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The Background of Modern European History
to 1450.
This page is keyed to your
text:
The Western Heritage
by Kagan, Ozment and
Turner.
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- Henry V
(1989): A forerunner of the New Monarchs portrayed by one of
the greatest talents to ever propagandize for
Monarchy, the "New Monarchs" and the emerging unity of the new Nation
States. Notice the many short speeches by "ethnic minorities," once
enemies, now supporters of the King. Note
especially the Welsh soldier and wearing the leek.
- Henry
V (1944): The classic wartime production of Shakespeare's
play, intended to lift the spirits of the British people. See this one.
CLASSIC
- Braveheart
(1995): Edward I
foreshadowing the New Nation State and the New Monarchs in method and
intensity. William
Wallace and Robert the
Bruce become legends in Scotland.
- Messenger: The Story of Joan of
Arc (1999) This is the most recent and very admirable version of
a popular story. Some others are: Joan of Arc(1948), Joan of Arc
(1999/I) (TV), Joan of Arc: The Virgin Warrior (2000), Messenger: The
Story of Joan of Arc, The (1999), Joan of Arc at the Stake (1954),
Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La (1928), (Passion of Joan of Arc, The (1928)
(USA), Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962), (Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) There
are more versions.
- El
Cid (1961) An epic set in c. 1060 in Spain. commentary
- The Seventh
Seal (1957): A knight returns from the Crusades. He
plays a famous game of chess with Death as he contemplates his
disillusionment with life and its mysteries. CLASSIC
- The Name of the Rose (1986): From the historical novel by Umberto
Eco. A Franciscan Monk foreshadows the Modern world by relying less
on divine revelation and more on clues from the material world in order
to solve a series of crimes.
- Becket
(1964 ): A famous episode in the struggle between Pope and King for
power at the top levels of European politics. The arena of this struggle
was often Investiture or the supremacy of Secular or Ecclesiastical
courts and law. It is the story of Henry II and Thomas
Becket. St. Thomas Becket
has a presence in Dakota County just down the road from Rosemount
High School. (Murder of
St. Thomas Becket)
- The Message: Story of Islam (1976).
This is the film-story of Mohammed
acted by Anthony Quinn. There were demonstrations against the making of
this film by Islamic protesters, who believed it wrong to depict his
image in this way.
- Attila (1954) The divine Sophia Loren plays Honoria to
Anthony Quinn's Attila
in this film. Mohammed and Attila are mentioned here because they
are two forces that almost overwhelmed Roman-Feudal-Catholic society and
culture in those times before Spain's rise insured the survival of "The
West." See: The
Koran
Attila the Hun and the Battle of Chalons and Attila The Hun.
- The Lion In Winter (1968): A well written and witty film
about family politics in Medieval Europe. This is the story of the
Plantagenet family led by Henry II
and his brilliant, powerful and glittering wife Eleanor
of Aquitaine and four of their children. This is one small story in
the continuing saga of the rise of Kingship and the emergence of the
Nation-State in Europe. See a similar type of struggle in Kurosawa's
wonderful film set in "Medieval "Japan: Ran.
- The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955) based on the 1823
Sir Walter
Scott novel set in France in the time of Louis XI in the 14th
century. There is a 1971 made-for-TV series in
French as well.
- Additional
Films on the Medieval World
- A List of
Ancient and Medieval Fiction for Students of History
- A very
impressive "Pre-Protestant" Medieval Christianity Web Site.
- History
of The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire, E. Gibbon
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10:
Renaissance and Discovery
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- 1492
Conquest of Paradise (1992): The Columbus expedition from simple
dream to the complex realities of conflicting motivations and cultural
conflict and misunderstanding. This is the Depardieu version and the
better of the two that came out together. Sigourney Weaver is Queen
Isabella.
- Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
 Tom Selleck is
King Ferdinand. Rachel Ward is Queen Isabella. Marlon Brando is the
Grand Inquisitor Torquemada. George Corraface is Columbus. The Catholic
Kings are fine looking, but I think this is the inferior of the
two....even though I am a charter member of the Marlon Brando admiration
society. Excerpts
from his journal.
- Aguirre:
The Wrath of God (1972): A great work of film art by the
German director Werner
Herzog which depicts an expedition of Conquistadors deep into the
South American forests in search of El Dorado. A very
metaphorical film which may be a meditation on the events of recent
German history as much as it explores the energy and determination of
the age of Spanish Renaissance discoverers. GREAT. If you love the theme
of madmen in the South American Jungles chasing great dreams, see
"Fitzcarraldo"(1982) which is also directed by Werner Herzog.
It is set in the 19th century but is still evidence of the great
passion, energy, drive and focused vitality that helps explain the
presence of Europe everywhere in the world today. It is a great fable of
the weakness inherent in that energy and focus as well. Sometimes those
dreams go over the edge when the rest of the world is used as
lubrication for the means to gain the dreamy ends. Herzog was (in my
opinion) the best of the new directors who gave rebirth to the German
film in the 1970s. Where did they all go? (Roger
Ebert's Review)
- The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci (1972 Italian TV production
dubbed in English. You all love it every time I use it. Leonardo Link. Three tapes. Link
to: The
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt.
- Leonardo da Vinci (1952) I have not seen this film that I
recall.
- Leonardo:
A Dream of Flight (1998)
- The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965): Michelangelo in Rome to
paint the Sistine
Chapel ceiling. This is a classic that you must see. I love it just
for the quarry scenes.
- Borgias, The (1981 PBS/BBC mini series of 10 episodes) This
great series is unforgettable. You will be hooked on it as surely as you
will be when watching I, Claudius. Machiavelli
is depicted as a thoughtful and quiet observer of the events he
witnesses. (Machiavelli)
- El Cid
(1961) The great heroic Spanish legend. The Lay of the Cid,
and the Robert
Southey translation.
- The Masters of Illusion ( ): A documentary about Renaissance
Art.
- Captain from Castile (1947): Cortez conquers
Mexico.
- Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969): Pizzaro and the
conquest of Peru.
- Prince of Foxes (1949) Disturbing and rough Renaissance
Italian politics with the Borgia family.
Tyrone Power and Orson Wells bring this era to life. Great sets and
battle scenes.
- Don
Quixote (TV version 2000) There are many others. This is
the famous attack on Medieval Chivalry. A light and lovable satire. The
novel by Cervantes.
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11:
The Age of Reformation
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- Luther
(1973): The John Osborne play with Stacey Keach as Luther.
- Martin
Luther (1953): A good serious film about the Issues of
faith and interpretation of the Bible which led to Luther's dissent. Luther's translation of
The Bible. King James' translation of The
Bible. (Luther Links)
- A Man for All Seasons (1966): The famous Paul Scofield
version. This is the one that got the awards. An account of St. Sir Thomas More's
decision to stand by the teachings of the Catholic Church and not
support the constitutional changes undertaken by King Henry VIII.
- The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1971 TV mini series on PBS.) Tudor History. Luther's Bible is
to German as The Book of
Common Prayer is to English. The King James
Bible was a huge influence on English, but those of you who love
this language enough to want to major in English should get a copy for
your bookshelf. Archbishop
Cranmer (death
of) was key to the creation of the Book of Common
Prayer (i.e. prayer which members had in common with eachother in
the Anglican Church/Church of England). (How the Catholic
Church saw the Book of Common Prayer in 1907)
- Henry
VIII and His Six Wives (1973) Henry is played by Keith
Mitchell here and in the version above. This one has Charlotte Rampling
as Anne Boleyn and Jane Asher as Jane Seymour. Donald Pleasence is
Thomas Cromwell. (Don't mix up
 your Cromwells. Oliver
Cromwell is the Puritan who created a Republic over the dead body of
Charles I. I have a set of these tapes. Just ask me for them and I will
send them home with you for a week.
- A
Man for All Seasons (1988): The Charlton Heston version of the
life of St. Sir
Thomas More. This is a very good version of the story. Heston is
very Politically Incorrect because of his work for the N.R.A. but,
strike a blow for freedom of association and freedom of expression by
watching this version.
- Lady
Jane (1985): An attempt to tamper with the succession in England
by Protestants in order to prevent the Catholic Queen Mary from
taking the throne. Lady
Jane Grey is put forward as the heir to the throne. See this one for
the spirited defense of her faith that Lady Jane puts up from time to
time. I often show this one in class. Be sure to bring kleenex. See the
Tudor Link.
- Nine Days a Queen (1936) The Lady Jane Grey story in another
telling.
- Elizabeth (1998): (Reviews)The early
years of the Protestant rule of Great
Elizabeth. She learns the political necessities of the time and
turns from a disillusioned girl and into a Great "New Monarch" and
Queen. If she has not read her Machiavelli,
she signs on advisors who have. This is the Cate Blanchett version.
Compare her portrayal to Bette Davis and Glenda Jackson. (see Tudor England: 1485 to
1603.)(Elizabethan
Costume)
- Elizabeth R (1971 TV miniseries on PBS) The great series
starring Glenda Jackson and Great Elizabeth I (the Virgin
Queen=Virginia)
- Anne of the Thousand Days (1969): About Henry VIII and Anne
Boleyn. Fun but not very concerned about historical accuracy.
- The Virgin Queen (1955)Bette Davis as Elizabeth.
- Young Bess (1953) Many wonderful old stars. I have serious
flashbacks to the balcony of the Empire and State theaters of Minot in
the 1950s.
- The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) Based on the
play by the University of North Dakota's greatest writer: Maxwell
Anderson. Starring Bette Davis. Essex is played by Errol Flynn. There is
a colorized version available. It looks very good.
- The Sword and the Rose (1953) The story of Mary
Tudor (Henry VIII's oldest daughter) and his attempts to marry her
to the King of France. Remember not to confuse this Mary (later
nicknamed "Bloody Mary" for her suppression of Protestants when she
became Queen.) with Mary Queen of Scots who tangles with Mary Tudor's
half sister, Great Elizabeth I.
- Fire Over England (1937) The Armada. Phillip II sends his
fleet against England. The weather destroys the attempt. Think about
D-Day and the weather problem. See this film as a document of its time
as well. When this film came out, Hitler was less than two years from
invading Poland and three years from smashing into France. See Laurence
Olivier's Henry V in this light as well. The Germans also made
historical films to boost their morale as did we.
- Sea Hawk (1940) Emphasis on Elizabeth and her "sea dogs."
This is old Hollywood film making in which the costumes, music and
dialogue are "over the top." See Errol Flynn. The setting is in the time
of the fear of The Spanish Armada. Notice the anti Spain, anti Catholic
bias of the film. Learn about "The Black
Legend". This anti Catholic attitude is one of the oldest prejudices
in the modern Western world. Its early roots are in the telling of the
story of the Crusades. Another example of this "built in" historical
pro-Protestant bias in the telling of history of the Inquisition.
Northern European Protestants probably burned many more witches than the
Catholic Inquisiton killed in Spain. However, it is always embarassing
to argue about the comparative virtures exhibited by the perpetrators
based on the comparative size of the piles of the dead . Link to
a page on the "Black Legend" for teachers of Catholic students in
Catholic schools. This might be a great non-politically correct,
politically correct site to visit.
- The Black Robe (1991): A film set in the North American
wilderness in the 1600s. It portrays the dedication and tenacity of the
clergy in their quest to spread the word. Jesuit courage
and determination is on display. I think a film like this or "Aguirre"
or "The Mission" helps you understand the energy, vitality and
aggressive energy of the political and spiritual heart of Western
European culture in those times.
