Master assignment格式范文推荐：电影在战争史研究中的作用

Abract摘要

除了纸质文件和数据库，电影在历史研究中也发挥着重要作用。本报告以第一次世界大战的历史研究中的电影功能为中心，使用各种档案，特别是第一次世界大战诗歌数字档案馆和欧洲航空公司作为辅助材料。本报告的第一部分从文献综述开始，支持电影在历史研究中的重要作用，其次是本研究中使用的各种档案。报告的第二部分主要是关于对这项工作中使用的数字档案的评估，包括范围，可访问性，专业支持，档案政策，管理方法，前期问题和潜在危险。

Apart from papaer documents and databases, films also play an important role in historical research. This report centers on the function of films in historical research on the First World War using various archives especially the First World War Poetry Digital Archive and Europeana as supporting materials. The first part of this report begins with literature review that supports film’s vital role in historical research, followed by various archives used in this research. The second part of the report is mainly about the evaluation of digital archives used in this work including the scope, accessibility, professional support, archival policies, management methods, preversation problems and potential dangers. 

       

1.0   Introduction简介

1.1 Background背景

自从“黑玛利亚”诞生以来，这是世界上第一家电影制作工作室，制作了大量的电影和视频，涵盖了经济，文化，历史和其他所有领域。电影和视频不可避免地反映了电影制作时代的文化和历史条件，尽管背后的目的可能会有很大差异。如今，电影档案正在迅速发生变化，这主要是因为数字技术的巨大发展正在改变历史研究的方式。因此，历史研究与令人难忘的事件和电影档案之间的关系是非常有趣的。

Ever since the birth of ‘Black Maria’, the very first film production studio throughout the world, tremendous films and videos have been made covering economics, culture, history and all other areas. Films and videos inevitably reflected the cultural and historical conditions of times that films were made though the purposes behind might vary dramatically. Nowadays, film archiving is changing rapidly mainly because of great digital technology developments which in turn is transforming the way how historical research is carried out. Thus the relationship between historical researchon memorable events and film archives is very intriguing. 

 

1.2 Research questions研究问题

为了探索电影档案如何影响历史研究，一些问题需要进一步研究：

To explore how film archives impact historical research, a few questions need further research:

1. To explore how people benefit from film archives in theGreat War research. 探讨人们如何从大战研究中的电影档案中受益。

2. To evaluate film archives or collections used in this research.评估本研究中使用的电影档案或馆藏。

 

1.3 Structure

This report contained two major sections: part 1 and part 2. Part 1 centers on the influence of film archives in historical research which could be further divided into the following sections: introduction, methodology, discussion as well as conclusion. Part 2 is mainly about the evaluation of archives or collections used.

 

2.0 Methodology

This report starts with the research topic on the role of film in historical research on the Great War. In order to answer this research question, the report starts with literature view. Relevant literature concerning this question will be provided to support the argument. Then different archives are used in search of substantial proof including the First World War poetry digital archive and Europeana. Another major part of this report is the evaluation of the archives used above. Several aspects of these archives are discussed including the introduction, scope, policy, professional support and help, description and arrangement methods, access to archives and potential issues. 

 

2.1 Literature review

Historical research was mostly done in the ‘analogue’ or the non-digital way, including tremendous and laborious analysis of paper documents and databases. Consideration of films as resources used in historical research is rather challenging even though films are generally considered as legitimate source which could be used in historical research (OlafBerg, 2008). Kracauer and Ferro et al have made progress using film as historical research resource during their study of Nazism in German and Russian revolutionary history respectively (Siegfried Kracauer, 1947; Marc Ferro, et al., 1988). More and more historical journals are putting their attention on film reviews and famous historians have started participation in producing historical films (Rosenstone, 1988; Rosenstone, 1995; Rosenstone, 1983; Natalie Zemon Davis; 2000). 

 

2.2 Finding of archives

A few different film archives were used to conduct this research includingEuropeana,First World War Poetry Digital Archive, Great War Archive and Regional film archives. Film as historical research resource is rather a big range and specific topic might suit better, hereafter we center on the role offilm during the Great War.

Films regarding the First World War in Great War Archive covered various areas including the battle destruction (Post battle destruction, 1916; Devastated landscape, 1916), women and war (Women and the war, 1918; Women marching in support of war, 1916), casualty evacuation (Evacuation of the wounded, 1916) and many other aspects (Battle training, 1916; Supplying the guns, 1916). Films tend to present vivid images about particular events and conditions during the war.

