Abstract: As cultural fields where multiple discourses and ideologies compete, historical films provide a “mirror of images” to reflect social problems from a cultural perspective. Each time a historical text is rewritten, it means a change or reshaping of the discourse ecology and cultural system. The problem of race, deeply rooted in the history of the founding and development of the United States, has been extended into different narrative texts by movies and TV programs in different historical eras which in turn reflects the changes in the direction and attitudes of racial politics in American society. By examining the changes in the narrative discourse of American historical films through a contrast between different video texts representing the same historical event but produced in different eras, the paper concludes that the racial turn in American historical films is not only the result of the intensification of racial conflicts, but also an intervention in reality with different articulation strategies which have directed ethnic minorities to fight for equal rights and constantly shaped the topography of American racial politics with video discourses.
Key words：  historical film; racial politics; cultural identity; discourse; articulation theory

Key words:  historical film, racial politics, cultural identity, discourse, articulation theory