- The Mission (1986 ): A great film about the
 consequences of
international border conflicts between Portugal and Spain in their South
American colonies. The portrayal of the energy, will, dedication and
values of the
Jesuit
clergy working at the edges of Catholic Power and the reach of of the
Nation-State in a distant colony is impressive. It is a nice symbol of
European energy, vitality and strength
(aggression?) This film also complicates your view of the way Europeans
dealt with natives. It is also a good introduction to the role that the
Catholic Church played in the politics and international relationships
of Catholic countries. Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro. This is a fine
film. It may even make you a better person. |
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12:
The Age of Religious Wars
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- Mary, Queen
of Scots (1971) Vanessa Redgrave plays Mary. Having been
married to a Catholic King of France, Henry II (daughter-in-law to
Catherine de Medici), she returns to Scotland after his death but is not
welcome. Scotland has been become
 Protestant-Presbyterian
under John Knox. She has to leave for exile in England, where Elizabeth
I is not happy to see her. Elizabeth fears Catholic plots will grow
around her and against Elizabeth. On leaving Scotland for asylum in
Englsnad Mary
was forced to leave her son behind to be raised as a Protestant. In the
future this little boy will take the throne of England as James I (and,
command the famous translation of The Bible.
- Mary of
Scotland (1936) Directed by John Ford. Script by Maxwell
Anderson. Mary of Scotland played by Katherine Hepburn. John Carradine
and Frederic March join her.
- Queen
Margot (1994): The future King Henry
IV of France marries on the eve of the St.
Bartholemew's Day massacres of
Protestants in Paris. The Guise family and the Royal famly will be
participants in the French Wars of
Religion and are depicted in the film. A strong story line from
Alexander Dumas. Balzac's novel on the life of the Great Queen and
mother of Kings: Catherine
de' Medici. Who's who
in 16 th Century France.
- Queen
Christina (1933): Greta Garbo makes
this a film you must
see. It is a Hollywood view of the private life of the Queen who would give up
her throne in order to rejoin the Catholic Church during the
Counter-Reformation. "The
 Abdication" is
better for history students.
- The Last Valley (1970) This strange and lovely story is set
in the Thirty
Years War in the Germanies. Michael Caine leads a force into a
hidden valley which has, so far, escaped the war. It is based on a novel
by James Clavell. It is haunting. It deals rather well with the armies
of that era, their scavenging and their mixed motives for going to war.
There is a good deal of religious argument among the soldiers, which
brings some of the controversy and anger of
that time to life. (another
link)
- The Abdication (1974): Queen
Christina returns to the Catholic Church during the Counter-Reformation.
She has to give up her throne and goes through a rough renewal of her
confirmation vows. Christina is played by Liv Ullmann. Nice, subtle and
intelligent dialogue about religious matters of the Counter-Reformation.
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13:
Paths to Constitutionalism and
Absolutism: England and France in the Seventeenth Century
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- Cromwell (1970): The events of the English Civil War
recounted and re-enacted.
An intense performance by Richard Harris as Oliver
Cromwell. Alec Guinness creates
 a wonderful
Charles I. Frank Cordell is responsible for the most irritating musical
score of any film in my memory. This film is a must for scholars in A.P.
European History. It is one of the foundation stones of our concept of
Impeachment and an important event in the rise of the power of the
Bourgeoisie and the coming
of a Republic and Constitutional government in the United States.
The essential moment:
Cromwell: "Is he guilty?"
M.P.: "Yes."
Cromwell: "Then sign it."
- Cyrano de
Bergerac (1950 & 1990): A great 19th century romantic
play: Cyrano
de Bergerac (in English)by Edmond
Rostand, about France at love and war in the 17th century. The 1990
version of the wonderful classic gives one a good feeling of the
intensity of the warfare between the armies of Spain and of France on
the northern border of France during the seige of Arras. This great
story ends in the lovely gardens of the Romanesque abbey of Fontenay.
Study
Guide.
- Restoration (1995) Charles II and his glittering court, the
London
Fire, and the practice of medicine in the 1600s swirling around a
love story.
- Selected
Restoration Plays: Charles II is back and it is Party
Time. The Puritans are gone, Cromwell's body has been dug up and placed
on a spike. Kicking his head around has become a sport. Soccer is
invented.
- England My England (1995): This is a wonderful film about
London and the glittering Restoration
court of King
Charles II. Characters include Henry
Purcell and his music, Samuel
Pepys, Dryden, Nell Gwynn, (Pope?) and the brilliant music of Purcell throughout. John Osborne
had a hand in the script. See the long 153 min version. See this one if
you love the music of the period. I really, really love this film. Can
anyone find a place to buy it?
- The Three Musketeers (1973): One of the most recent of a
dozen film versions of this Alexandre Dumas novel.
This one is wonderfully cast and has a lot of European production and
direction in Richard Lester. It looks more authentic than the other
firms made of this novel and covers more of the story in a more complete
way because they actually filmed enough to make two complete films. See
The Four Musketeers (1974) by Richard Lester as well. (The actors
all sued because they were paid for only one film and only later
 were told the truth.)
- Mary Queen of
Scots (1971): Mary battles Queen Elizabeth I, Protestants and Scottish lords to make sure her son, the
future James I of England stays in line for the throne. Vanessa
Redgrave. Mary
Queen of Scots is NOT "Bloody" Mary. Get
this straight. Yes, I know that this is a second reference. I want you
to know that many of these films deal with issues that could help you
understand different chapters and historical issues.
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14:
New Directions in Thought and Culture in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
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- The
Devils (1971): Ken Russell's strange and wonderful
interpretation of Aldous Huxley's
novel ,The Devils of Loudon. Alexandre Dumas has written about
this famous and well documented case of local politics and witch-burning
in his Urbain
Grandier. The film is about an this actual event in which a local
Jesuit priest, Urbain
Grandier, in the town of Loudon, south of Paris in 1692., is accused
of being a witch/warlock. The local nuns bring charges against him. The
book is interesting for the detail about a 17th century trial and the
quality of the evidence that is heard (spectral evidence etc.). What may
also (and more likely) happening has to do with power within the town of
Loudon and the ongoing pressure of the King to bring the town to heel.
Russell is a highly unusual film director whose style sometimes draws
attention away from the center of the film. He is a "high concept"
director. I love his stuff. (witchcraft) another great Huxley
site.
- Galileo
(1968) writings of
Galileo
- Galileo (1973) A film adaptation of a Bertolt Brecht play.
- Galileo
(1975)
- Galileo:
On the Shoulders of Giants (1997)
- The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) A
story of family, lower classes, rural life in southern France in the
1500s. Interesting social history. Role of women/wives, men/husbands and
families. I hope you notice that alongside all of the "advances" in
scientific thought there still exist deep connections to traditional
ways of understanding. Witches and forgetting will be corrected by
documentation, pictures, personal and political awareness, but very
slowly. Look around you. There are still people who live their lives as
if there is a dark supernatural dimension. The film industry and a
general angst about the loss of spirituality among some in our society
creates an opening for this type of supplement. It sometimes reminds me
of some of the ignorance that descended on Europe in certain places
during and after The Black Death; after so many of the clergy had been
lost. Reversion to the irrational and pre-Christian explanations
returned.
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15:
Successful and Unsuccessful Paths to
Power (1686-1740)
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16:
Society and Economy Under the Old Regime
in the Eighteenth Century
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- Barry Lyndon (1975 ): An Irish lad is forced into a series of
adventures all
 over Europe which
includes the Seven
Years War, duels, marriage, and the 18th century gambling craze.
Based on a novel by the great observer of European manners, William
Makepeace Thackeray. A great film by Kubrick. It has great music and
great patience. I often show this film in class. It is a good source of
information about subtle class distinctions and goals in England and
Ireland and elsewhere.
- The Novels of
William Mackpeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair
- Dangerous Liaisons (1988): Michelle
Pfeiffer. No further recommendation needed. Based on the novel by a
member of the Ancient Regime who chronicles the behavior of an element
of an increasingly dissolute aristocracy which has been dis-empowered by
the centralization of the Nation State in the body of the Kings Louis.
It foreshadows the coming revolution as much as does the ennui the face
of Giles. The novel was written to criticize French society on the eve
of the Revolution.
- Valmont (1989): The same story (Dangerous Liasons)
told by a different director and caste. Equally wonderful and on a
slightly larger canvas than the film above. You have to chose between
Michelle Pfeiffer's delicate loveliness and Annette Bening's disarming
and brilliant smile. This version rates higher on the Richter scale of
Passion. Based on the 18th century novel by de Laclos.
- Tartuffe
(1984): Moliere's brilliant
satire on ultimate hypocrisy and the gullibility of a family who allows
a scoundrel into their home and cannot accept the fact that he is not
what he seems to be even as he hits on all of the women in the family
and begins to steal all of their property while playing the role of a
man of deep religious devotion. This play may also help you understand
certain political events of our own time as they currently unfold
(1997-1999). The ending is also a tribute to the power of Versailles
to bring a writer of Moliere's stature to heel. The ending is almost
deus ex machina. Other plays by
Moliere.
- Ridicule
(1996): A tale of Grant chasing....It could be a metaphor for the
academic life. Draining a swamp...Being impressive in court....all
depends on his abilities at courtly repartee of a particularly tough
kind. You have met a Precieuse in Roxanne and the play "Cyrano" . Now
meet the political and social discourse of the Court of Louis XVI. This
is rough verbal stuff. I love it. These people are meaner than a bus
load of high school debaters who are headed for Harvard. link to
a review. The
Women of the French Salons by Amelia Gere Mason
- Tom
Jones ( 1963):In that it is a story of a young man stepping out
into the world of adventure Tom Jones is similar to Candide by Voltaire.
This is a book about a young man sent by circumstances into the world on
a series of travels and adventures which introduce him to the crudities,
conflicts and adventures of life. This is a masterpiece of English
Literature and is seldom taught today. This film got the academy award
for best picture and at least three more in other categories. Know that
the book is infinitely better. This book is one of the most memorable
and fun books that I read in college. It is a novel by the great Henry Fielding.
Think about the ways in which Candide, Moll Flanders, Barry Lyndon and
Tom Jones are all similar. Why?
- Joseph Andrews (1977) Another novel by Henry Fielding set to
film. Look up the term "Picaresque
novel." Why do so many novels come to us in this foremat from this
time? What might explain these documents? What do they tell us about the
mind of the people of this era?
- Moll Flanders (1996): Another series of adventures in which
the initiate discovers live by immersion in a series of adventures. This
time it is lived by a woman who lives through a series of pregnancies,
arrests, marriages and adventures until she is arrested, sent to Newgate
and deported to the English colonies in America where due to forces
beyond her control, she gains prosperity and is able to return to
England a woman of substance and property. There is a 1965 version
entitled The
Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders. Remember that some of these
films do not do justice to the book they represent, and some do awful
damage and misrepresent the book. The films of Moll Flanders are
a good example. Many of you have read Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
and know how awful the Demi Moore film was. Know that the book is
always better and that the book IS the original document. At best, these
films are "History Lite." At worst, they are the Demi Moore version of
Hawthorne's great book.
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1962): This is a story that tells you a
lot about class, status, society, cultural confrontation, food for
slaves (bread fruit), naval discipline at sea, Europe finding a short
lived Paradise in the Pacific. This is one of the greatest stories of
the sea. It is a true story. Fletcher Christian is played by the
greatest American actor: Marlon Brando.
- Hard Times (1994 TV) Peter Barnes
With Alan Bates Based on Dickens novel. There was also a 1977 TV series.
This film could be paired with Modern Times (1936) Dir.
Charlie Chaplin, With Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard.
- A
British Literature Index: a source of information and some on-line
texts.
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17:
Empire, War, and Colonial
Rebellion
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- Rob Roy (1995): The Scots standing up to the intrusive
English again. It makes me wish I had Scottish blood and proud to have
lived in a Macalester College dorm for one summer. There is also an old
Disney version of the Sir Walter Scott
novel.
- Last
of the Mohicans (1992): Great Britain and France with
their Native American allies battle for control of North America. Well
done scenes of a siege. Haunting and beautiful film made of an
outstanding work by American novelist whose works are no longer taught
in the schools to the detriment of our understanding of our country's
history.
- Revolution (1985) Dir. Hugh
Hudson. With Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, Nastassia Kinski. This is a
film about the American Revolution.
