Posted on 08/20/2008 1:52:36 PM PDT by baba123
My son, 16, for whatever reason is an excellant reader who hates to read, but loves watching the livelink videos of what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had planned on joining the Marines, but now has a girlfriend, and is thinking about college. His favorite movie is “Flags of Our Fathers”. Mine are Black Hawk Down, and Gettysburg. None of the movies tell you WHY WE ARE THERE. That you have to learn in class. He did have an excellent history teacher last year. Mothers need to remember that we are very empathetic, and our boys and husbands are not. Men will suffer when their buddies are hurt, but not feel it because of the pain, but because of the love.
My 7th grade son and I watched We were Soldiers together awhile ago - I had taped it off the T.V. so the violence was lessened I’m sure - but enough was still there. I did ask him a few times if it was too rough on him. He said no (of course it was just a movie to him). I told him “Well - it sure is giving your old man some moist eyes...”. Then explained to him how young men are still sacrificing their lives for our freedom, and that while this is “just a movie” - it portrays the reality of war and not the glorified versions on video games.
God bless our troops.
By the way, when I was a kid we watched TORA, TORA, TORA in our World History class!
That's the scene that Foreman and other critics objected to.
It looks now like the whole controversy was about that one scene too many or one exaggeration in the film.
But it certainly did get play in the British papers.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
We Were Soldiers - Recommend highly. Violent. Entertaining. Good history
Glory - Recommend. Violent. Entertaining. Okay as history,
Uprising - Never heard of it
Saving Private Ryan - No recommendation. Violent. Tom Hanks is annoying, IMO. Okay as history.
Good movie and accurate as to the evetns.
Minor complaints: Fat Confederates (re-enactors I know) and some phony looking beards....
The courage and tenacity they had was almost unbelievable. Someone ought to make that movie !
How bout just watch all of the Band of Brothers series with him?
“The Patriot, We Were Soldiers” are both excellent movies. They both have a basis in history with some creative writing to include/exclude historical events as needed to make a better movie. Neither are a documentary, but both give the viewer a real sense of interest in those historical events. I’d let an 8th grader see them as your son is about 12 or 13 years old. Neither are horrible films with adult content. Certainly they have tons of violence and political viewpoints but hopefully you’d fill in the gaps for him.
I would recommend that you watch these movies with him, seems like a good list to me.
I'd love to assemble a curriculum for American History, with resources from a central textbook, supplemented by movies/video, and biographies.
"Band of Brothers" would also be included. I'm getting ready to start my 11th year of teaching Old Testament to the 6th graders in my parish. I use the episode where Easy Company stumbles onto a concentration camp (in a lesson on "Living One's Faith", which includes the Holocaust). How the producers got it so right is beyond me.
The Patriot is not historically accurate but it may lead your son to read more on Francis Marion, a truly fascinating man and substantially more interesting than the movie lets on. He rean the British into the ground in the swamps.
Get him a book to read after the movie.
Glory is the story of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts. The movie is based on the book "One Gallant Rush" by Peter Burchard. Having thoroughly researched both the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry units, there are several parts of the movie which are questionable.
The movie shows Shaw accepting the Colonelcy of the 54th immediately. In fact, he turned it down originally. A week or so later he changed his mind, but that was only after his mother pushed him into it. In real life, Shaw had just married, but the movie doesn't include that information.
When the unit is first organized, they are shown without the proper uniforms or weapons. The movie shows Shaw berating a white Quartermaster, and helping himself to the storehouse inventory to clothe his troops. That never happened. In reality, the 54th was Governor Andrews's baby. Andrews was the Governor of Massachusetts, and he played an active role in the organizing of the unit. He made sure the 54th had everything they needed from the beginning.
