Watch history come alive, and see the past unfold! This film series is designed to provoke curiosity and get you wondering about how the historian’s craft can leap out of books and onto the silver screen. Join us for a short introductory talk, discussion, and screening of historically significant films each month. Each month, the History Department presents a different film, accompanied by an introduction about the film and its historical context. Free and open to the public. More information: Chris Choe, christianchoe@uga.edu 2024 - 25 Theme: "Capturing the Reel World" Film Schedule September 9, 7 PM - Bicycle Thieves (1948, dir. Vittorio de Sica) In its inaugural poll in 1952, Sight and Sound crowned Bicycle Thieves (1948) the greatest film of all time. Vittorio De Sica employed non-professional actors and released the camera from studio shackles onto the open streets of post-war Rome. What emerged was a masterwork of Italian neo-realism and a new, documentary-adjacent style that faithfully captured the social realities of a community emerging from the destruction of war. The film follows a father as he desperately searches for his stolen bicycle, on which he depends for work and to provide for his family. Dr. Steve Soper, associate professor of history, will deliver a brief introduction of the film and its themes before the screening. At UGA, he teaches courses on European and Italian history. October 9, 5 PM - Tokyo Spring (1953, dir. Yasujiro Ozu) In the latest issue of Sight and Sound's Greatest Films of All Time, Tokyo Story (1953) ranked third, a position to which it has gradually climbed since the 1990s. This single film is evidence enough for placing Yasujiro Ozu among the "Big Three" masters of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema--the others being Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. With uniquely Eastern sensibility, Ozu crafts what Paul Schrader termed the transcendental style in film, marked by "austere camerawork, acting devoid of self-consciousness, and editing that avoids editorial comment." The film follows an aging couple as they visit their children in Tokyo and their slow realization that their family has outgrown them and no longer has time for them. Dr. Timothy Yang, associate professor of history and director of the Center for Asian Studies, will deliver a brief introduction of the film and its themes before the screening. At UGA, he teaches courses on modern Japanese history and the global history of drugs and pharmaceuticals. November 11, 7 PM - Roma (2018, dir. Alfonso Cuarón) At the 91st Academy Awards, Roma (2018) won Alfonso Cuaron his second Best Director award, along with awards for Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film. Critics lauded the film's depiction of indigeneity, citing its authentic portrayal of Cleo (the film's protagonist) in such a way that left no room for stereotyping. An intimate film set in 1970 and 1971, cast against the backdrop of El Halconazo, Roma follows a Mixtec live-in maid in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. Along the way, the film explores labor relations, memory, social conventions that govern relationships, and power. Dr. Oscar Chamosa, associate professor of history, will deliver a brief introduction of the film and its themes before the screening. At UGA, he teaches courses on Mexican and Latin American history. He is also editor of the Athens Historian, a publication by the Athens Historical Society. January 16, 7 PM - Memories of Underdevelopment (1968, dir. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea) Among Cuban films, Memorias de Subdesarrollo is widely considered the greatest. In part, its reputation is due to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's careful balancing act in his critical imaging of bourgeois culture, neocolonialism, capitalism, and of the realities of socialist revolution. Combining several cinematic styles, fragmenting his narrative, effectively producing a moving collage of everyday life, Gutiérrez Alea follows the intellectual Sergio as he wanders the streets of Havana contemplating the new political world Cuba has entered. The film is not only a masterstroke of Third Cinema, but it is also a keenly interesting examination, depiction, and reproduction of memory. Dr. Reinaldo Román, associate professor of history, will deliver a brief introduction of the film and its themes before the screening. At UGA, he teaches courses on Latin American history, with specific emphasis on Cuba and the Caribbean. February 10, 7 PM - Sankofa (1993, dir. Haile Gerima) In the Ghanaian Akan language, sankofa means "to go back, look for, and gain wisdom, power and hope." Perhaps the most obscure picture of this rotation, Haile Gerima's Sankofa takes us to Africa, only to return us to our home: the US South. This film forces us to grapple with the excruciating torments of chattel slavery, not from the perspective of a nation having to confront its past but from the perspective of a civilization reeling from the effects of the Maafa, the African Holocaust. While African cinema is often undervalued by the Global North, Sankofa strikes out as a testament to the artistic capability of the West African film industry. It was lauded at the African Cinema Festival and has been ranked by Harvard Film Studies professors as one of the "most essential films in the history of world cinema, 1980-2000." Dr. Robert Pratt, professor of history, will present a brief introduction to the film and its themes before the screening. At UGA, he teaches courses on the modern African American experience, the Civil Rights Movement, and film and history. March 10, 6 PM - Breathless (1960, dir. Jean-Luc Godard) The Criterion Collection puts it best, "There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless." This monument of the French New Wave cinema captures a moment of postwar anxiety. Effortlessly light and breezy, simultaneously subversive, Godard launches this film through the beautiful glass panes of French formalism to present a frenetic, lively--some might say jazzy--portrait of adolescence and amorality in postwar Paris. The film's protagonist, Michel, embodies France's new moment under cultural subjugation and the new youth movements on the rise. A scoundrel on the run, he seeks to escape Paris, enlisting the help of an old fling, Patricia, who must decide on her own course of action. Dr. Richard Neupert will present a brief introduction to the film and its themes before the screening. Neupert is the Charles H. Wheatley Professor of the Arts emeritus at UGA, where he taught courses in film history and theory, French cinema, narrative theory, and animation. April 14, 5 PM - Man with a Movie Camera (1929, dir. Dziga Vertov) The Soviet Union delivered the most experimental generation of filmmakers in cinematic history, innovation necessitated by a revolution that demanded a total rejection of bourgeois morality and convention. Between Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein, documentary and narrative filmmaking evolved at a much-quickened pace. In this final month of the 2024-2025 series, we return to one of cinema's earliest--certainly its most innovative--artists: Vertov. Man with a Movie Camera eschews fairy tales and fantasy, preferring the social realism of true everyday life, aiming to create "an authentically international absolute language of cinema on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature." Dr. Joseph Kellner, assistant professor of history, will deliver a brief introduction of the film and its themes before the screening. At UGA, he teaches courses on Russian and Soviet history and the Cold War.
