# History & the Movies: An Historian Writes a Screenplay

The process of compressing history into drama often generates sharp tensions between the historian and the dramatist. As James Reston Jr. will testify, the historian usually feels a sinking disappointment as the dramatist explains what it will take to capture and hold the attention of an audience. When Reston was asked to write a screenplay based on his own 2005 book, "Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors," he leapt at the chance to resolve and to control the historian/dramatist tension.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2011
- By: John W. Kluge Center (library Of Congress)
- Genres: History
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021688673/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021688673?play=1)