Everyday history...
I am watching Memoirs of a Geisha on DVD. I've been doing a lot of DVDing latley. I find it fascinating.
Even if the movie is no good, the settings and the historical research is usually stunning.
How the geishas dressed, how the cowboys swung their lassoes, how the pistons drove the railroad steam engines, what the interior of the Titanic looked like, the Russian tundra in Dr. Zhivago (filmed in Spain), a small Italian town in A Bell for Adano, the Indiana small town high school gyms in Hoosiers, the streets of Paris as the Nazis marched in, and out.
The French historian Fernand Braudel changed what historians could do for us when he showed the life of everyday people, not Popes and Princes.
Alexis deTocqueville did a lot of that about America in 1832.
Notwithstanding apparent French primacy in the field, it's a very American way of looking at things.
Ben
Even if the movie is no good, the settings and the historical research is usually stunning.
How the geishas dressed, how the cowboys swung their lassoes, how the pistons drove the railroad steam engines, what the interior of the Titanic looked like, the Russian tundra in Dr. Zhivago (filmed in Spain), a small Italian town in A Bell for Adano, the Indiana small town high school gyms in Hoosiers, the streets of Paris as the Nazis marched in, and out.
The French historian Fernand Braudel changed what historians could do for us when he showed the life of everyday people, not Popes and Princes.
Alexis deTocqueville did a lot of that about America in 1832.
Notwithstanding apparent French primacy in the field, it's a very American way of looking at things.
Ben
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 7:52 PM
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