- The Patriot (2000) Starring Mel Gibson. My adolescent adult
friends who need a car crash, an explosion or a shooting every 30
seconds did not like this film. My friends who want all guns banned for
the sake of the children did not like this film and went into shock
during one particular scene. I am a history teacher and just give thanks
when any film on a history subject of importance comes out. This film is
set in South Carolina and setting somewhat farther north. Cornwallis had
led an invasion of the South in order to destroy harbor facilities and
naval stores. His objective was to destroy the the region's economic
support of the Revolution. I like Mel Gibson and think there are not
enough films about the Revolution. There is some interesting social
history in this film. The battle reminded me of Cowpens. You follow
Gibson's character from Charleston north to Yorktown. I think
the movement of Rochambeau and
Washington from New York south to Yorktown is
one of the most exciting stories. I cannot believe Hollywood cannot see
that it is a great story like D-Day or the "Bridge Too Far." The
Washington- DeGrasse -
Rochambeau - Yorktown convergence has it all. I agree that watching a
history film is often maddening. They spend all of that time and money
on getting the rooms, the paint, the make-up, the meals, the guns, the
uniforms and even the dialect just right and so very accurate and then,
their silly writers get the story all wrong or fill it with mechanical
owls or tanks that talk. I am sure that there would be a Yoda like
character in Washington's campaign chest giving him just the right
advice. ok ok.... I am exaggerating....but not by much.
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18:
The Age of Enlightenment: Eighteenth
Century Thought
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- Amadeus
(1984): A biography of Mozart. It
evokes a lot of the spirit of the
 Enlightenment in its
playfulness, excesses and costumes: "It's Turkish." study
guide. Classical
Composers Database.
- The Madness of King George (1994) A wonderful adventure into
the English court in the era of King George
III against whom Jefferson raged in the Declaration of Independence.
"Up ! Up! The King! The King!" This is a film of politics and family
power hunger and plotting, but what you will remember is the mad pride
and confidence of the medical care regarding the mind of the King
George.
- The
Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) Dir. William Dieterle, With Paul
Muni.
- Newton: A
Tale of Two Isaacs (1998) This film is a tad elementary but good for
you if you have avoided science classes. study
guide.
- Gulliver's
Travels (1996) This famous Jonathan Swift work was
published in 1726. Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, James Fox, Ned Beatty,
Geraldine Chaplin, Edward Fox, Sir John Gielgud, Robert Hardy are some
of the famous actors that created this award
winning production.
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19:
The French Revolution
|
- Danton
(1982): The French Revolution spinning into madness. This is a
 great reminder of
the murders committed in the last two hundred plus years by people who
were going to make the world better. Robespierre is still our archetype
for the flaming purity and confidence of left politics which would build
a brave new world for us in spite of our wishes. From Robespierre to
1848 to Lenin to Stalin to the National Socialism aspects of Hitler. It
makes Royalism desirable. The symmetry of the film is stunning...the
recitation of the "Rights of Man" at the beginning and the end. The
dripping blade of the Guillotine is an image which will haunt you each
time you see the burning eyes of righteous young men with ideas who know
they are good and right. Always remember Thackeray: "The wicked are
wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by
their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous
do?" Beware all Robespierres. They will justify and sanctify their
behavior in the goodness and glory of their goals. They will feel their
lies and murders are justified. La
Marseillaise
- Révolution française, La (1989) The
Revolution depicted from the convening of the Estates General in
1789 to the end of The Terror in 1794. I have not seen this film. The
people who have love it. There is something very strange about the
availability of this film. People have purchased it and have found that
it comes in two tapes, each of which is only aprox. 25 minutes long. The
actual film is much much longer. The quoted price in Amazon.com is
nearly $80.00. Be careful. The fact that this film is not available in a
more honest and straight forward way is an outrage. Here is a review by
an on-line reviewer named Rosabel: "The detail
was astounding, and the film managed to tell this complicated story
without dropping any threads. Jean-Francois Balmer is touching as the
hapless Louis XVI, a well-meaning but out-of-touch ruler totally out of
his depth in the political and social upheaval that was to destroy him.
The three main revolutionaries, Desmoulins, Danton and Robespierre are
shown as genuine human beings with emotional ties to each other, but who
start going their separate paths, at a time when disagreement leads not
to estrangement but to death. The film is divided into 2 halves, "The
Years of Light", describing the political changes taking place in France
as the revolution approaches, and "The Years of Terror", beginning with
the
 arrest of the King and
proceeding through the Terror through to the death of Robespierre. The
second half is better, with more action and suspense, as familiar
characters become swept up in the destruction and insanity of a
Revolution going out of control. Andrej Seweryn is superb as the cool
tyrant sending his enemies and their families to their bloody deaths,
while gently describing his view of the world as one governed by a
spirit of goodness and virtue. His sudden fall from power in the
National Assembly is spellbinding, and the movie roars to a conclusion
as the first of the revolutionaries becomes the last victim of the
guillotine. The only jarring performance in this film is that of Peter
Ustinov in the first half, who tends to play himself rather than the
great moderate, Mirabeau. The rest of the international cast is
wonderful." Brandauer plays Danton, Jane Seymour is Marie
Antoinette, Peter Ustinov is Mirabeau, Sam Neill is LaFayette among many
others. This epic comes in two parts: Robert Einrico directs the first
half entitled "Les Annees Lumiere" and Richard Heffron directs the
second half entitled "Les Annees Terrible." I hope the original film is
available for students soon. I have read elsewhere that there is a
squabble about distribution rights of the English version. Grrrrrr.
Links to some major texts: The
French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle , The
Psychology of Revolution by Gustave Le Bon, Reflections
on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke. This last title is
a definitive title in defining modern Conservatism.
- Marat/Sade (1966): "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean
Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under
the Direction of the Marquis de Sade." This play within a play gives the
distance and perspective to meditate on the meaning of the French
Revolution by the divine Marquis who uses the mental patients at
Charenton to perform his play for their therapy. You, in the audience,
are the Bourgeoisie and remaining Aristocrats who are ironically aware
that you are living in the world of Napoleon.....and that your country
has gone from King to Emperor. There are many levels of meaning and
irony in this major intellectual achievement by the German writer
(Peter Weiss), who may really be thinking more about the sad and
strange history of his own country. This is a strong play. I got in some
trouble with a few parents for taking scholars to the Guthrie Theater
production of this play. It introduces you to the great story of Charlotte
Corday and Marat. Corday carried out one of the most stunning
political assassinations in history. De Sade takes a "Conservative" view
of the Revolution, arguing that people join revolutions for very
personal, small and petty reasons based on their flaws, faults, gross
appetites, jealousies, and desires for revenge (I must admit that many
anti Vietnam War demonstrators in the 1960s seemed more interested in
meeting girls than the fate of the people of Southeast Asia. I detected
other motivations that had little to do with the great issues.). He
seems to argue that a revolution is nothing more than an uprising in a
madhouse led by paranoids. Great Marat argues that men revolt because
they are aching for great concepts of Justice. The French Revolution has
become the source of most of our politicallanguage. It is quite
important that you understand this period. DeSade has become far too
disreputable to quote in a footnote, but those of you who want to base
your Conservative politics on the most classical and sound basis must
read Edmund
Burke.
- La
Religieuse (1966) Based on a novel by Denis
Diderot.
- Marie
Antoinette (1938) Queen
of France on the eve of the Revolution.
- La
Marseillaise (1938) Directed by Jean Renoir. Difficult to
obtain. Listen to the great revolutionary anthem at
this web site. I love this one even more: The Hector Berlioz
version of La Marseillaise. The words.
Another
source.
- La Nuit de Varennes (1982): A fabulous film about the
attempted escape of Louis XVI from Paris. The company traveling with
Louis includes personages like Tom Paine and the great lover Casanova.
- A
Tale of Two Cities (1958): From the great novel by Charles Dickens.
British barrister Sydney Carton lives an insubstantial and unhappy life.
He falls under the spell of Lucie Manette, but Lucie marries Charles
Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned family
retainer, he becomes entangled in the snares of the brutal French
Revolution and is himself jailed and condemned to the guillotine. But
Sydney Carton, in love with a woman he cannot have, comes up with a
daring plan to save her husband. (imbd) This is the Dirk Bogarde
version. study
guide
- The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982 TV version) An English aristocrat
rescues friends from the madness of the French Revolution. I still
recommend the 1934 version. Besides, you should learn who Leslie Howard
and Merle Oberon were.
- Scaramouche (1952) Stewart
Granger, Janet Leigh and Mel Ferrer bring this Fafael Sabatini novel to
life. The setting is the French Revolution.
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20:
The Age of Napoleon and the Triumph of
Romanticism
|
- Immortal Beloved (1994) A film about the life of Beethoven.
The music is delicious.
- Beethoven
Lives Upstairs (1989)
- Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Works: Poems,
Egmont,
FAUST,
Hermann
And Dorothea , The
Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe,
like his contemporary Beethoven, is so huge that he does not fit
comfortably in one of these textual categories. Every one of his plays
should be in film. He is the greatest German writer. The young perchased
and read Werther like Cobain albums. It had a cult following and
some imitated the hero of the novel.
- Napoléon
(1927) Six hours long, this is the great film by Abel
Gance. It takes Napoleon from his roots to the invasion of Italy. It
had wide, split screen nearly 50 years before Woodstock. Gance
was "rediscovered" by the film study people at the Walker Art Center. In
cahoots with others who appreciated his work, they restored the film and
brought him from France to the U.S. to honor him. He spoke in
Minneapolis, went back to Paris and died. This six hour film was to be
the first of five more parts. This is the first part of a huge project
that was never finished. Trust me. It is wonderful.
- Napoleon and Josephine (1924) Check these
Napoleonic Links. And These.
- The Duelists (1977): "Set during the grand, sweeping
Napoleonic age, an officer in the French army insults another officer
and sets off a life-long enmity. The two officers, D'Hubert and Feraud,
cross swords time and time again in an attempt to achieve justice and
preserve their honor."Greg Boyle (imdb) The uniforms and hair styles of
the Napoleonic cavalry is wonderful. The duels are amazing. This has
become almost a cult film for a small group of Napoleonic aficionados.
- The Pride and the Passion (1957) The Napoleonic Wars in
Spain. In his exile years Napoleon realized that a large part of the
reason he failed to hold Europe was the taxing and draining war in
Spain. Wellington was sent to Spain to counter the French. Partisan
fighting broke out and the atrocities committed by the French in their
frustration were documented by Goya. "Armies starve there." was
Napoleon's verdict on Spain early in the wars. He was drawn in. It feels
like and endlessly draining Vietnam like engagement.
- Sharpe's Collection (1350 minutes on 14 tapes. The
series is based on Bernard Cornwell's novels about the famous rifles and
was shown on PBS. It is quite excellent. You follow Richard Sharpe
throughout the Napoleonic Wars from Spain to Waterloo as he fights
under the command of Wellington. Sharpe's Rifles, Eagle, Company, Enemy,
Regiment, Siege, Mission etc. Some of these episodes are as informative
about the lives and skills of the soldiers as a good book by John
Keegan.
- Conquest (1937)Y Napoleon invades Central Europe and takes a
mistress. study
guide
- War and Peace (1956): study
guide The King Vidor - Audrey Hepburn version of this vast novel
by Count
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. There are at least two cuttings of this
film. If you get the "short" version it is awful, makes no sense and is
irritating (if you have seen the original. Avoid the possibility of
error. Get the Sergei Bondarchuk version made in Russia by Russians! It
is nearly 400 minutes long and involves half the Russian army hired and
dressed in costume for the production. It is vast and excellent. It is,
unfortunately, dubbed over in English so the lips may not match the
sound track. Always get the original language version with subtitles. A
student of A.P. European History should want to hear the sound of the
language. A couple of teachers at an A.P. conference recently irritated
me by complaining about Dr. Eugen Weber's accent. Not only was it a
foolish comment betraying an insular attitude, it was politically
incorrect by their own value system. So, rent the Soviet Union produced
version of War and Peace (1968) and sit back with your friends
and watch it over a two day weekend. Bring popcorn and dress in costume.