Europeana contains large amount of films concerning the Great War that might serve as valuable resource material in historical research. For example, films present air raid practice, procedures in the event of an enemy attack, parade for victory or even Christmas shopping. These critical important materials might give us the illusion that we see or even experience the troubles, fears, happiness of those lives from that certain time. 

British universities Film & Video council also covered lots of film material concerning the Great War. Margaret Thatcher on peace in Europe, a speech given by the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984. During this speech, she talks about the great losses of lives during the Great War and also the Second World War and addressed the biggest political challenge in Europe is the preservation of peace. 

EU Screen also contained collections regarding the World War, such as Movies and Memories: Wartime which is a compilation of archive footage centering on the World War.

 

3.0 Discussion

Film is cultural artifact that created by certain culture and considered an important source of entertainment, also a powerful and wonderful medium for educating the public. Historians insist on “acknowledging the contribution to historical insight and understanding that films can provide through their experiential qualities”. 

For one thing, film is a very important way of documenting historical events which might play vital role in historical research and can show the future generation what’s happened hundreds of years ago through vivid moving pictures. As Pasquale Savino and Carol Peters stated that when understanding of historical event, filming is quite different from paper documents.

The First World War Poetry Digital Archive contains various film archives about battle. Films of soldiers climbing out of shallow trench (Battle training, 1916), wounded soldier being carried on a stretcher (Evacuation of the wounded, 1916), exhausted men resting (Post battle trauma, 1916). Europeanaalso provides film archives of soldiers digging a trench line (With the British forces for the defence of Salonika, 1916), leisure and entertainment at the front (Leisure and entertainment during the First World War, 1918). All these film archives reflect the battlefield during the Great War which might serve as valuable materials for historical research. 

For another thing, film about the Great War serves as a great tool to educate the general public and research for higher education. The film collection of the Great Archive contains The Battle of the Somme, a British documentary film that depicts chariots of war, exhibiting infantry in marching, treating of wounded British and German soldiers. This film was widely distributed in eighteen other countries and quite a famous film showing the First World War.America’s answer to the Huns (Europeana search result) covers the transfer of Americal manpower and materiel across the Atlantic. The film puts constant emphasis on the scale of American industrial might which clearly serves a role to convey hope and confidence to their people. 

Furthermore films about the Great War convey complicated information for this and the future generations, such as international peace, and war destructions. Videos and films are ubiquitous, from traffic and military satellite to scientific research, from national television channels to home videos online. Each one is made for certain purposes. Young people tend to try new things out of excitement or provocation, however they have no idea of what they have chosen. All quiet on the western line (Europeana search result) is about young, enthusiastic students going into the battlefield during the First World War. They have naïve dreams about lives and war until personally experienced the struggle, the pain and destruction of war. The film clearly wants our young generation to cherish the valuable peace nowadays rather than to fight with other countries. #p#分页标题#e#

 

4.0 Conclusion

To sum up, this report aims to discuss the role of film in historical research on the Great War. Film is a powerful wary of documenting things, spreading information and message, educating the general public. Films during the war are vitally important in historical research however the amounts are far less than needed, this is mainly due to the technology limit at the time and another big issue is preservation difficulties. Among the existed film archives, a large part is not available for the general public. A recent film review in UK states that the percentage of material which is accessible to the general public in National and Regional Archives is minor compared to the size of the whole collections. The majority part of the film resources is owned by right-holders.

 

Evaluation of the archives

 

1.0 Introduction of the archives

The First World War Poetry Digital Archivecovers more than 7000 items of images, texts, video and audio for learning, research and teaching. Multimedia artefacts covering a complicated range are from the Imperial War Museum, specially developed educational resources and a large part are contributed by the public. Major part of the archive includes collections of higher important primary material from world-famous poets during the wartime such as Isaac Rosenberg, Vera Brittain and Wilfred Owen. The Great War archive contained more than 6,500 items that are donated by the public. The archive is an important resource for studying the Great War as well as the literature it inspired during that period. 

Europeana contains millions of items covering images (photos, paintings et al.), texts (boos, manuscripts et al.), sounds (music and recording et al.) and videos (films, television et al.). And it’s a true piece of team work contributed by Europeana Foundation and quite a number of European cultural institutions, partners and projects such as Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the British Library and the Louvre to regional archives and local museums from every member of the European Union (List of partners and contributors, 2013).

 

1.1 The scope of the archives

This research is about the role of films in historical research on the Great War therefore, “films” was used as key word during research inFirst World War Poetry Digital Archive. As a result, First World War Poetry Digital Archive shows 120 items concerning this topic. The majority parts of these items are somehow related to the Great War such as films released by the War Office which covered battle field (Tanks and barbed wire, 1916), battle training (Battle training, 1916), army evacuation (Evacuation of the wounded, 1916), battle destruction (Post battle destruction, 1916) and so on. Some even represent the role of women during the First World War. 

