I will admit, I am not a big movie-watching person. Typically, when someone starts the question “have you seen______?” I can answer no before he or she actually names the movie. That being said, I have tried to use some film in classes, mostly because it appeals to students. I have used Glory and Tora! Tora! Tora! in my early US survey and historical methods classes respectively; I am not a specialist in either time period.

In using Glory, which is the story of the Massachusetts 54th Black regiment in the Civil War and stars such big names as Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick, I focus the students on the question of why individuals chose to fight the war. Broderick’s character, Colonel Robert Shaw, is based on a real individual and the creators of the film used Shaw’s writings as a source for the film and as actual dialog. For the Black soldiers of the 54th, although we know there were individuals such as Frederick Douglass’s son Lewis was in the regiment, the creators decided not to actually portray him. Instead there are composite characters that depict the various backgrounds of the members of the 54th, from highly educated northern free-born Black men to those who escaped slavery. This would be a main point of discussion and could highlight the diversity of people and motives at the time. Yes, there are factual errors in the film, for example, the timing of the pay uprising was wrong. But we could talk about the choices the creators made and how important those errors are to the main purpose of the film.

Tora! Tora! Tora! I used in my historical methods class, and we focused on it as a primary source, so not so much the story it told, but the context around its creation. It was released in 1970 in the midst of protests over the Vietnam War. This film is a big departure of the WWII films staring John Wayne. The focus on the film is really about the blunders of American military decision making that allow for the successful surprise attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. This context is crucial in understanding many films, including Gone With the Wind, which, I will admit, I have not been able to stay awake through or the various versions of Last of the Mohicans, which I have taught along with the book; I did get through reading Gone with the Wind, but I really cannot put myself through using it in class. Such films, and novels, tell us much more about the times in which they were created than the history they depict.

While full length films are not really my cup of tea (how can people sit still that long without falling asleep?), I do like the idea of having students “do history” by creating scholarly digital storytelling. The examples that I saw, particularly the pieces on the displaced peoples of Shenandoah National Park and the “Finding Kate”, were wonderful pieces of historical story telling. The Shenandoah piece has that focus on an individual to tell the story of the region, while “Finding Kate” was an effective story on how historians do their work as the author tried to uncover the history of one of George Washington’s enslaved women. Both illustrate the skills of the historian: research, interpretation, narration, but with the use of films, I could see the former piece being the result of work in a class built more around content, while the latter serves as a great example of a piece from a course built more around method. So while the students showed the same research and writing skills of a historian, their use of visual materials made the stories much more memorable. I would LOVE to be able to do this for my own work as well as teach my students. The technical skills are the missing link. I do not know how to create the digital pieces, let alone teach others. I believe students would also be more receptive to telling their stories this way as opposed to writing yet another long essay.