Isabel Merrell’s (‘19.5) Internship, by Victoria Albert

What were you up to last spring?

So basically, I took off last spring from Middlebury to work on historical research for a film. The film is a period piece set in the US in 1910, called Martin Eden. It’s a feature film coming out next year.

What kind of work did you do?

The first eight weeks I was helping with development—script rewrites, plus a ton of research for the art department. I was looking at when certain things were invented so we could incorporate those into rooms, when certain fabrics were popular, what etiquette was used. This script was very political, so I was also doing research on socialism and the women’s suffrage movement.

Another part of my work was that I ended up getting cast in the movie as Geraldine, the Irish housemaid. I did a lot of research on her character—we decided to make her Irish based on the immigration patterns and the exceptional case of Irish non-whiteness at the time. And then I got cast in that role, which was kind of ironic because two weeks before, I had given her a 1910 Irish accent, and I had no abilities myself in that department.

The next six weeks we did the actual shooting of the film. There wasn’t as much research during that stage, but there was a lot of debate over what the emotions and conflicts of the time were and how that would inform the acting, and that was really cool.

What were some of the frustrations you encountered?

It was a pretty low budget film, but it had a one-hundred-and-thirty-page script and almost forty locations. To make a period piece with that scope on a small budget was crazy hard. I was also the set decorator, so I was procuring props and getting sets ready, and it was treacherous. Anytime you shoot outside, any cables or air conditioners have to be covered, and any cars have to be removed, which is a lot of work.

Also, my acting is bad. I’ve never had to act a role that is not myself really, and Geraldine—she and I do not overlap too much in our lived experience!

Was there anything that surprised you about your work on the film?

I didn’t go into the semester thinking it would be an “academic” endeavor. I chose to do this project because I am interested in film and television. But I didn’t realize that field could be an applicable use of the history major. There is actually a lot about media work that overlaps with the history major—like research skills and understanding issues of representation.

What did working on this film teach you about history or the study of history?

I’ve read a lot of articles that discuss historical fiction pieces as projections of the period they are produced in. I was definitely feeling that during my work on Martin Eden. We were going out of our way to research things that were interesting to us, perhaps rather than letting the period speak for itself. For instance, the director was really interested in political debates in the early twentieth century, and it was obviously a reflection of his concerns about the upcoming election. That just reminded me how selective history is. What we choose to see in history is often influenced by what matters to us, what’s confusing or compelling in the present tense.

With that being said, do you think the film will still help educate its viewers about history?

I do not anticipate this movie having a large viewership, but I think anybody who watches it will at least walk away with some semblance of the feeling of the era or the debates of the time. And the research I did about the period really did end up informing the script, so it feels great to know that my work will have an impact.