The Role of History in Bestseller and Blockbuster Culture

Abstract | Abstract

History provides an infinite supply of dramatic events, stories, characters and conflicts. The article provides a brief overview of prevalent conceptions and ideas of history that can be applied to the wide-spread historical fictions of the bestseller and blockbuster culture. On the background of the current alliance between history and media, I propose a methodological distinction between three levels: 1) a historiographical level, concerned with overall considerations and reflections, 2) a user-orientated level focussing on the uses and functions of history, and 3) a genre-orientated level considering historical films and TV drama productions within a frame of genre traditions, including hybrids. The insights are applied analytically using the case of the Danish bestseller biography and blockbuster film Marie Krøyer.