Links to the works of
Tolstoy See Thackeray on the Napoleonic period: Chronicle of the
Drum.
- Waterloo
(1970) A well done version of the great
battle. Huge loans of Russian military personnel in Napoleonic era
uniforms creates a battlefield with a quite authentic number of extras.
The quips and conversation are taken directly from the historical
record. The geography duplicates the site of the battle south of
Brussels. The massed infantry of the French Column in assault is truly
stunning. The British infantry squares and Ney's charge is brilliantly
filmed. Napoleon's military aphorisms delivered crisply by Rod Steiger.
Christopher Plummer is perfectly arrogant and cold as the essence of the
British aristocrat Wellington. The essence of the meaning of the French
revolution is apparent when you hear Napoleon address his troops as
"Soldiers!" while Wellington refers to his troops as "scum." War history
buffs will love it. Read Keegan's chapter on Waterloo in his best
book "The Face of Battle." Regency
Web Pages: Waterloo.
- The Buccaneer (1958) The U.S. in the Napoleonic Wars. British
troops invade the ex"Colonies" and try to take New Orleans. General
Andrew Jackson takes them on in a battle that will set his career and
manke him the "symbol for an age." You can see the monument to the
defeated and killed generals near or in (I have forgotten.) the south
transept of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
- Impromptu (1990): The unconventional woman writer George
Sand and her relationships with Chopin, Liszt, and Alfred Muset:
interesting characters saying interesting things. You will love this
gentle and amusing film and meet a great woman writer, who is never
taught. Even the great painter Delacroix makes an appearance. This is a
film which might be seen to have a feminist theme. George
Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings by Rene
Doumic. I really like the star, Judy Davis.
- The Music Lovers (1970): A wonderful, musical biography of Tchaikovsky
by the mad, genius interpreter of so many Romantic era topics: Ken
Russell. This film is very accessible.
- Mahler
(1974): "Both trifles and structure are tossed out the door by
director Ken Russell in this film. Here, historical content matters not
so much as metaphors, feelings, emotions, and interpretations, and pay
close attention, as every word and frame is intended to be important.
The film takes place on a single train ride, in which the sickly, aged
composer Gustav Mahler and his wife, Alma, confront the reasons behind
their faltered marriage and dying love. Each word seems to evoke
memories of past, and so the audience witnesses events of Mahler's life
that explain somewhat his present state. Included are his turbulent and
dysfunctional family life as a child, his discovery of solace in the
"natural" world, his brother's suicide, his [unwanted] conversion from
Judaism to Catholicism, his rocky marriage and the death of his young
children. The movie weaves in and out of dreams, flashbacks, thoughts
and reality as Russell poetically describes the man behind the music."
Summary written by Jonathan Dakes (dakes@columbia.edu) The above review
comes from IMDb (see the link at the bottom of this page. Again, Ken
Russell.
- Gothic (1986): I have warned you elsewhere on this page about
Ken Russell films. They are difficult, symbolic, musical, visionary, and
high concept. They are not for the meek or shallow. This is Russell's
view of the night that Mary Shelley got the idea for and began to write
the great Romantic rebellion against the Enlightenment entitled Frankenstein.
The setting is a night full of rain and thunder on the country
estate of Lord Byron. It reminds me of one of those mid 1960s college
weekends where a lot of intellectuals are playing with psycho-drama and
group therapy techniques which go wildly wrong. You have to like and
understand Russell and already be a good student of European history and
literature to have this film boost your understanding of Mary Shelley
and her great book. The Greeks taught us "Nothing in Excess." Russell
may not have read that lesson. Yet, I like his stuff.
- Frankenstein
(1994) by Mary
Shelley. Within a decade the scientist, once a positive icon of the
Enlightenment, became the symbol of excessive analytical coldness and
the loss of spirituality. This novel is a primary document which
exhibits the mentality of the Romantic Movement and some of its core
ideological grudges against the Enlightenment. The scientist, playing
"god," makes "man." But, the Creature is created without the spiritual
essentials of family and love. He seems to have been abandoned by his
Maker. This book is a true "classic" in that it is so rich in story and
in the possibilities of interpretation and wisdom that it is not tied to
its era. The book is a metaphor for the Twentieth Century as well and,
it will speak to the future as well.
- Lisztomania (1975): This is a Ken Russell film. I took a date
to this film in 1975. I thought it was great. The whole audience walked
out before it was over. My date would not go out with me again. The
1990s are not the highly original and naughty 1970s. This film is also a
document of the time in which it was made, and though I now reject much
of the 1970s, I appreciate the experimental film making represented by
Russell's work. I probably should not even recommend this film. It is a
highly symbolic and metaphorical biography of Franz Liszt. It is
also a good deal more. Russell poses Liszt as the symbol of
Civilization, Catholicism, life and love AGAINST Richard Wagner,
who represents Kultur, Paganism and retrograde necromancy and which he
visually tags to National Socialism. Wagner is seen high in a lab
writing his operas (metaphor: building his new, pure Master Race a la
Dr. Frankenstein). Liszt climbs up to the lab to confront him. Wagner
attacks him with a (possibly armored) grand piano which belches flames
(like a flame throwing tank). Wagner showers Liszt with barrages of
intense Wagnerian arpeggios and glissandos. When Wagner's New Man is
born we see that it is a Frankenstein Creature, rising from a
coffin.....with the facial features of Hitler...playing an electric
guitar (if I recall). Liszt dies. The creature rampages through Europe
destroying Civilization. At the end, Liszt swoops down from heaven at
the controls of an angelic bomber and delivers an air strike on Wagner's
Hitlerian Creature as it flees through the streets of Berlin. The ending
is the triumph of Liszt's values of Catholic Civilization over Pagan
Kultur...all fought out on a battlefield of musical
ideas....OK?......... Well, who am I? What do I know?.... I'm just a
simple and humble high school teacher in the middle of the North
American continent...trying to get along. This is Russell at his
strangest and most challenging and dealing with difficult questions of
19th century intellectual history. Lizst is played by Roger Daltry of
"The Who" and the Pope is played by Ringo Starr. Confused?
- Liszt's
Rhapsody (1986)
- Damn the Defiant (1962) The British Navy in war against
Napoleon. The plot centers on an uprising/mutiny on HMS Defiant.
Conditions among sailors were difficult and this is good social history
of the military.
- Billy Budd (1962) A wonderful film
based on the Melville novel
and directed by Peter Ustinov. The setting is the same as the film
above. It is a great film on the subject of impressment. This is a
powerful story.
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21:
Restoration, Reaction, and Reform
(1815-1832)
|
- Evidently film makers do not find Metternich, the Congress of
Vienna or
 failed
revolutions interesting subject matter. I think a film about Benjamin
Constant could be gripping. The Peterloo Massacre would seem to be a
natural subject for Hollywood. The Count of Artois and Charles X could
be a natural foil which could set up the "heroic failures" of 1848.
There must be some good films about Bolivar and L'Ouverture. Some of the
events in this chapter appear in the background of films about the
English Romantic poets. If you find something centering on the
Restoration and Reaction elements, please let me know. Student Group
Project
- Colonel Chabert (1994) Based
on a Balzac novel. Set in mainly in the aftermath of the Napoleonic
wars. Chabert, believed by his wife to have been killed in the war has
married another and is using the Colonel's money to boost her new
husband into power. Chabert comes home and tries to get his money and
reputation back. This film and novel proves again that eyes and minds
like Balzac are the best social historians.
- Les Miserable: see below
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|
22:
Economic Advance and Social Unrest
(1830-1850)
|
- Germinal (1993): An excellent film about the coal miners of
France. The
 novel is a master
work of analysis and description of the job, its dangers, the lives of
the workers and the mine managers and their families and the
interrelationship of the classes. It is a family album of left analogies
with the viewpoints of Anarchists, Socialists and Labor Union leaders
clearly delineated. See this great film made from Emile
Zola's great novel. A great novel in the "Naturalist" tradition.
- Madam
Bovary (1991): The Isabelle Huppert version of a great book that
IS being taught in our school. Congratulations to all of you who will be
reading this great piece of Realist literary art by one of the greatest
writers: Gustave Flaubert. Directed by Claude Chabrol. A great leading
novel in the "Realist" tradition. In the United States the great REALIST
was Steven Crane and his Red
Badge of Courage.
- Therese Raquin (1980): a mini TV-series. Based on a novel by
Emile Zola. A difficult work about ambition, betrayal and love. The
strains of a bourgeoisie family treated with the concern and dignity
given the Ichimonji and Plantagenet families. A great work of naturalism
in literature by the master.
- Les Miserables (1998): "A straightforward film version of Victor
Hugo's masterpiece. Almost a bit too "flavorless" to do the story
the justice. Liam Neeson is brilliant and Uma Thurman, well what can one
say about this very talented actress, except that we should have seen
more of her. More could have been made of the relationship of Valjean
and Fantine, the actors certainly had some connection - this is a movie
after all, not a play! The film does tend to jump a bit and we are not
given enough time to get attached Cossette, whom looks a bit too
doll-ish, young or old. A surprise is a very good performance by
Geoffrey Rush (Javert), so good in fact that you forget that he is
acting and really start to dislike him. This dislike turns to pity in
the end." Vincent van der Vlis (imdb) study
guide to 1978 verson.
- The novels of
Jane Austin are all in film. No writer has a better eye for
social observation. She brings the English society of the late 17th and
early 18th century to life. I had a tough teacher of the English Novel
in college. He was a hard boiled lover of hunting and action fiction, a
lover of historical fiction and a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop
with a M.F.A. degree, who later quit teaching and joined the F.B.I. He
once said in class: "I never thought women could write until I read Jane
Austin." I know that shocks some of you but, this was high praise from
this "man's man" of a professor. We all rushed to read her. Read
everything she ever wrote and see all of the versions of all of the
films based on her books. Study Guide
for Emma. Guide to
Persuasion Guide
to Pride and Prejudice, Study
Guide for Sense and Sensibility
- The novels of
Charles Dickens and the impact of Capitalism/Neo Classical
economic thought. Non-Marxist critiques of Industrial Capitalism and the
world described by Adam
Smith. Hard Times (1994), Great
Expectations (1946), Oliver
Twist (1948), Christmas Carol (1938). From the
"Enclosure Movement" to Thomas Carlyle, Dickens and Marx the Industrial
Revolution and Industrial Capitalism was a force for change in society.
Marx invited the workers to join together and violently seize the
econonmic structure which they had built with their sweat (See "Labor
Theory of Value" and David Ricardo.) Carlyle and Dickens saw the same
"social injustice" but recommended another approach. It seems that
Dickens hoped he would bring about a change in the hearts of the
powerful in society through sympathy and empathy generated by his
stories and characters. I have no doubt that he had tears running down
his cheeks as he crafted some parts of his novels. The poor, like Pip or
the Cratchit family are rescued, not by Marxist Revolution but by a
"Deus ex Machina" style mystery benefactor or surprise inheritance or by
a massive change in the heart of the villainous powerful. The range and
depth of character in his
 literary
creations are Shakespearian. His characters are unforgettable. But, they
are also deeply involved in the economic debate of the 19th century. Our
country developed a similar fantasy about our economic demigods: "The
Gospel of Wealth." Whatever their effect on the
Hobhouse-Liberal-Romantic-Marxian- Mill-rainbow of societal critiques,
Dickens' writings described the economical uprooted and drifters and
powerless as wonderfully as Chaucer had brought an unforgettable handful
of Medieval pilgrims to life.