While regarding Europeana, “films and the first world war” was used as key word which provided 1,680 items. However a large part of the results are less relevant to the subject. Refine the results by selecting video as media type, English as language of description and permission to use dramatically narrow down the results to 868 items. Furthermore, by adding another keyword ‘army’ narrows the results down to 669 items. Adding of hospital as keyword further knocks down the number of items to 82. To sum up, film documenting the role of hospital in the army during the First World War will present much more precise results. So the more specific the phrase is, the more precise the results will be showed. 

 

1.2 Access to the archives

Search function of theFirst World War Poetry Digital Archive is very convenient and helpful. Users can select subject by searching for keywords and use the advanced search to narrow down the scope. People can select by specific fields such as author, content or search by collection, geographic address or geographic radius. Moreover, users take filter the results by date. First World War Poetry Digital Archive also provides services for requesting for high resolution images or commercial use. Since resources are contributed by other collections, library and institutions, the archive provides links to original providers and users can read more details about specific items through enquiries or imaging services. 

The homepage states that Euroeana aims to provide functionality and content that is universally accessible. The search function is very powerful. Users can easily refine the results by adding more keywords, selecting media type, language of description, year, providing country, copyright and provider. Since Euroeana it’s a piece of team work contributed by Europeana Foundation and quite a number of European cultural institutions, partners and projects, the archive provide links to the original resources. Take this research for example Europeana presents 1,680 results under the phrase ‘film and first world war’. 

 

1.4 The archival policies

According to the description,the First World War Poetry Digital Archive holds the concept of providing a comprehensive range of resources for researchers, teachers and the general public. Thus anyone has the right to use the resources and materials for educational purposes but definitely not for any commercial purposes. Copyright notice must be included during citation and items reproduced from the archive must include the contributor name. 

Europeana’s policies contains the Privacy policy which deals with how they treat personal information that they collected from the users, the Language policy for providing items and information in the users own languages and Accessibility describes Europeana’s aim to provide universally accessible functionality and content. While the Europeanadat exchange agreement deals with the relationship between data providers and Europeana. Also the Europea Public Domain Charter which explains the contribution of Europeana to strengthening the digital Publicdomin. The Publications policy of Europeana state that all Europeana publications and texts are licensed under a ‘Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License’. 

 

1.5 Description and arrangement methods

To descript the information of the research items resulted in the First World War Poetry Digital Archive, several metadata have been applied that included title, author, notes, item date, creation place, item source, content, cataloguer, filename, copyright, digital repository, collection ID, repository name, repository address, publication editor, producer and cameramen. The First World War Poetry Digital Archive provides research items with title, author or subject, item date and content. Further information can be obtained by choosing that specific item. Collections in the archive are arranged by format and famous persons. The photographic, audio, film collections and publications of war are arranged primarily by format regardless of their original order and provenance. Poetry from famous poets such as Edmund Blunden, Vera Brittainare grouped respectively. 

Several metadata are used for descripting information of items provided by Europeana including description, contributor, data, date of creation, type, format, subject, identifier, rights, source, data provider and providing country. The archive also provides links of the item to the original libraries or collections. In this research, the results are showed with item images and the title. Further information will be provided when clicked on certain items which will be showed on a new page. Description contains background information about the item, such as under what circumstances were the film made and information of the specific historical events. 

 

1.6 Professional help and support 

The First World War Poetry Digital Archiveprovides a series of online seminars on various topics within the education part. There are resources for teachers to use both online and in the classroom, resources for higher education such as text analysis and research. 

Europeana provides detailed help in ‘searching Europeana’, ‘exploring Europeana’, ‘results in Europeana’, ‘using my Europeana’ and ‘configure your search widget’. Further consult and feedback can be reflected through their contact function and feedback function. Users can also save previous research results in ‘my Europeana’ which can save time and energy when looking back relevant materials and resources. 

 

1.7 Potential issues

 

1.7.1 Lack of arrangement

The First World War Poetry Digital Archivecovers more than 7000 items covering quite a complicated range of materials which are from multi resources.

 Thus the digital archive arrangement is quite different from the physical libraries and collections. In this research, the archive gives 120 results concerning film related to the Great War. A majority part of the results are arranged by author /subject which were released by the War Office but some of the results lack arrangements. There seems to be no regular patterns of certain research results such as Germen Troops on the Western Front (Messter Film, 1915) and Stand by the Men Who Have Stood By You (Kinsela and Morgan, 1917). 

