inventing a past that such films communicate much of value to us about our history.

His talk will be illustrated with clips from historical films, and will take place at 8 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium, near Michigan Avenue south of Del Mar Boulevard, on Caltech's campus in Pasadena. Seating is available on a free, no-ticket-required, first-come, first-served basis. Caltech has offered the Watson Lecture Series since 1922, when it was conceived by the late Caltech physicist Earnest Watson as a way to explain science to the local community.