- The
Novels of Thomas Hardy: Many of these have been made into
film. Rent Tess, Far From the Madding Crowd and the others. I
love Thomas Hardy. He mixes Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism in a way
that someone with a sensitivity to History appreciates. There is a
complexity in his settings and the motivations of his characters that
reflects the world as I see it. I love the way he frames his stories in
time and culture and geopgraphy. He always makes you aware of the Celtic
past, the Roman roads and the timeless geography as the stage upon which
the protagonists love. You know his indiviuals and lovers are replaying
the most ancient themes and conflicts of humankind. Think about the
women in Hardy and in Flaubert and others including some of the
Americans like Crane and Garland. These writers explicated values,
themes and forces affecting the lives of women that should be studied by
the Feminists in this class.
- The
Novels of the Bronte Sisters :Wuthering Heights, Jayne
Eyre.
- The Novels of
Alexander Dumas. :These books have almost all been made
into films. The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three
Musketeers.
- Jean de Florette (1986): Directed by Claude Berri. This is a
film about the greed of two men who work to bankrupt a third,intent to
pick up his land cheaply and build a new prosperity for themselves in
the rural South of France by raising flowers. (This film may have
started the "Provence Industry" that has brought so many tourists to the
region that it even drove out one of the people who started the fad.
Peter Mayle had to leave and is now hiding among the swells on Long
Island as I understand it.) Depardieu and the great Montand star.
Manon of the Spring ("Manon des Sources")(1986) carries on the
story. Manon, the beautiful shepherdess and daughter of the Depardieu
character, swears to avenge her father's death. This is a great portrait
of rural life and concerns of France in the late 19th century.
- Moby
Dick (1956) study guide
This greatest of novels is also a look at 19th century
industrialism and the social world of work as is the next film.
- Captains
Courageous (1937) study
guide This wonderful film and book are filled with the life,
danger and values of industrial workers at sea. I will always be
thankful to my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Schaeffer, for reading this
book to us a little bit at a time each day after recess to calm us down.
Light social criticism and an excellent book filled with political
IN-correctness (tongue -in -cheek). It suggests that hard work and
discipline are good, redeeming and educational. It suggests that a
little corporal application of the hand can awaken the spirit. It argues
that boys benefit from good, male role models. The power of the Catholic
faith is a foundation of spiritual strength. (There is a touch of ethnic
stereotyping, which does make me flinch.) And, it is written by the arch
imperialist apologist and myth maker Rudyard Kipling.
- The
Novels of Honoré de Balzac: The complete Human
Comedy
- My Father's Glory ("La Gloire de mon Pere") (1990) and My
Mother's Castle ("Le Chateau de ma Mere") (1990): Lives of
19th century French family visiting in Provence (a glorious region in
the south of France settled by local tribes, colonized by the Greeks and
the Romans and multi layered by history and religion. It is a place you
must study and read about and visit someday.). Their son becomes
introduced to the rural life of France at the turn of the century. A
work of realism (not Social Realism) but a great picture of the
countryside of France and its people...just a couple of decades before
the deluge of WWI. Usually we get pictures of England during this
period. It is a look back into the recent past and into another world we
have lost. The story is told from the point of view of young Marcel who
stands in for the memory of the author: Marcel Pagnol.
- Phantom of the Opera (1925, 1943, 1962, 1989, 1990 TV
Burt Lancaster version, ) The book: Gaston Leroux:
The
Phantom of the Opera. The
Building
- Anna Karenina (Many versions) The
novel.
- Moulin
Rouge (1952)
- Plays
of Henrik Ibsen: Films of his plays from
IMDb. There is a nexus were some of the concerns of Marx, Dickens,
Carlyle, Zola, Courbet etc. all meet and I like
to argue that it is on the same ground covered by Peer Gynt.
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23:
The Age of Nation-States
|
- Prisoner of Honor (1991) A cable television production
documenting and
 dramatizing the
French Dreyfus
Affair in which the Jewish Captain was falsely accused of being a
spy for Germany, convicted and sent to Devil's Island. It is discovered
that he was framed by the true culprit but that the French General Staff
refused to initiate a new investigation that would clear Dreyfus. The
great novelist Zola becomes involved and has to flee France to England.
This is the case that still reverberates in French politics and society
and swirls in the background of the speeches of Le Pen today.
- The Life of Emile Zola(1937): This film won the Academy Award
for Best Picture in 1937. It covers the life of Zola from 1862 and
focuses on the Dreyfus Affair and anti Jewish politics in France in the
19th centruy. study
guide
- The Leopard (Il Gattopardo)(1963): A landowner and prince on
the Island of Sicily tries to sort our his own attitudes as he and his
class experience "status slippage" after " Risorgimento."
- The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936): A most famous clash
during the Crimean
War.
- Champ d'honneur (1987) and Field of Honor
(1984) based on Emile Zola's great book The Debacle.
It is a drama and film about the Franco-Prussian War. Link
to Karl Marx's views on this era.
- Ludwig
(1972): Film by Visconti. A life of Ludwig II, King of
Bavaria from 1864 to 1886 including his support of Richard Wagner, his
love life, his pursuits and his drift toward madness and his ultimate
date with the lake. (Starnbergersee?)
- Wagner (1983) TV
mini series. Richard Burton's last film. The music of Wagner
is the medium and the subject of this huge and wonderful film. Nine, yes nine, hours long. Don't cheat
yourself...Get the full length version.Link to
The Nibelungenlied. Another link to
the famous NIBELUNGENLIED .Writings of Nietszche
and the literature of war: Clausewitz, On War.
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24:
The Building of European Supremacy:
Society and Politics to World War I
|
- Swann In
Love (1984): "Elegant and educated bachelor, Charles Swann,
moves in the most powerful and fashionable circles of Paris in the
1890's. When he falls in love with Odette de Crecy, a courtesan, his
friends warn him against marriage. Proving himself a silly goose, Swann
ducks his social responsibilities, Odette ensnares him, and he is gently
but firmly cast out of society amidst everyone's great politeness.
"Summary written by {jack.hailey@sen.ca.gov} (imdb) This Paris society
in the 1880s remembered and rendered by Marcel Proust in one
of the greatest novels ever written: "In Search of Lost Time" or
"Remembrance of Things Past".
- The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981): Streep and Irons bring
this novel to life. There are some alterations to the novel's
viewpoint/framing by the film. The strength of the novel is its
portrayal of 19th century British society and the rapid change it
underwent. Charles, ahead of his times in certain social attitudes,
stands still and finds himself left behind by the speeding
culture....This is what I remember about this wonderful book. See the
film. But, READ THE BOOK and discover John Fowles.
- Sons and Lovers (1960) For years, when students would ask me
the name of the best book I have read, I would answer D.H. Lawrence's
Sons
and Lovers. The novel is about a family whose life is marked and
dominated by a violent and drunken father and the casualties he
creates.Though he is ultimately responsible for his own behavior, he is
a casualty of the mines. Though I am not a big fan of "victim history,"
I believe Lawrence draws a clear connection between life in an
industrial-capitalist world and the alcoholism and abusive behavior of
the head of the family, Walter Morel. The family is wounded by that
world as surely as Jake Barnes (The Sun Also Rises 1957 and 1984)
has been wounded by the tools of the Industrial Revolution or his upper
class brother Clifford Chatterley. Lawrence is working on a question no
less profound than whether or not love itself, physical and/or
spiritual, is possible in the industrial world. These are men wounded by
machines, defined by machines and dominated by machines. These men,
women and families no longer live by the more human patterns of nature,
and tradition but by the patterns of the clock and the machine. It makes
me think of the paintings of Francis Picabia or the "Large Glass" of
Marcel Duchamp. It is another huge question that the 19th century
beqeathed to the 20th and 21st centuries. Lawrence is huge and demands a
high level of maturity from you.
- Fanny and Alexander (1983): a wonderful picture of early 20th
century Sweden. Dad dies. Mom, an actress, marries the bishop. Fanny and
Alexander move into the chancery. Their lives and the events around them
are the social subject matter of this film.
- Fiddler on the Roof (1971) study
guide Life in Czarist Russian village.
- Death in Venice (1971): The Thomas Mann novel.
Gustav von Aschenbach (Gustav Mahler?) strains to touch the Ideal in a
most lovely and dreamlike setting: Venice and Lido Island. His life long
search for the ideal seems to manifest and symbolize itself in the
presence of a young lad with whom Aschenbach becomes fixated. But Venice
is a real, concrete, human setting...a seaport connected to the wide
world. It is a place where plague is possible. Idealism of GvA's type
cannot survive the realities of the world and GvA does not survive the
Plague (real and symbolic) that invades Venice. (Puritan Idealism had
the same problem in Boston.
- Camille
Claudel (1989): This is a dramatization of the life of a
great woman sculptor who studied with Rodin and became his lover. The
film suggests that Claudel was far more than just a student and lover.
She is seen as an inspiration to Rodin and a collaborator
in some of his work. It is a fine film about a woman artist in the man's
world of art in the 19th century. The feminist theme emerges unforced.
This haunting and lovely photograph was done by Cesar when she was
twenty. I could not resist it.
- Song of Bernardette (1943 )Dir. Henry King (I), With Jennifer
Jones,
Jones won an Oscar for her portrayal of the Catholic girl who
claimed to have a vision of at at Lourdes.
- Don Bosco (1988) A sweet film about a 19th century saint (Giovanni Melchior
Bosco), who was a major activist in educating and directing the
lives of the youth in poverty in Italy. He founded a society of priests
and teachers (the Salesian Society) that circled the world. His teachers
were recruits from among the brightest of those he salvaged. Starring
Ben Gazzara. There is another film in Italian about this Catholic hero
of spirituality and service. It is a great snapshot of a point of
vitality in an ancient Western institution surviving and thriving in a
century of often unfriendly change.
- Victoria the Great 1937 Dir. Herbert Wilcox, With Anna
Neagle
Compare with
Mrs. Brown. Dir. John Madded, With Judy Dench and Billy Connolly.
(Queen
Victoria by Lytton Strachey )
- Rodin,
the Gates of Hell (1981) sculptor. Gates
of Hell and "Paradise."
- Lautrec (1998) Painter
- Moulin Rouge (1952) Lautrec, Jane Avril, La Goulue and all of
the characters around Pigalle and Montmartre in Paris.
- The Portrait of a Lady (1996) One of many close observations
of upper European society and American wannabes and the way they mix and
match by the great Henry James whose
writing, because of current attitudes and fashions of English
departments, you may never meet. Also see The Wings of the Dove
(1997), Washington Square (1997), The Bostonians
(1984, The Europeans (1979), Daisy Miller (1974) and
others. It is far more important that you read him. He is one of the
greatest observers of social relationships in the late 19th century. He
is seldom taught today, so if you want to be fully educated, you will
have to go out and read him yourself. His is one of our greatest
novelists. He is so great that the British claim him too. These films do
not constitute a true substitute for the original works no matter what
our pop culture tries to tell you. Dr. David W. Noble (my teacher of
American Intellectual History in grad school) always argued that some
novelists (like Robert Penn Warren, Fitzgerald and esp. William Faulkner
were the best historians of social history and intellectual history.
Remember to always read on at least two levels. Never forget that you
are also an historian. Read like one. More Henry James links.
- The Age of Innocence (1993) This is a film about a novel by
Edtth
Wharton. She is another great American writer who is seldom taught
any longer. Like James, she is a fine observer
of upper American society as it is reflected against European values and
practices. Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder star. What else do you
need to know?
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25:
The Birth of Modern European
Thought
|
- Chariots
of Fire (1981): The social world after WWI as it emerges in the
 tensions among
athletes participating in the 1924 Olympics. It explores the
oh-so-very-refined anti semetic attitudes of members of the British
upper class. As your grandfather about Sandy Koufax and the Sabbath.
- Nijinsky (1980): Learn about the great Ballet Russe. Sergei
Diaghilev led and managed one of the primary ballet companies of all
time which featured a dancer of legendary reputation: Vaslav
Nijinsky. The setting is 1910 Paris and the avant garde. This film
attempts to reproduce some of the most provocative and modern ballet
performances of all time. Requires maturity. This is a beautiful film
that recreates a time when invention, artistic notions and the optimism
and confidence of "The Moderns" promised to banish the past. This film
is nearly a book end for film which follows: Isadora.
