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Films and history teaching (T3)

"Film has certain advantages over the written word. It can communicate the look of people, places, and events in ways that even the best written descriptions cannot. Also, film creates an emotional intensity and immediacy that captures audiences in ways that writers can only envy...

On the other hand, the emotional power of film is, from the historian's perspective, not always a good thing. Film is inherently manipulative...what we see on the screen must be analyzed, discussed and challenged..."

-from The Methods and Skills of History by Conal Furay and Michael J. Salevouris

Also, have you written anything about reading the multiple levels in film? I am thinking of your discussions of "Khartoum" pushing the Vietnam War...and "Soldier Blue" as a reference to My Lai...and Queen Elizabeth as Winston Churchill in "Seahawk"...or "Alexander Nevsky" as Stalin, etc. I found this discussion fascinating and enlightening, but you were moving very fast.

12/3/03 Wendy Wilson reply
I am attaching the hand-outs and it would be fine for you to put them on your website. As to your question, there is "American History on the Screen" published by J.Weston Walch and available from them, as well as "World History on the Screen" from the same publisher and available in April. All of the films listed on the "suggested films for class" sheets are examined in detail in those two books with xeroxable lesson plans. The NCSS also sells "American History on the Screen" on their website. Social Studies School Service and Teacher's Discovery Company also carry my books. I think you might find them helpful.

"American History on the Screen" by Wendy Wilson (second edition 2002)
"World History on the Screen" by Wendy Wilson (out in April 2003)

For Wendy's Wilson's suggestions for using films in the classroom, click here

8/28/02 Dan Deneen, teacher, Vermont
Certainly, as you write, we typically end up burying students in "a blizzard of detail." But perhaps the problem is not so much the amount of detail, but the KIND of details we shovel out. Young people don't have a problem with detail---they love details. Details are what makes things live. I have become a partisan in the cause of narrative: putting story-telling back in teaching. Kids are, we are, hard-wired by evolution to learn through song, stories, and emulation---things you don't find much of in school. Kids have no problem at all remembering song lyrics, movie plots, or the minute-est details of books that interest them....

Hollywood (and its foreign counterparts) has been inexplicably and wonderfully attentive to historical detail. A film like "The Return of Martin Guerre" can reveal more about late Middle-Ages life and mind than weeks spent on typical text materials. A lot of my best stuff had to do with preparing units around films...

8/28/01 studentsfriend.com reply
I, too, am very interested in the story aspect of history...and I like to use videos and films to draw students into historical periods. I hadn't thought of using Martin Guerre...I don't remember, does it have subtitles? I would love to hear any of your specific ideas about incorporating story in history class and suggestions for units built around films.

8/28//02 Dan Deneen reply
Martin Guerre... yes, subtitles. My experience with foreign films was that they are always greeted with a loud groan, but that when the film's got some juice to it, before long they're not even aware they're reading. (But watch screen size and light conditions: I've seen teachers dump foreign movies on kids under conditions where they just can't be read.) Go to the website for Home Film Festival. They have a foreign film catalog which is AMAZING. For about the cost of a regular corner video store rental, they mail you films you can keep for a week. I've attached some MSWORD files with a few of the kind of materials I would prepare in connection with historical film viewing, and some other misc.things. If you find a scrap of something worth resurrecting or modifying, it would give me great pleasure.

9/1//01 studentsfriend.com reply
I am aware that some of the best historical films out there are foreign, but even my wife has trouble with subtitles, so I have shied away from using them in the classroom. Since you've had success, I'll have to reconsider. By the way, Lord of Flies is on my PBS station tonight. Perhaps it might be useful.

9/2/02 Dan Deneen reply
As you probably know, there are two versions of "Lord of the Flies." Since it's PBS, they're probably airing the 1960's British film, which is much better than the 90's remake, but tends to put students off with the British accents, Etonian public-school manners, and B&W format. The newer version is shallower, but more accessible. I used portions of the older film several times when I taught Civics classes, in a unit, "the Idea of Government." It was iffy material, tending to split classes along testosterone lines, with many boys choosing the safe reaction of cheering on the "savage" boys, and not taking the thought any further.

9/2//01 studentsfriend.com reply
Yeah, after watching "Lord of the Flies" again last night, I'm not sure if it is something I would wish to show in class. It would help to emphasize my point about the fragility of civilization and how it can easily be lost as in Europe of the Dark Ages and perhaps Germany of the 1940s.

9/3//01 studentsfriend.com to Dan Deneen
Sorry to bug you again, but I have some questions about the lessons you sent.
-In the "To Live" lesson, why are the questions called extra credit questions?
-Can you tell me more about the Jesuit Mission handout to accompany "The Mission?"

I like the way you set up the films with the cast of characters and background info...I like your questions and the thinking they should provoke. I've already converted some of your lessons to pdf format, and they will be on the studentsfriend website soon.

9/3/02 Dan Deneen reply
Mission. This class did not have a textbook, and I used MS encarta and online sources. There is a file here on the missions from a Jesuit website, and another from Encarta.

To Live is one of Zhang Yimou's amazing pictures (others, Raise the Red Lantern, Red Sorghum). He got away with much more liberty in 1980's China than one would think possible. This one, for any class dealing with 20th century China, is a four-star slam dunk.

Why extra credit only? My high school, in a hard-luck old mill town, had a challenging mix of students. I began using EC as a way of finessing some difficult grading issues. I'd create sadly minimal passing criteria, to give the barely literate kids from the homes full of missing parents, dope, drinking and pain, some way of having the class not simply be one more in a long line of failures. At the same time, there were really tough standards for taking a B to an A. One of the ways you did it was by E.C. I didn't mind at all that many of the kids would see a film and not do "work"---they were watching intently, they were part of the discussions, and that was ok with me.

Note: Dan Deneen's lessons for The Mission and To Live are available in Teacher's Aids. area

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