Difference between revisions of "329--Week 1 Questions/Comments"
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At this point it is obvious we cannot analyze films in the same way we analyze historical texts. In my opinion, as much as we should be skeptical about films we should not forget that historical texts (besides primary sources) are also interpretations of events and can either be well researched or not. The narrative format of films reaches us on a different level than straight up historical texts. Right now I am looking at this class through the lens that films dance in the middle between "just the facts ma'am" and fictional novel. As quoted in "Slave on Screen", "Poetry deals with general truths, history with specific events". Films find themselves in the cross-hairs of poetry and history and it is easy to take a shot at them.--[[User:Shauser|Shauser]] 21:30, 27 August 2008 (MDT) | At this point it is obvious we cannot analyze films in the same way we analyze historical texts. In my opinion, as much as we should be skeptical about films we should not forget that historical texts (besides primary sources) are also interpretations of events and can either be well researched or not. The narrative format of films reaches us on a different level than straight up historical texts. Right now I am looking at this class through the lens that films dance in the middle between "just the facts ma'am" and fictional novel. As quoted in "Slave on Screen", "Poetry deals with general truths, history with specific events". Films find themselves in the cross-hairs of poetry and history and it is easy to take a shot at them.--[[User:Shauser|Shauser]] 21:30, 27 August 2008 (MDT) | ||
| − | =JT Newcomb= | + | ==JT Newcomb== |
A professor in another class suggested this week that the number of things that everyone is expected to know is diminishing while the volume of things available for people to know is rapidly increasing. He made this observation concerning what you can learn in a history class. "Reel Hollywood" and "Slaves on Screen" seem to suggest that movies have taken a role long held by written documents, acting as a means to educate (in a loose sense of the word) an audience in history. I contemplated connection between these two ideas while I read. Perhaps movies are now a necessary part of our education, because we do not have the time to study many events in greater detail. What would a typical American know about the fight for Scottish independence without seeing "Braveheart"? What a person knows after seeing that movie may not be completely accurate, but they've at least received a crash course. Besides, "Reel Hollywood" argues that historians can skew the details of the past as effectively as any director... Furthur, if movies do now act as part of our education, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Do we need movies because there is more to know and less detail we are required to, or is there more to know and less detail that we are required to because we are gaining our knowledge from movies? - JT Newcomb | A professor in another class suggested this week that the number of things that everyone is expected to know is diminishing while the volume of things available for people to know is rapidly increasing. He made this observation concerning what you can learn in a history class. "Reel Hollywood" and "Slaves on Screen" seem to suggest that movies have taken a role long held by written documents, acting as a means to educate (in a loose sense of the word) an audience in history. I contemplated connection between these two ideas while I read. Perhaps movies are now a necessary part of our education, because we do not have the time to study many events in greater detail. What would a typical American know about the fight for Scottish independence without seeing "Braveheart"? What a person knows after seeing that movie may not be completely accurate, but they've at least received a crash course. Besides, "Reel Hollywood" argues that historians can skew the details of the past as effectively as any director... Furthur, if movies do now act as part of our education, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Do we need movies because there is more to know and less detail we are required to, or is there more to know and less detail that we are required to because we are gaining our knowledge from movies? - JT Newcomb | ||
