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Deprecated: header(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($response_code) of type int is deprecated in /home/umwhisto/public_html/mcclurken/wiki/includes/WebResponse.php on line 38 https://mcclurken.umwhistory.org/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=AjreedMcClurken Wiki - User contributions [en]2026-09-18T19:11:33ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.22.0https://mcclurken.umwhistory.org/wiki/index.php?title=329--Week_1_Questions/Comments329--Week 1 Questions/Comments2008-08-27T18:00:41Z<p>Ajreed: </p>
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<div>Place your questions/comments/debate ideas about this week's film here.<br />
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This class is awesome.<br />
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We have Lady Rebecca Rolfe watching over our every word...beware.<br />
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If we pick a movie that was originally a book, should we read the book, too?<br />
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After reading "Slaves on Screen" I admit that I was put in a sense of contemplation. I had never really thought about poetry in the sense of fictional and nonfictional. It made me wonder more about movies, about movies I don't think are all that historically based, and just how much history from the time it was made is it the movie. For example, the gender roles played by women and men in the movie, are the roles based on what society expects at the time or is the director taking his or her own twist on what he or she believes the gender roles should be. Is the director taking a more radical or traditional approach to those roles. -- Ashley Wilkins<br />
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In the second paragraph of "Movies and American Society" it mentions that movies show us "how to dress, how to look, or what to buy." Movies also tend to say how a person's body should be shaped, that women should wear makeup to be pretty, etc... Movies penetrate society on many levels of how we think about ourselves and other people, some times I wonder if its safe to watch them, but then I think of how much fun I have watching them and communicating with others about the movie which is also mentioned in "Movies and American Society." --Ashley Wilkins<br />
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Perhaps it can be unsafe to watch movies in some cases. For instance, the women on screen are often ideals and it sometimes leads to ordinary women doing dangerous things in attempts to become those ideals. And then there are the various uses of movies as propaganda and tools of manipulation. But, as the article mentions, movies have also been forces of good. They can bring awareness to the suffering in the world and make viewers want to take action against it. Also, more personally, they can just make us feel better after a bad day. --Taylor Brann<br />
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I had just a quick question about "Hollywood's America...." It mentions that some theaters were called nickelodeons at one point in time (page 10) because it cost a nickel to view the production. I was curious if the children's channel Nickelodeon was somehow a spinoff of those theaters, or just something completely unrelated. --Ashley Wilkins<br />
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Yep, that's where the name comes from! -Whitney Holcomb<br />
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"Slaves on Screen" said that movies are just starting to be a source of history. There are many older movies, like Gone With the Wind, that have been around for decades. So what does starting to be a source really mean. Are they talking about that it is just starting to be credited as a valuable source? -- Kellye Sorber<br />
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I think the bigger point was that historical writers have had a few thousands years to develop ways of interpreting and presenting history, while filmmakers have had just over a century to develop their presentation techniques, which is probably part of the reason historians have largely ignored films as credible historical sources. Filmmakers are still the new kids on the block. -- Taylor Brann<br />
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What movies today would be considered to be the most accurate cultural artifacts of our time? Are they portraying what we want future generations to remember when they think of us? -- Kellye Sorber<br />
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Maybe the reason so many historians are unwilling to really analyze and comment on "history-oriented" movies is because they are not fully comfortable with the changing technology. As we become a more technology centered society historians and other individuals will have to look to new and different methods for unlocking history. I agree with the reading in Reel History, that "history-oriented" movies can be look at like any historical text, they are simply perspectives of an event or time. -- Kellye Sorber<br />
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I liked the "Slaves on Screen" reading, though I felt it jumped around quite a bit. I was appalled by Zanuck's comment on "Rothschild." While it is just egregious to history buffs on its own, it also offends by implying (at least to me) that what actually happened in history is not interesting enough to make a movie about. There is a fine line between creative license and fiction, and perhaps Zanuck fancies himself more of a poet than a historian. -- Amanda Russell<br />