Arrangement problem about Europeana is far more serious for it’s a research platform which cooperates with other institutions and collections.In this research, 1,680 items are showed using the phrase ‘film and the first world war’searchingEuropeana and these results are pretty difficult to comprehend. Some of the archive items clearly are of the same series such as Elvaston Castle-golden gates, Elvaston Castle gardens, Elvaston Castle and Country Park but are irregularly distributed. It will be much easier to cover the whole items if described as series such as Memorial Cards for Evan Jones (1), (2), (3), Diary of W. J. Powell, father of Walt Powell (1), (2),(3) …(10). #p#分页标题#e#

 

1.7.2 Preservation problem

Part of the footage about the First World War is now deteriorating badly. As David Forbes, 2009 said that ‘oxide is coming off the magnetic tapes, clogging the heads and destroying the images’. Dust is another big problem considering the preservation of orignial digital materials for a large part of original data were destroyed over the long time period. The destruction sometimes is unpreventable. Europeana has done well by digitalizing the film material but experts estimated that about 80% of film material covering the Great War has been lost forever. Luckily the surviving films can be accessible to the general public through digitization. 

 

1.8 Conclusion 

In conclusion, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive and Europeana are powerful archives in historical research such as the role of film in the Great War. These archives contain a comprehensive range of resources that are contributed by libraries, institutions, collections or even the general public. Users can acquire large amount of information through the advanced or refined search and look for more detailed information from the original provider. But the main purpose of archive is preservation, preservation and preservation. It’s vitally important that the film archives should preserve the original data through a long-term history thus to ensure reliability and sustainability. Proper arrangement of the digital archive shall be more efficient. 

 

Part1 

Olaf Berg. (2008).The Challenge of Film Considered as Historical Research. History Experiments 

List of partners and contributors List of partners and contributors. Accessed 2 February 2011. Europeana.

All quiet on the western front. Europeana.Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015.

Siegfried Kracauer. 1947. From Caligari to Hitler.APsychological History of the German Film, PrincetonUniversity Press, London, New York. 

With the British forces for the defence of Salonika.

Tanks and barbed wire. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015. The First World War poetry digital archive. 

Post battle destruction. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015. The First World War poetry digital archive. 

Evacuation of the wounded. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015. The First World War poetry digital archive. 

Battle training. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015. The First World War Poetry Digital Archive. 

Treatment of a wounded soldier. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015. The First World War poetry digital archive. 

America’s answer to the Huns.Europeana. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015.

Leisure and entertainment during the First World War. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015.

Marc Ferro, Analyse de film, analyse de societes. Unesorce nouvelle pour l’histoire, Classiques Hachette,Paris, 1975, Marc Ferro, Cinémaet histoire,Denoël, Gonthier, Paris, 1977, translation NaomiGreen, Marc Ferro, Cinema and History, WayneState Univ. Press, Detroit, 1988.

Rosenstone participated in the production of Redsand The Good Fight. See also Robert A.Rosenstone, ‘History in Images/History in Words:Reflections on the Possibility of Really PuttingHistory onto Film’ in American Historical Review,

93, 1988, Robert A. Rosenstone, Visions of thePast: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1995; Rosenstone, History on Film/Film on History.Davis participated in the production of The Returnof Martin Guerre and wrote a book about it later:Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1983. See also Natalie Zemon Davis, Slaves onScreen: Film and Historical Vision, Cambridge,Mass., Harvard University Press, 2000.

 

Part 2

Accessibility.Europeana.Retrieve onSep.18, 2015.

Europeana Terms and Policies. Retrieve onSep.18, 2015. Europeana.

How to configure your search widget. Retrieve on Sep.18, 2015. Europeana. 

Results in Europeana. Retrieve onSep.18, 2015. Europeana.

Searching Europeana. Retrieve onSep.18, 2015. Europeana.

Using My Europeana. Retrieve onSep.18, 2015. Europeana.

Elvaston Castle and Country Park, Borrowash Road, Elvaston, 1970s. (2015). Sep.18, 2015. Europeana.

Elvaston Castle, Gardens. (2015). Sep.18, 2015. Europeana. 

Elvaston Castle - Golden Gates. (2015). Sep.18, 2015. Europeana.

Messter Woche 43, 1915, German Troops on the Western Front. The First World War Poetry Digital Archive. 

Stand by the Men Who Have Stood By You. Retrieve onSep.18, 2015. The First World War Poetry Digital Archive.

1.2研究问题

为了探索电影档案如何影响历史研究，一些问题需要进一步研究：

1.探讨人们如何从大战研究中的电影档案中受益。

2.评估本研究中使用的电影档案或馆藏。