- Isadora (1968): The founder of Modern
Dance remembers her life and loves, the Russian Revolution, Singer
(the sewing machine magnate), and the avant garde artistic life along
the Riviera. I think that this film is also a document of the
mentalities which were popular and mandatory in the late 1960s. Enjoy
the film. This is very good biography.
- Orlando (1992) The novel by Virginia Woolf transformed into a
beautiful and challenging film. Along with James Joyce, a founder of the
new stream of consciousness technique in literature. As the modernist
artists were tearing themselves away for the Renaissance rules of color,
space and perspective these writers were tearing themselves away from
rules of writing as old as Aristotle's Poetics. Queen Elizabeth
makes an appearance in the text and on the screen. This is time
traveling long before Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim.
- The Moderns (1988) This film is set in Paris in the 1920s. Roger
Ebert says it all: (This film) "takes place at that enchanted moment
in Paris when the Lost Generation created itself and then proceeded to
create, promote, fabricate and publicize modern literature, art, music
and attitudes. It tells the stories of an American painter in exile, the
woman he loved and lost, and the millionaire he lost her to. Important
roles are also played by his unscrupulous art dealer, by a busy-body
newspaperman on the English-language daily, and by Hemingway, Stein,
Alice B. Toklas and others who are called by their real names even if
the resemblance stops there."
 The Darwin
Adventure (1972) Quite good film relating the famous story. I have
not been able to find it in video stores. Link to writings.Also,
check out Inherit
The Wind (1960). This film deals with the clash between the
central thesis of Darwin's
work and its conflict with the wider, traditional religious
teachings and beliefs. This is the famous test case from Tennessee,
where Darwin's concepts were being used in a high school. A law was
passed which was backed by traditional religious interests and the
teacher was arrested and fined. The teacher defended himself and a
famous circus trial ensured. In a wider sense, this is one of many
events in the long confrontation between traditional religion and
"modern" concepts, views and values which has been going on since the
late Middle Ages. Christianity is the first of the Great Religions to
have experienced this long intellectual wrestling match. We can see
Islam dealing with it in our newspapers. The battle grounds are in Iran,
Pakistan, Afghanistan and areas of North Africa. In a wider sense, we
should understand what is happening. It has been happening to us for 500
years. Sometimes things don't happen over night.
- Freud
(1962): A very good film stars Montgomery Clift (my mother's
favorite actor) and Susannah York directed and narrated by the great
John Huston. Link to
writings and The
Interpretation of Dreams.
- Lust
For Life (1956) Vincent
Van Gogh paints in the South of France. I love this film. It
portrays Arles, France and Van Gogh's difficult friendship with Gaugin.
(some paintings
by Gaugin) some
Van Gogh paintings
- Madame Curie (1943): Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon version.
"The film is almost an hour old before Marie embarks on her discovery of
radium. The experiment to separate uranium and thorium is lit from
below, resembling the dramatic paintings of Joseph Wright of Derby.
Infinite patience was required during the four years of toil which culminated in the preparation of radium, and the
film conveys a vivid sense of the Curies' dedication. The new century
begins with the gentle glow of the isolated radium sample, a beacon
heralding the wonders of the dawning age."(comments by Michael Coy:
michael.coy@virgin.net) London, England study
guide
- Marie Curie: More than Meets the Eye (1997) study
guide
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26:
Imperialism, Alliances,
and War
|
- Khartoum
(1966) British foreign policy in Sudan during the Victorian Era.
 General George Gordon is
sent to deal with an early Islamic nationalist and patriot who seeks the
ejection of all European influence in the region. These battles along
with warfare in South Africa in the Bore Wars gave Lord Kitchener his
huge reputation in England.
- 55 Days To Peking (1963) The Boxer
Rebellion - Europeans defend their interests and embassies in China.
- The Sand Pebbles (1966): A gunboat, the U.S.S. San Pablo,
sent to China by the youngest European country (the U.S.A.) patrols the
Yangtze amid the revolutionary events of 1926. An attempt to rescue
missionaries leads to armed conflict.
- Zulu Dawn (1979): Three years after Custer met defeat in
Montana at the hands of the Dakotah and their allies, the British
suffered a similar defeat in Africa at the hands of one of the great
Armies of all time: the military forces of the Zulu nation. This film
depicts the January 22, 1879 destruction of 1,500 British troops by the
Zulu army. This film tells the story of the main battle. The
Zulu Wars
- Zulu (1964): Later that day and after the main battle
mentioned above, a small supply dump and infirmary defended by about 140
Welsh troops is attacked by part of a force of 4,000 Zulu warriors. The
small British force survives.
- 'Breaker' Morant (1980) The
Boer War. A court marshal film about Australian soldiers under
orders to execute Boer prisoners. This little war and the Russo-Japanese
War were clear warnings about what the 20th Century would witness.
- The African Queen (1951) A romantic drama set in Africa
during WWI. It is a classic. study
guide
- Gandhi (1982): The biography of a great British university
trained lawyer who grew up among the Indian workers in South Africa who
rediscovers his country and culture to becomes one of the great
political leaders of India He is the central figure who helps to lead
India out of the grip of British colonialism through the methods of
Satyagraha and passive resistance.study
guide.
- Bhowani Junction (1956) This is a darn good film directed by
George Cukor which depicts the era of British withdrawl from India. The
conversations about politics are blunt and sometimes stereotyped. The
film treats the complexities of Indian politics very nicely (for a
movie). It stars Stewart Granger (a hero and role model of my elementary
school years) and Ava Gardner. She plays a very subtle character: an
Indian who has grown up in Great Britain and has taken on British
culture as her own. She has some struggles about her cultural identity.
Compare the treatment of Passive Resistance as it is depicted here and
in Gandhi.
- Heat and Dust (1982): based on a novel by Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala about a young woman investigating the life of an ancestral aunt
who fell in love with India and then fell in love. In searching for her
relative's story she delves into her own relationship with India. This
is a fine, intelligent look at cultural distance and mystery between
English and Indian culture.
- Jewel in the Crown (1984): A breathtakingly wonderful look
into the last days of British rule in India. I still take the phone off
the hook and dig in to watch the whole thing when one of the cable
channels puts it on. It is based on the huge novel by Paul Scott
entitled "The Raj Quartet." It is eight tapes, fourteen episodes and
fifteen hours long. Trust me. Invest the time if it comes on television.
You will be pulled into the story.
- The Four Feathers (1939) Being handed a white feather in
Britain was to be called a coward. The protagonist of this film is
handed four of them. To redeem himself he goes to the Sudan and
disguises himself as a Sudanese tribesman and infiltrates the enemy
forces and manages to be present at the battle
of Omdurman in 1898. This film is a great document of the
nationalistic and patriotic sense of themselves that the British had
woven. This is the emotional and patriotic fuel that built and ran the
British Empire. See this film.
- Burn ("Quemada!") 1969: A film of 19th century political and
international intrigue in the Caribbean between the English and the
Portuguese for control of a sugar producing island. Marlon Brando plays
an operative trying to instigate a slave revolt against the Portuguese
so that the British can have an excuse to come in and pick up the
pieces. It is a international political science lecture on the
techniques of Imperialism. I like it. See it. (I am a hopeless and
helpless fan of Marlon Brando.)
- Beau Geste (1939) This great Foreign Legion film
burst on the audiences on the eve of World War II. There are many
versions of this French
Foreign Legion story on film. Stories like this and The Four
Feathers should tell you something about what kinds of models of
heroic behavior were stamped into the imaginations of the men who went
ashore on the beaches of Normandy. Compare those films to the ones you
have been raised on.
- Gunga Din (1936) A document of the way the British and the
Americans liked to see colonialism. Set in India in the 19th century and
based on the writings of Kipling. A great story and a telling
document.
- The Wind and the Lion (1975) A ripping yarn of American
foreign policy under Teddy Roosevelt against Berber tribesmen led by
Mulay Achmed Mohammed el-Raisuli the Magnificent played by Sean Connery.
Brian Keith plays an unforgettable TR. The clash is precipitated by the
kidnapping of an American by the Raisuli. The diplomatic and military
conflict will help you understand some of the salient points of Western
Imperialsim. There is a swell scene in which U.S. Marines assault the
palace in Tangier (?). It reminds us of the disproportionate ability to
focus and apply violence that the West had when compared to many other
parts of the world. I often show my students that clip along with the
scenes of Martini-Henry destruction in Zulu starring Michael
Caine. The organized intensity and mechanization of Western style
warfare was a shock and surprise to much of the rest of the world.
- Hawaii (1966) American missionaries convert Hawaii. Based on
the great James Michener novel. study
guide
- The Man Who Would Be King (1975) Two British soldiers in
"Karafistan" are mistaken for gods. They decide to stay and become
kings. This is Kipling done well by the great John Huston.
- A Passage To India (1984) E.M.Forster's clear eye examines
the most subtle aspects of British society in contact with the society
of India. See this film and you will be hooked.
- Staying On (1979) India after Gandhi. This is the
continuation of the Jewel in the Crown. This is the story of the
British who loved India so much that they chose to stay after
independence. Made for television.
- The Shooting Party (1985) A good and classy story about
British society on the eve of WWI.
- All Quiet On the
Western Front (1930) You know this book, this story and the
film. See it again. See the 1930 version.
- Wings (1927) Directed by William Wellman. silent. Received
the first Academy Award for best picture. Two pilots in WWI. Love and
war.
- The Dawn Patrol (1938) study
guide
- Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) The Russian Revolution seen
mostly from the viewpoint of the Romanoff family. Link
to the letters of Nicholas II Romanoff and his cousin Wilhelm II of
Germany.
- Paths of
Glory (1957) The madness and incompetence of WWI wrapped
up in one story of one battle in one army. Kirk Douglas is a French
officer who must throw his troops in front of German machine guns in a
hopeless attack. My first Stanley Kubrick film.
- What Price Glory? (1952) John Ford directs James Cagney.
Based on a play by the great Maxwell Anderson about a company of U.S.
soldiers in WW I. (Anderson wrote Key Largo, The Bad Seed
(screenplay), Anne of a Thousand Days, Winterset, Valley Forge,
Barefoot in Athens, Mary of Scotland, Elizabeth the Queen, among
others. He also wrote book for Kurt Weill. He graduated from the
University of North Dakota with the great class of 1911.
- Grand Illusion (1937) What can I say? This may be the
greatest film ever made. (Ebert's
Review)
- Michael Collins (1996) Ireland in 1916. study
guide
- Mandela (1987) South Africa as colonialism continues to
crumble. This is a hero of the 1960s and his story.
- The Last Emperor (1989) of China.
- Out of Africa (1985) Soft colonial setting. I find Denys
George Finch Hatton, played by Redford, to be the most facinating. His
contradictions, ironies and hypocrisies are so contemporary.
- Lawrence of
Arabia (1962) World War I against the Turks and their
allies in the Middle East. Watching this film will be good background
for understanding those strange boundaries you see on a map from Kuwait
to Jordan. This is a great film. See it. Those of you who have traveled
in Europe with me in the summer will recognize buildings in Seville
which were used and redefined as buildings in Cairo.study
guide
- The Lighthorsemen (1987) World War I in Palestine. See this
with Lawrence of Arabia.
- The Guns of August
- The
novels of Ernest Hemingway on film: The writer who
reflected and defined our consciousness after World War I. He is no less
important today. His novels are infinitely better than the films
Hollywood created from them. I hope one of you becomes the great
Hemingway scholar of the future. I am a little tired of reading about
the "Hemingway Hero," the Hemingway "Code" and "Hemingway women." If I
hear one more uninformed analysis based on misreading:of how
unsympathetic women are in his novels or how macho his men are I may
lose my lunch. Hemingway is one of the most difficult writers to read.
