Pass the Popcorn: Suggestions and Thoughts on the Use and Abuse of Film in History Class

Somewhere about at the Civil Rights movement or the first nice day in April, whichever comes first, is when my students first begin to suggest that we watch the film Forrest Gump in class. By the time we get to the escalation of the Vietnam, the requests have escalated as well. "It's historic!" they plead.

No offense to anyone who loves this movie, but Forrest Gump is NOT a good movie to show in U.S. history class.  It tells the story of a man during historic periods, which is not the same thing as informing us about the historic periods. (And as I recently read in this guide to films/documentaries to use when teaching about Civil Rights by the Hasan Kwame Jeffries, history professor at Ohio State University, it does a terrible job of portraying the Black Panther Party and Black Power.)

The amount of time I have devoted to showing film (usually clips of no more than 15-20 minutes, but sometimes longer) does go up as the school year goes on. Not because the days are getting warmer and the students are getting antsy or because I am tired of teaching, but because the films show LIVE footage. I remember once showing a film clip about World War I and students noticed right away, "Hey, it's the actual people."

We don't have films of George Washington. Not till the invention of film do we get.... well, films! So any event occurring before the turn of the 20th century or so are going to be still footage or dramatizations. Ken Burns has demonstrated the power of applying film to still pictures. And films like Glory demonstrate the power of a well-done dramatization. But there is something about seeing actual footage of people and events we are studying that makes history come alive. That's why I like documentaries like Eyes on the Prize (Civil Rights) and Vietnam: A Television History so much.

But the issue of actual footage vs. dramatization is just one of the first in a series of considerations I'd like to raise in this post about how, when and why to show video in class.