Relationships between History and Sociology appear naturally in the definition of individual and social identity of Man, dispersed across the various contexts and Man’s different cultural personalities: History interprets and narrates the past, updating it constantly and forming a basis on which the present is experienced and the future is built; Sociology deals with the analysis and questions this system and other reference systems of the individual in the constructions of his individual and social reality. In this sense, and in-between the two, there is room for fictional film narratives as instruments to simulate worlds, address key topics of the human existence and produce rich cognitive and emotional experiences in the human being. It is assumed as an ally of History in that it facilitates, for e.g., the updating of the past through films; as sociological matter by being a means of cultural production and reception, as well as a vehicle of information regarding the reality assumed in its consideration (and sometimes pathway). These intrinsic relationships raise the question of the educational and training value of fictional film narratives, which we aim to determine, enhance and implement in this research project.
Sociology of culture is increasingly accumulating knowledges on the close relationship between configurations, fields and worlds of creation/production, languages, codes and internal structures of works, and public reception.
Reception is not immune to the set of more or less settled set of social rules, in which resources and opportunities operate, nor to the various power relations that limit the double production of agent and structure. Nowadays, institutional interventions may even overlap (think of the various territories – sometimes cumulative – in which cultural and artistic activities take place – from the local to the translocal, or in the growing multiplication, specialization and diversification of art worlds – Becker, 1982).
Reception is also not immune to the materiality of the work as an object (objects socialize and awaken or inhibit schemes of action), nor to the differing interactive power of means and supports (complex systems of mediation with its own meanings and purposes) that embody the texts (Hennion, 1993).
Social agents move between structural constraints that are not limited to origin and social belonging, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and also the dynamic dimension of trajectories and pathways (once again, diachronically intersecting institutions, socialization agents, spaces, activities and life cycles), as well as the strategic dimension of projects, reflexively monitoring the action itself, and also, more pragmatically, the network of social roles that establish increasingly workable identities. The project is linked to memory and metamorphosis, as stated by Gilberto Velho, as an active adaptation of the self to life worlds. In short, plural worlds living within multiple belongings and spheres of activity, consisting of and constituent of various dispositions, with different origins and strengths, some stronger, some activated, others in vigil, inhibition or even regression. Plural agents, too, given the contexts of interactions (frameworks of interactions, as they are called by António Firmino da Costa (2004), highlighting their physical, human, structural and cultural, institutional and interactional parameters). Finally, plural agents because aesthetic dispositions in mutation are being updated and are of various types (cognitive, sensorial, emotional, and mental).
Therefore, the horizon of expectation, a concept proposed by Jauss (which Popper and Gadamer also use), leads us to think about a possible fusion between the system of references of the author and of the reader – the point at which the work acts on insights from a present space-time, which does not ignore, however, the entire relation between that work and other works; the successive chains of prior receptions; the relations and analogies between works and the processes of formation of artistic genres, and also the degree of identification or contrast with the schemes of daily experience.
As a cultural production, narrative fiction films have unparallel potential. The narrative includes aspects such as history, discourse, reporting, viewpoints and focus, narration, text, metaphor, rhetoric and poetry (García y Rajas, 2011), as well as mythological formats and contents that are implicitly or explicitly always present (Vogler, 2007). Fiction is the vehicle to simulate worlds (Bruner, 1986), at the same time promoting an uncompromising game between receptor and reality (Schaeffer, 2002), referring to the states of the real world while proposing to update the past and imagine the future (Jameson, 1995). The cinema has been studied as a complex form of art, full of meaning and explicit and implicit codes (Bordwell, 1995). It allows full reception by the audience, who through interpretation, immersion and identification (Casetti, 1998) is led to a deep and fruitful relationship with the film. Hence the possibility of pragmatics, i.e., the transposition of certain film elements to the spectator’s reality, building (also) his own individual and social reality (Potter, 1998).
In this double construction of the “real human”, the relationship between History and Film begun by Ferro in the 1970s, made it possible to include this art form in historical sources, as the counter-analysis of society (Ferro, 2010). From this moment on, films were no longer works of art, and began to be seen as study objects, “as instruments available to society for the mise-en-scène, to show” (Sorlin, 1987). But the film is not limited to capturing images of a certain period of time; they bring the past into life by recreating historically in the film a “History view” that seeks to bring meaning to the past (Rosenstone, 2010).
As it enters the field of History, cinema is an important resource in educational terms, whether it is because of its motivation, or the empathy it creates in students (Marcus & Stoddard, 2007). Its educational value was highlighted in recent theoretical (Gispert, 2009) and theory-practical research (Bergala, 2007; Amilburu & Cervantes, 2011; Vaccaro & Valero, 2011), as well in various projects developed in this field (see "related projects"). However, none of them combine the scope (individual and social), specialization (secondary education and university education), and internationalization (Portugal and Spain) that this research proposal includes in an innovative way.
Therefore, assuming that Fictional Film is a cultural product with its own idiosyncrasy, and a potentially valid educational resource that requires a model of analysis specific for either teacher or student, the objectives of this project are as follows:
1) Deconstruct the film narrative, showing the relationship between:
a. Cinema as “total art” and Fiction as the simulation and representations of possibile realities.
b. History (contents), discourse (form) and narrative narration.
c. Implicit and explicit codes and meanings.
d. Fundamental human themes (universality) and their temporal scope (transversality).
2) Understand fiction films as a way of interpreting and narrating past History:
a. As portraits of times and mentalities (characters, contexts and author/s).
b. As the updating of historical elements (they become more present and allow various interpretations).
3) Examine the cinema as a medium of reference for the construction of individual and social reality.
a. Evaluate the individual meaning (subjective).
b. Evaluate the social meaning (shared according to groups and assimilative capacity).
c. Understand film-making as a cultural product (subjective manifestations of ideas, themes and perspectives of existing emerging or future society), that enhances heterogeneous cultural receptions (interpretative richness).
In this sense, possible core research may focus on the fact that narrative fiction film has real educational potential, allowing access to and achievement of a set of individual and social skills that help the integration of the human being in its real context. Our intention is to test this research possibility in an age bracket that includes teenagers and adults. We believe that teenagers and adults are the target audience that has the tools and cognitive and emotional development needed to maximize the exploration of interpretative possibilities of film codes and meanings, of the relationships and bridges between fiction and reality, the relevance (or not) of narrative elements in the analysis of History, and in the construction of a social reality that includes Cinema as a cultural product. This by no means limits the use of this perspective in other age brackets, but we feel that this may be food for further research that may include the conclusions of this project.
Following a full theoretical study, the methodology will primarily include study cases that will address:
1. Film analyses identifying and relating narrative, technical, Aesthetic, semiotic and cultural codes, questioning the degree of fiction and reference to reality, identifying the “imagined audience” by film.
2. Focus groups formed by sets of students secondary school and university pupils (in Portugal and in Spain), focusing on the comparison between reception of contents with and without films, in the case of secondary education, and social and interpretative reception of films at university level.
Case studies will, of course be based on two types of models: firstly, to assess individual and social film reception; secondly, to apply the educational potential in History classes. The methodology sets out to validate narrative fiction as an educational tool and important cultural product.