In the movie, the black troops are shown turning down their pay vouchers while still in Boston. The men refused their pay for approximately 18 months because although they had been promised the same pay as their white counterparts, they didn't receive it. In the movie, Colonel Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick tears up his pay voucher along with the black soldiers. The problem was, that they were never paid until they were already in South Carolina. So even if they wanted to leave, they couldn't. The black soldiers in both the 54th and 55th Mass. refused their pay, but the white officers actually took theirs. This did cause a problem in the unit, and there was an instance when some of the enlisted men refused to report for duty, and were charged and tried. But this incident was never depicted in the film. The State Legislature of Mass. passed a Bill that would pay the black soldiers the difference between what they were getting from the government, and what they were promised, but the black soldiers refused to accept that as well. They were willing to wait until the federal government gave them what they were entitled to.
Some of the main characters in the movie never existed, and some of the characters' names are a combination of one or two real-life people. The character played by Denzel Washington never existed, nor did the incident they created about his refusal to carry the flag into battle.
The movie shows a skirmish between the 54th and Confederate troops on James Island, S.C. shortly after their arrival in S.C. It shows Col. Shaw present at that skirmish, but in actuality, Shaw wasn't there.
The burning of Darien by Colonel James Montgomery and his contraband troops (2nd S.C.) is factual, and Shaw was very unhappy he was forced to be a part of it. Montgomery however was his superior, so his options of refusing were zero. Not mentioned in the movie is the fact that Shaw's mother later sent money to help build a church there in an attempt to clear her son's name.
The final attack that takes place in the movie is more or less factual. There are some minor movie set errors, but not enough to be worried about. The 54th's attack took place on July 18, 1863 against the Confederates at Fort Wagner, on Morris Island, S.C. In real life, Colonel Shaw was killed as he mounted the parapet of the fort and he fell into the fort dead. Hollywood changed this part, and had him getting shot climbing the parapet, but showed him sliding down the side of the fort. In real life, Shaw's body was retrieved by the Confederates. He was stripped of his uniform and belongings, and placed on display within the fort. He was later buried at the bottom of a pit, with his black troops piled on top of him. His body was never recovered. In the movie, they of course don't show him being put on display, but he is shown being tossed into a burial pit with his black comrades.
If your child has to see these movies, I would certainly encourage him to read other source material so that fact will be part of the fiction shown on screen.
Sorry if I rambled on too long.
When the movie came out, I know there was a big stink as to the church burning scene. Historians said that although Benastre Tarleton (Tavington in the movie) was a nasty soul, that there was no record of him ever locking people in a building and burning it down.
Maybe you meant to send that comment to somebody else? My only comment here was that watching Hollywood movies for three solid weeks is an enormous waste of time in an 8th grade history class. That has nothing to do with the price of freedom or the brutality of war, but with the quality of education, which appears, in my view, to be sorely lacking in this school.
I concur. Gettysburg, though long, admittedly, is probably one of the best war (there was nothing civil about that war, and it does not meet the definition of civil war)movies there is. If you watch with a critical eye each character and their internal struggles with what was unfolding before them, the duty, honor and valor they showed, it is a priceless classic. I am a War Between the States reenactor and just participated in the 145th Gettysburg event...it was truly an honor to have participated. It was a defining moment in our country’s history and should never be forgotten, nor buried in the fallacious claim that the war was only about slavery. The war was truly brother against brother, friend against friend. The biggest thing my children got out of that movie is that sometimes, there are causes that are bigger than you and your must stand for what you believe in...even if at great cost. To submit and subjugate yourself to tyranny is an affront to everything American.
The Patriot is an incredible movie, and when my children get older, I will definitely let them watch it (mostly for historical value). I homeschool, and we don’t have cable TV. I am extremely careful what my children are exposed to, and although The Patriot is very gory and violent in places, as teenagers they should definitely see the reality of what war is really like, and the human toll on families and sons and mothers and fathers, due to the sacrifice of many for our freedom. Mel Gibson and the actors who play his children are incredible on the screen.
The others I have not seen.
Why watching movies in school? I don’t understand either. How about giving the students a list of movies they want them to see with their parents and then be prepared to discuss them in class??
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