The American Civil War and the Hollywood War Film

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • John Trafton

   Pages 1-26

3. Civil War Paintings and the War Panorama

   • John Trafton

   Pages 27-47

4. Panorama, Phantasmagoria, and Subjective Vision in War Cinema

   • John Trafton

   Pages 49-69

5. War Photography

   • John Trafton

   Pages 71-92

6. Photography and the War Film

   • John Trafton

   Pages 93-121

7. The Soldier Diary

   • John Trafton

   Pages 123-142

8. Civil War Epistolary and the Hollywood War Film

   • John Trafton

   Pages 143-157

9. Coda

   • John Trafton

   Pages 159-165

10. Back Matter

    Pages 167-194

    PDF

Throughout film history, war films have been in constant dialogue with both previous depictions of war and contemporary debates and technology. War films remember older war film cycles and draw upon the resources of the present day to say something new about the nature of war. The American Civil War was viscerally documented through large-scale panorama paintings, still photography, and soldier testimonials, leaving behind representational principles that would later inform the development of the war film genre from the silent era up to the present. This book explores how each of these representational modes cemented different formulas for providing war stories with emotional content.

• war film
• American history
• war and cinema
• The Civil War
• early cinema
• war photography
• pathos formula
• panorama painting
• World War I
• World War II
• the Vietnam War
• the Iraq War
• the Afghanistan War
• war diary
• soldier written accounts

John Trafton is Research Coordinator at the University of St Andrews, UK.

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