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In the only picture we have of a Shakespearean play from Shakespeare’s lifetime, periodization is moot. In the Longleat drawing (ca. 1598) of Titus Andronicus, only Titus’s costume belongs to the play’s ancient setting; the attire and weaponry of the other characters are variously modern. Not until around 1800 was a Shakespearean play performed “in period”: John Philip Kemble famously staged Coriolanus with costumes, props, and scenery in sync with the play’s early Roman setting, notionally based on historical and archaeological research. While period drama marked a radical break with past productions, indifferent to historical accuracy and coherence, it was perfectly in keeping with other emergent forms of representation: the historical novel and historical painting, as well as the Kantian world picture that for Heidegger is itself the defining and exclusive feature of the modern epoch.

This chapter examines the most well known of all the popular genres associated with Scotland, the costume drama (sometimes referred to as the period drama, heritage or historical film). Initially, the debate surrounding costume drama is introduced — in particular the contested term ‘heritage cinema’ — and the role that costume dramas made and set in Scotland increasingly play in this debate. Because of the popularity of this particular genre, however, the chapter look at example featuring a female protagonist, The Governess (1998). In The Governess, the wilderness of Scotland is represented as a fantasyland, but its mythical resonance as a place somehow ‘before history’ actually facilitates the construction of a diasporic history, or ‘heritage’, that stands apart from concerns of British or Scottish identity. Thus, the setting of Scotland is integral to the film's deployment of its feminist reworking of history (a process typical of the contemporary costume drama), in this case to explore a diasporic Jewish identity that does not belong to the same historical traditions as those normally encountered in the wilds of cinematic Scotland.

This chapter analyses Claude Miller's L'Effrontée/The Impudent Girl (1985) and La Petite voleuse/The Little Thief (1989). These two films share many common features beyond the casting of their main actress. They can be considered as a double portrayal of adolescence in which the two protagonists mirror and complement one another. The films explore a series of related themes which revolve around the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, the unease of adolescence and the related loss of innocence, the discovery of self, and the quest for identity that this period of life often involves. After placing the films in the context of Miller's filmography and briefly outlining their production contexts, the chapter focuses more specifically on how they illustrate the legacy of the New Wave (especially Truffaut), while exploring some conventions of a typically French genre revived from the 1980s, the 'intimist' period drama.