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A critical analysis of the 1999 Peter Watkins film, La Commune (Paris, 1871), this article explores the politics of filmic reconstruction and reenactment as forms of historical representation. Situating the film in relationship to debates regarding the contemporary media's versions of the past, the article argues that La Commune's deliberate anachronisms are effective representational strategies rather than errors or shortcomings. In multiple ways, the film's experiment works to interrogate assumptions about objectivity, authenticity and temporality that work to define History as a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]