You have to bring a fully developed inner life or inner sympathy and ear
to his books. I think he generated an approach/mentality to life and
survival that was completely appropriate to a century filled with
colossal murder and death which include the mountains of dead created by
the mad, romantic idealism of the Left and the somewhat smaller piles of
dead harvested by the petty dictators on the Right. Death was a
constantly present fact in the 20th century. In Our Time is the
key. Today's therapeutic culture would never have rid our world of
Hitler. If we were to hit the beaches of Normandy today, the next two
waves of landing craft would have to be filled with "grief therapists."
The evidence is so clear. Compare FDR and Clinton. See what I mean?
Think about it.
- Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) A great film. It is a musical
about World War I. Directed by Richard Attenborough. There are many
cameo appearances by the greatest of the great actors. The music is
accurate and historical. As the War begins to cause disillusionment
among the troops, the words change toward anger, sadness and protest.
There is no violent death. Each soldier who dies is handed a red poppy
and excuses himself and walks off screen. It is very powerful and
affecting.
- Gallipoli
(1981) This film will break your heart. It follows the lives of
young Australian track athletes who join the army in order to fight for
the British Empire in World War I. They are sent to Egypt to join the
invasion of "the soft underbelly of Europe" after the disasters of
trench warfare in 1914. You will understand forever why Australians and
New Zealanders have dark memories of the British officers who sent them
into battle. This ill conceived, bungled and badly supported invasion
was greatly the responsibility of Winston Churchill. He felt his career
was ruined after this disaster. The ANZAC forces (20,000 troops)
suffered 8,000 casualties in 24 hours. Their enemy was one of the best
of WWI: Turkish infantry and German officers. This disaster helps
explain British reluctance to invade Europe across the English Channel a
generation later. It is directed by the great Peter Weir and stars Mel
Gibson. (Yes, I have seen all of these films. If not from the balcony of
the Empire Theater-Saturday Matinee with Patricia and Punky-in Minot,
N.D. then on the black and white Admiral television set in my parents'
home. The closest thing you can experience to television in the 1950s is
the Turner Classic Movies channel, the American Movie Classics channel,
and the Goodlife channel.) study
guide
- All The King's Men (2000) A production shown on "Masterpiece
Theater on Public Television. The subject: The male staff of
groundskeepers, grooms, footmen, batmen....everybody who worked for the
Royal Family at Sandringham goes off to do their bit for King and
Country. They are sent to Gallipoli. They are consumed in the battle.
This is a fine film about the legends people
make up and want to believe when the truth/reality is rejected as too
painful. It compares and contrasts myth and reality and examines the
moment that myth and legend are chosen as "History." This is a must for
those of you who take the role of "Historian" seriously.
- 300
Films About World War I from IMBd
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27:
Political Experiments of the
1920s
|
- Brideshead Revisited (1982) Great social history of the upper
class world of a great Catholic family before and during WWII from the
pen of Evelyn Waugh. It is about shifting values and a lost world. It
was shown on Public Television. It can be rented. I love this series.
John Mortimer adapted the novel for television.
- Upstairs,
Downstairs (1971 - 1976 - production dates may be much
earlier in Great Britain) This is excellent social history. I have
forgotten the name of the historian who said that he did not understand
the death of 19th Century British Liberalism as well as he did after
watching this titanic series. Much of the optimistic Progressive
mentality and confidence of the leadership of that generation never
recovered from the blunders it perpetrated when it led its people into
World War I. (Think about using this series as a model for explaining
American Liberalism from Kennedy through Nixon in regard to the Vietnam
War.) It is a series of snapshots of British society from the late 19th
century through the 1920s and into the 30s. You can watch the lives of
the Belgravia elite "upstairs" and their servants "downstairs" being
lived against the background of "HISTORY." In the foreground the class
system of Great Britain, which so annoys those of us who are militant
democrats, mutates and melds under the demands of the War. Hey, those of
you who traveled to Europe with me in 1996: remember the day we were all
kicked out of St. Paul's Cathedral so that Princess Margaret could be
alone to pray? Remember how annoyed we were? Remember the questions we
all asked about privilege? Many of those questions are answered by this
series. This was/is television at its best for history students. Also,
look into The Forsyte Saga and Flambards.
- Potemkin (1926): This film is a masterpiece of Socialist
Realism. It is a microcosm of the way the Communist Revolution is
supposed to work. It made a pile of money for the Soviet film industry
and became a mandatory entry on the "Best Ten Films Ever Made" list for
leftist intellectuals. I almost always show this film in class. It is a
great document. Also see "October" (1929). It was mandatory to stand in
awe of these works from 1930 to the present. Watch to see if the stature
of Eisenstein falls with the fall of the Soviet Union and the confident
world view of the revolutionary socialist left. He did things with his
camera and his editing that had never been seen before. His stuff was
very "new" and "revolutionary" in its time. To see him from inside his
camp you should read a laudatory socialist interpretation on the World Socialist
Web Site. Be intelligent. Know what you are looking at on this site.
Directors all over the world tip their hats to Potemkin and its
technical innovations. The Odessa Steps scene is one of the most famous
ever made. The danger of impressionable, non analytical, youthful minds
being won to Communism by this film is very slim these days, so I
recommend that you see it if I do not have time to show it in class.Ebert's
Review.
- Stalin (1992) starring Robert Duvall. This film should end
any romantic-radical Che type notions about "love coming from the barrel
of a gun" nonsense you may have picked up from some of my contemporaries
who were radicalized in the 1960s. Stalin is depicted as the paranoid,
scheming world class murderer that he seems to have been. In some ways,
Hitler claimed him as his mentor. study guide
The story is narrated from his daughter's point of view.
- Ninotchka
(1939): Gee but I love this film. It stars the most beautiful face to
appear in film (no, not Michelle
Pfeiffer), Greta 'I vhant to be alone' Garbo. Greta
Garbo plays a Russian Communist agent who goes to Paris to study
French industrial processes, sewage facilities, the engineering of the
Eifel Tower. She is all "business" (if one can use that term to describe
a lovely Commie trying to stay 'on task.') and resists the charms of
Paris....at least for a while. This is a Hollywood production made by
lots of ex-Germans who escaped/rejected Hitler's Germany. It is very
charming and funny. Ernst Lubitsch directed. You will want to see more
of his stuff after this.
- Rosa Luxemburg (1986) Dir. Margarethe von Trotta, With
Barbara Sukowa
- Dr. Zhivago (1965): The power of love amid the mad and
murderous idealism of the Communist Revolution. This novel by the Soviet
Citizen Boris Pasternak was smuggled out of the Soviet Union. It
received the Nobel Prize in literature. Pasternak loved Russia so much
that he refused to pick up the prize for fear they would not allow him
back into the country. What got him in so much trouble? He wrote a novel
in which the protagonist was not Politically Correct. Dr. Zhivago is a
politically neutral observer of the Communist Revolution interested in
medicine, life and love. The regime required that all the characters in
Soviet novels root for and be committed to the Revolution like Packer
fans at a viking-Packer game. See this film.
- Reds (1981): Idealist-Romantic-Radical Harvard graduate, John
Reed, becomes a traitor to his class and joins the Russian Revolution,
attends many meetings and destroys the woman who loves him. Jack
Nicholson as Eugene
O'Neill delivers lines
 that blister the
skin and peel back the scalp. This film is filled with great reasons not
to become a Communist: endless, fruitless and annoying meetings and
bureaucrats from Hell. The content of the debates will give you a good
idea of what it means to be "Politically Correct" and some of the
consequences if you are not. Yet, the film romanticizes the Left in
spite of the fact that the truth about Lenin and the Stalinist Regime
was beginning to be more widely known. It is a very good film about the
idealism, energy and enthusiasm of those supporting the idea of a world
wide workers' commune (or a workers' commune in one country). Ten Days that Shook The
World (1922) This is the book that made John Reed famous.
- Animal Farm (1955) George Orwell's version of life in the
Soviet Union.study
guide
- 1900 (1981 ): Fifty years of Italian history told through the
lives of two best friends who represent the upper and lower classes. A
star studded cast tells a great story. Bertolucci's masterpiece.
Leftists and Fascists struggle to reform the soul of Italy. A strong
film. Not for the meek. Prepare to hide your eyes from time to time. A
teacher recently got in huge trouble for showing this film in class. I
think it is great, but there are some scenes that I would certainly cut
out and censor in my own way. It is a very very mature film with a
leftist political sympathy. The Fascists are the "bad guys." You will
never forget the evil character portrayed by Donald Sutherland.
- Amarcord (1974) This is one of my ten favorite films. It is
Federico Fellini's memory of his childhood as he grows up in Fascist
Italy. Seeing him remembering his high school
teachers is reason enough to watch it.
- Chariots
of Fire (1981)
- Testimony (1988): The great Soviet composer Shostakovich
played by Ben Kingsley. It portrays his music and his politics.
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1930s
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- The Conformist (1970) The great Bertolucci again. A citizen
of Fascist Italy conforms to the expectations of the culture, the regime
and his lover. This is a beautiful and brutal film. It is a haunting
image of an individual without character. The last ten minutes are
maddening as the Fascists fall and out hero runs through the streets
conforming to the new order.
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) The story is lovely.
What you should notice is Miss Brodie's admiration for Benito Mussolini.
It will give you an introduction to how Europe was courted by the
Facists and what their appeal might have been.
- Tea With Mussolini (1999) British compatriots living in
Florence, Italy in massive denial regarding their safety as Mussolini
gears up for war. Compare to the Garden of the Finzi Continis.
This film, like Hope and Glory is told from the wondering
eyes of a young man who adores the small English community. It is the
autobiography of the director, Franco Zefferelli. John Mortimer wrote
the script.
- Up at the Villa (2000) A romantic thriller set in Mussolini's
Italy. A cloud of Fascist dread hanging over the details of a killing.
Scott Thomas, Penn, Bancroft and Jacobi. What a sweet group of actors.
- Giornata particolare, Una (1977) A Special Day. Sophia
Loren and Marcello Mastroianni star in this great, human story of two
dented people who need friendship against the backdrop of Hitler's
famous visit to Mussolini and Rome in 1938. Students who have traveled
to Rome with me should remember Statione Termini and E.U.R. Our hotel
was very near this later site. Remember the "Square Coloseum?"
- Mephisto (1981): These three films star one of my favorite
actors: Klaus Maria Brandauer. This is the story of a great actor who
wants more. Like Christopher Marlowe's or (more to the cultural point) Goethe's Faust, he
sells his soul to the Nazis in order to find success and head the
national theater. On the state he had played Mephisto to other actors.
Now he is Faust to the Nazi Mephisto. This is a clever and wonderful
film structured around my favorite literary device: irony.
- Modern Times (1936) study
guide I often show parts of this film with Metropolis
(1927) by Fritz Lang. There are such strong themes of anti
industrial populism and fear of the city that seem to feed into the
world view which fed Hitlerism. Always consult Kracauer's From
Caligari to Hitler on these themes and topics. Revisionists may
carp, but they have done nothing to supplant this classic.
- Metropolis
(1927)
- Oberst Redl (1985) I have not seen this film. It stars one of
my favorites: Klaus Maria Brandauer, who is an officer living through
the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- Hanussen (1988): The story of an ex-Austrian soldier who was
wounded in the head and is now able to read people's minds and see into
the future.
- Cabaret (1972) Bob Fosse directs Liza Minnelli and words by
Christopher Isherwood. Berlin cafe life in the heady and creative 1920s
as Hitler looms.
- The Jesse Owens Story (1984) Made for television. The great
American athlete who enjoyed a very successful 1936 Olymic Games
participation under the eyes of Hitler.
- Swing Kids (1993) Young Germans exercise a forbidden interest
in Jazz and Swing during the Hitler era. Every student who sees it loves
it.
- Europa Europa (1991) The true story of a lad who attempts to
save his life by escaping to Poland. When Hitler invades, he covers his
Jewish identity and joins the German Army during WWII as an ethnic
German who happens to be living in the East. study
guide
- The Tin Drum (1979) Danzig in the 1920s and 1930s based on
the great novel by Gunther Grass. Little Oskar grows up during the
Hitler era. Grass and Vonnegut seem to have invented the current fashion
of "magical realism" long before the Latin writers who are, at present,
being lionized for the technique. Now we are all accustomed to it and
rapidly becoming bored by it. But, when Grass concocted his visions they
were sometimes confusing and disturbing. The film made us swallow them.
