Is cinema a vehicle of truth or does it promote false beliefs? 

Associate Professor of Film Studies Bruce Isaacs doesn’t believe in historical truth in the film image.  

“I don't think cinema looks for that. What it seeks to show is a kind of aesthetic truth. Films straddle this very interesting tension between being truthful to history and yet in some way intensifying that experience.” 

Hollywood has a long and complicated relationship with trust, ideology, and reality. A relationship that has only intensified as the Trump administration polarises America and the world. 

Professor Isaacs explores whether film is corrosive of trust, why movies are such fertile ground for conspiracies, and the political anxieties driving recent Hollywood films like Civil War, Eddington, and One Battle After Another. 

Hear more from Professor Isaacs on his podcast Film Versus Film. 

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