Thursday, September 17, 2015

Learning History Through Film
       Movies may not seem like a great way to teach a group of students, because they’re correlated with ‘fun’. However, I have learned a lot from the two that we have seen in class. Movies can make us feel like we are a part of the story. Movies not only allow us to experience these events, but they allow us to develop great analytical skills, explore real events, and attitudes by watching them in a critical way, and doing some research.
    The movie Glory won many awards for its excellence. Some included, the Academy Award for Best Performance and the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. These categories help with understanding the movie, and actually learning something from it. An article from the New York Times says, “Glory is the first serious American movie about the civil war to be made in years.” Meaning that all the other movies have been done poorly, and that they did not teach the audience what it really was like. In Glory, the actors do a great job in showing us what it was really like back then. For example, “[Denzel Washington]... brings an anguish to Trip that seems to go beyond the role itself.” (LA Times). Good acting helps us to be analytical when watching a movie because, the actors allow us to think about things like “why are they making that face?” or “why does he do that”. Asking questions like this allows us to understand and learn more about the events happening in the movie.
        There are many challenges in making a movie so that the audience can learn something from it. For instance, budget. Glory had a budget of $18 million, and they were able to make a ‘good, moving, complicated film’ (New York Times). 12 Years a Slave had a budget of $20 million, and they were able to make a movie that ‘may be the one that finally makes it impossible for American cinema to continue to sell the ugly lies it’s been hawking for more than a century.’ (New York Times). The more money a production company has the better that movie is in depicting accurate events.  Filmmakers also have to make sure that they convey a specific message, they have goals and intentions. Edward Zwick, director of Glory tells Michelle P. Perry from ‘The Tech’ ‘I think the choice was to try to focus on neither blacks nor whites, but on the regiment. One of the points of the story was to explore a time in which both blacks and whites found some commonality of purpose!’
    Movies allow us to make arguments too. After watching 12 Years a Slave, I concluded that slavery is terrible. I know this is a known fact, but I can use the movie to support my argument. Also Chiwetel Ejiofor won many awards for his acting, because he truly showed us what it was like to be a slave back then. Lupita Nyong'o does the same An article from The Guardian says, "Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a performance of incomparable heroism and presence as Northup; Lupita Nyong'o is passionate and defiant in the role of his fellow prisoner Patsey, and Michael Fassbende is the sadistic slaves master Epps, whose habitual sexual abuse and angry self-hate is revealed to be pathological and under-reported part of the system; a system which in the words of one character enables the abuser's violence to 'trample his guilt'". This review shows that since the actors gave such an excellent performance, the audience is able to see the true problems of slavery. By critically watching an actor's performance, a viewer can conclude many things, and if the director has done a well enough job, those things can teach the viewer many true things.     
    Historical accuracy is the only major thing that can effect what the viewer learns from a movie. Fortunately, both 12 Years a Slave and Glory  were fairly accurate. 12 Years a Slave was based on 'Sloman Northup's 1853 narrative 'Twelve Years a Slave' and according to hisorians.org two historians have verified that his narrative portrayed an accurate representation of slavery in some parts of Louisiana. The main historical issues that the New York Times found in 12 Years a Slave was that Mcqueen made slavery look 'unrelentingly hellish', when in fact some slaves would be allowed to get time off during the holiday season to rest. However for Glory, Mackubin T. Owens from Ashland University  says that 'Glory' has many historical inaccuracies. The fifty fourth regime in the movie was mostly made up of runaway slaves, it was actually a regiment of freedom, and they were recruited from Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. Also Frederick Douglas had two sons that were one of the first people to volunteer for the regiment, and the eldest, Lewis, ended up serving as sergeant-major for the regiment. In the same article Owens says "by inaccurately depicting the 54th as a regiment of former slaves, 'Glory' reveals the deeper truth that blacks in general were not the natural slaves that Southerners believed to be and that abolitionists feared they might be." It is important for a movie to be historically accurate because if it is not, the audience leaves the movie with something that may or may not be true.

         Movies are in fact a great way of learning about the past. By doing some research and watching a movie in a critical way, movie viewers can develop analytical skills, broaden their knowledge on real events, and what the attitudes that actors use mean. I think that teachers should start watching movies in their history classes, because they really do teach us a lot.  


Links:
Glory:
12 Years a Slave:
google for awards





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