Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, a 68-minute-long film by director Johan Grimonprez, traces the history of airplane hijacking as portrayed by mainstream television media. The film premiered in 1997 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne (Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris); and at Catherine David's curated Documenta X(Kassel). "This study in pre-Sept. 11 terrorism" is composed of archival footage material — interspersing reportage shots, clips from science fiction films, found footage, home video and reconstituted scenes. The work is interspersed with passages from Don DeLillo's novels Mao II and White Noise, "providing a literary and philosophic anchor to the film". According to the director, "Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y's narrative is based on an imagined dialogue between a terrorist and a novelist where the writer contends that the terrorist has hijacked his role within society." The film's opening line, taken from Mao II, introduces the skyjacker as protagonist. Interspersing fact and fiction, Grimonprez said that the use of archival footage to create "short-circuits in order to critique a situation" may be understood as a form of a Situationist Détournement.