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One problem with history-oriented movies is that it gives historians another level to analyze. This can be beneficial to some studies, but not if you were simply studying what actually happened (not the inevitable analyses). Kind of like the difference between reading the diary of Anne Frank and a 1980s analysis of the diary of Anne Frank. --Amanda Russell<br />
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I thought it was interesting in "Why Movies Matter" that filmmaking today and in the 1910s sound familiar: anyone with a camera and some kind of budget can make a movie today, there are just infinitely more outlets and audiences available than there were then. Is this circular motion or was the period in between the one we will not see again? --Amanda Russell<br />
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Slaves on Screen suggests that history itself must be carefully constructed, qualified and must admit the patchy areas of assumption or inference, whereas film is a story which is primarily entertainment which has less assumed qualifications. The films based on real life events are then questioned by the viewer, which really is a positive step towards getting more persons interested in history (in my humble opinion). –Elle W.<br />
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Why Movies Matter describes the overall social impact of movies that I had never really thought about. A quote that particularly demonstrated the importance and dominance of movies as a mode of mass communication was on page 4 – “Far more people are today reached by the moving picture than by the daily press, [and] while we read the newspaper only in parts, the moving picture we see complete.” And this was in 1908! A few pages later… I also liked the idea of censorship being another testimony to how influential films can be on the American public. If movies didn’t really matter or mean something to America, why would censorship be necessary? – Elle W.<br />
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I enjoyed the introduction of the book. It clearly lays out the direction of which the book is headed and I am already convinced that historic films deserve more credit than they are given. Getting the story out there allows more people to think, question, and investigate further in more traditional ways. This argument meshes well with the Slaves on Screen idea. –Elle W.<br />
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While reading the introduction to Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood by Robert Brent Toplin, I found myself agreeing with many of Toplin's arguments. He explains that oftentimes artists and authors leave out details in order to make their work more understandable. Is this idea not true of directors or screen writers, who themselves are artists? History-orientated movies take a lot of heat for not including every detail of the story within the film. However, there are times when every detail isn't necessarily possible because it prevents the plot of the movie to flow properly. It is up to the judgment of the director to pick and choose which aspect of the story he/she wants to portray. As long as the facts are correct the audience can take away valuable information concerning the past from that particular movie. Movies have a great opportunity to teach the audience about a significant part of history. A story that is so important that it must be turned into a film in order to become better known to the masses. The article Movies and American Society edited by Steven J.Ross, relates nicely to what Toplin is arguing: Movies are a significant part of our culture, with millions of people going to the movies everyday; therefore, they have the power to educate and ultimately shape the intellect of America. The article further explains that film makers have the power to influence the way in which people view their society, government, even the world. Film makers have the ability to influence the way in which the audience views history and enable the audience to understand how history is created by everyday experiences.- Mallory C.<br />
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Several of the posts have brought up the possible growth of movies as accurate historical acounts or something of that nature. Taylor pointed out that movies which have some tie to history are perhaps continuing to develope through the still very new medium of cinema, while historical writers have had longer to hone techniques of accurate story telling of historical events. But (unless we are talking about movies that are strictly non-fiction documentaries) whether they are historically/period based or not, there is an important descrepency to recognize in making this comparison. Movies are not pure imitation of life. They are forms of art which most often incorporate recognizable and familiar aspects of life in order to appeal to its audience. And whenever life is represented by a form of art, some aspect of factuality is lost by the mere imitation (like the Platonic Theory of Forms- it is not the true ideal (form) when it is already a copy- it has lost some truth). Thus, unless we are comparing historically related movies to historical fiction books, they are not comparable to histories and textbooks. ~Jackie Reed<br />
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With my previous comment in mind...<br />
My debate question: As forms of art/and or entertainment, should all directors of historically based movies be held to the same level of hisotrical integrity that historians are? Or to the same degree that writers of historical fiction? <br />
(Futher more... Which is more important, artistic integrity and the director's artistic expression/message or a movie's historical accuracy? ~Jackie Reed</div>Ajreed Deprecated: header(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($response_code) of type int is deprecated in /home/umwhisto/public_html/mcclurken/wiki/includes/WebResponse.php on line 38