The film is so disturbing in places that it has been banned in many
schools and all of Oklahoma. Like a nightmare image I still remember the
"eel fishing" scene on the Baltic shore. I will never eat eel...ever,
ever, never, never. The passive behavior to Hitler's rise is a forgotten
image in my memory. Little Oskar's drum is the central image but, I will
always remember the eels.
- The Damned (1969) "La Caduta degli dei" by Luchino Visconti.
A great German industrial family, having survived WWI and the great
depression descends into the abyss of German politics in the 1930s. The
decline of Germany is paralleled by the decline in the leadership of the
family as its more unworthy members rise, like scum. The von Essenbeck
(Krupp?) family becomes a good metaphor for what is happening to Germany
in general.
- The
Rules of the Game (1939) a masterpiece by Jean Renoir about the
relationships within and between the French upper and working class.
- Lacomb, Lucien (1974): A young French lad of 18 tries to make
sense of his goal, life and values in the midst of the collaboration. He
has not joined the Resistance and decides to work for the local police
with outcomes that you can guess. This is a serious and classy film by
Louis Malle.
- The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970): The last great film
by Vittorio De Sica. A great Jewish family cannot believe it could
happen in Italy and to them. It does. This is a fine, fine film. You
should see it as a part of your education.
- For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943) The Ernest Hemingway novel. If
you have listened in class, you know how I feel about his writing. In
spite of his rising and falling stock among college professors and New
Left and other radical critiques, he will be standing far after we are
all gone. I have heard more nonsense in my college classes and in cafe
conversations than any other writer I have loved or studied. He is the
most important writer since James and Twain. This is his story of the
Spanish Civil War. This may be the best film made of one of his books.
Hemingway did not have a lot of luck with this books in Hollywood. They
all need to be redone, never with any expectation that they will be done
better, however. study
guide
- Cinema Paradiso (1989): Thirty years of Italian social
history through the films shown in a movie theater and through a little
boy's friendship with the projectionist. Why? Because I love this film,
Italian film and Italy. I have shown this film after school from time to
time over the last ten years. Request it and it will happen.
- Triumph of the Will (1934): The great and non-fiction
documentary of the Nazi
Party's rally in 1934 in Nuremburg. It was made by one of the
greatest film makers of all time: Leni Reifenstahl. Her talents make us
wish she had done more film, but her resume says that she worked for
Hitler. There is little financial backing for the projects by
ex-supporters of the Third Reich. She has done 35mm coffee table books
on African tribesmen (The People of Kau) and underwater nature
topics. She is still alive and living among us as of 1999. See this long
banned film. Its power is still obvious and it coils and uncoils on the
screen like the involuntary muscular reactions of a dead rattlesnake. It
captures the power of pure political evil and its supporters on film for
all to remember. It is thought to be the best propaganda film ever made.
- The Great Dictator (1941) The antidote to Triumph of the
Will along with certain parts of Duck Soup by the Marx
Brothers. A Jewish barber from the Ghetto is the spitting image of
Adenoid Hynkel (Adolf Hitler) the dictator of Tomania (Germany). In a
series of circumstances the Jewish Barber takes the place of
Hynkel/Hitler. The one-upmanship between the dictator of Bacteria
(Italy), Benzino Napaloni and Hynkel are wonderful. I love this film and
often use parts of it after showing the Reifenstahl film. study
guide.
- From Here To
Eternity (1953): The American Army in Hawaii during the
summer before Pearl Harbor. A classic.
- 200 films
that mention Nazis - from IMDb
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World War II
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- Mrs. Miniver (1942) "This excellent World War II propaganda
film is about the beginning of the war and the effects of the German
bombing campaign on an otherwise happy and well adjusted upper middle
class British family" from the Study
Guide.
- Hope and Glory (1987) The view of wartime Britain from the
view of a nine year old. The old rules, restrictions, mores and morals
are changing fast and the liberation is intoxicating. The students even
dare cheer that Hitler might blow up their school.
- Shoah (1985): a huge, spellbinding nine and one half hour
documentary about the holocaust consisting of interviews with witnesses,
survivors and ex-Nazis. It is also disquieting in that many witnesses
still betray the anti-Semitism that led to the holocaust. There is some
sentiment for dropping the term "Holocaust" for the term "Shoah." What
is the difference? Why might there be an interest in this kind of
terminological prestidigitation? Those who believe that the battle for
meaning is in the words themselves and not the events, often drive these
controversies. Babi Yar, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen are all that one
needs to know. I think Hemingway had the last word on people who
manipulate passions and history with words in A Farewell to Arms.
- The
Diary of Anne Frank (1959): The famous dramatized diary
of a Jewish family hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. This is
the George Stevens version.
- Alexander Nevsky (1938): A film about the invasion of Russia
by the Teutonic Knights in the 1200s by the Communist film artist Serge
Eisenstien. The parallel to events and fears in 1938 is obvious. Even
after the fall of the Soviet Union this film is still touted as a
masterpiece of Socialist Realism. Much of it will not strike you as
realistic at all, but will seem like simple minded heroics less
sophistocated than a good John Wayne movie. You should see this film
though. It is major document of the Stalinist period on the eve of WWII
and Hitler's invasion of Russia.
- Ballad of a Soldier (1960) A Russian film. This is the
classic story of a soldier in combat told from his single point of view.
study
guide
- The Sorrow and the Pity (1971): This is a masterpiece of
documentary film making. Directed by Marcel Ophuls, it is an inquiry
into France's role and performance in World War II. It is always
riviting. It is four and a half hours long without a dull moment. It
should be part of your education to see this.
- Sunrise at Campobello (1960) FDR at his best as a man. This
is a tough year in the life of a really great President to be. I exist
because of FDR. My mother and father met because of a government
sponsored youth program during the Great Depression (NYA).
- Why We Fight: This is a series of films made between 1942 and
1945 by Frank (It's A Wonderful Life) Capra for the United States
government. The intention is explanation of WWII to the citizens of the
U.S. They are wartime propaganda films of a rather high order compared
to most. They are still interesting and should be compared to Triumph
of the Will.
- Tora!
Tora! Tora! (1970)
- Midway
(1976) The "miracle" battle in the Pacific between the navy of Japan
and the navy of the United States. study
guide.
- Seven Beauties (1976): Another film by the wonderful Lena
Wertmuller. (She is an Italian film director. Yes, I know her name looks
German.) This film is funny and strong medicine all at once. A small
town hot-shot and Don Juan protects his seven sisters. Time passes and
he is swept up in WWII, imprisoned by his German allies in a
concentration camp type prison. He does what is necessary to stay alive.
You will meet the great actor Giancarlo Giannini. You will love him.
- Patton
(1970): A stunning, Academy Award winning portrayal of the
General who the Germans believed was our best. You follow Patton from
the invasion of North Africa and Sicily to the invasion of Europe at
Normandy and the Battle of the Buldge. Patton is now a military legend
like Sherman. study
guide
- The Longest Day (1962): The
D-Day invasion of Europe at Normandy. This film is done with the
"Devil-May-Care" élan which began to disappear after the reality of
Korea began to permeate the American psyche. Vietnam destroyed that kind
of confidence in the lines delivered by actors in war films. This film
is done on a huge scale. It has a huge all star cast. Notice how
different it feels than Private Ryan. Vietnam lies between these
two pictures. We should all be happy that there is not a danger of
Hitler's proportions out there waiting for us in the historical short
run. I miss the confidence of my many uncles and their great
generation. Study
Guide
- Saving Private Ryan (1998): You know the story. D-Day and
after on a smaller scale than The Longest Day.
- The
Fighting Sullivans ( 1964) This is the REAL story behind and the
reason why they would search for and try to save Pvt. Ryan. Five
brothers join the U.S. Navy and all die on the same ship. This is a true
story.
- Das Boot (1981): A great film
about the claustrophobia, oil, dirt, and terror of operating a U-Boat
under the Atlantic. A German cast speaking German. I love this film.
Avoid the dubbed version.
- The Young Lions (1958): World War II in Europe. It is a film
made up of parallel stories of soldiers on both sides. It will draw your
attention to Brando if you have not met him before.
- Winds of War (1983): appearances by Roosevelt, Hitler, von
Ribbentrop, Eleanor Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, etc. a television mini
series which I found enjoyable. Based on the Herman Wouk novel.
- War and Remembrance (1989) mini series
- Holocaust
(1978) mini series. This series was quite good and human and
graphic. Our interest was great because we all knew it was going to be
shown on German television later. It would be the first time the
Holocaust was the subject of a major German tv program. Eichmann,
Himmler, Heydrich and the whole evil bunch are depicted on the stage of
German society. Starring a huge cast including: Moriarty, Streep,
Wanamaker, David Warner, James Woods, This film, though excellent, is
also a document of a time: Roots was another aspect of this era.
Some critics "feel" that it dilutes and understates the true horror and
evil of the event. The Holocaust
Project
- Night and Fog (1955) The
Night and Fog Decree A French documentary concerning the Holocaust Death
Camps. This film has an edge and an anger that students feel. I was
born the year that the Holocaust was planned, organized built and
perpetrated. It was a dark year: 1942. I am very uncomfortable with
journalistic expressions like "ethnic cleansing" and "extermination."
When journalists and historians take on the vocabulary of the
perpetrators something feels wrong. Think about our usage of the word
"extermination" in regard to the Holcaust. See what I mean? It was
pre-meditated murder on a gigantic scale. Read the work of Raul Hilberg.
I prefer the word "murder" for what these politicians did. And, the word
"Holocaust" should probably be reserved for this single event of World
 War II and the
determined effort of a single country and political party program to
murder every person of a specific, single, enthic, cultural and
religious people. There were an additional five million swept along by
these deadly perpetrators. I know that history is filled with examples
of murder on a grand scale. (Armenians have an especially sad story, the
Kurds, and others must be remembered.) The story of the
Holocaust perpetrated by Hitlerians and their pawns and silently
cooperative fellow countrymen contains what is evil in so much of what
coagulated out of the soup of ideas of the 19th century. It is the nexus
were Nationalism, socialism, the Dark Side of Populism, Romanticism,
idealism (American/Wilsonian Progressivism), failed international
relations, Social Darwinism (apologies to Charles), industrial process,
and racism touched to create a soup in which we all had a spoon. I am
not a fan of the idea of "Collective Guilt." This era should cause us
all to put our ideas on the witness stand and cross examine them every
day, and to wonder what possible murderous nonsense to which they could
give aid and comfort. It is why we should still read one of the two
greatest political theorists our country has produced: Reinhold Niebuhr.
He was deeply troubled by these questions. His political odyssey from
far left to a more centrist position is a good political life for you to
examine in this age of Political Ideology and Political Correctness.
Later in his life he was a Liberal who angered Liberals. I think his
politics were deeply touched by the horror of the Holocaust and it
became more important to examine the pernicious possibilities of ones
ideas than to remain ideologically pure. I admire him a lot. I still
think Niebuhr and Martin Buber are closer to the answer than Ché. The
Holocaust / Shoah is the central event of the Twentieth and our new
century. As you struggle to understand the meaning of life, this event
will always be there to challenge your reflections. It is the central
disaster of the Modern West. (The second one being the Soviet
Experiment.) These two events should keep you reflective about your
history and culture for the rest of your lives. (read The Genocide of
the Czech Jews as just one facet of this evil.) Internet
Jewish History Sourcebook / Ohlendorf
testimony / Babi Yar.
- The World At War ( ) This documentary series should be
watched by all of you. Many parts are available in rental stores.
- Cross of
Iron (1977): One of the best films about WWII I have
seen. It is told from the point of view of German Soldiers on the
Eastern Front fighting against the Red Army. It is very very violent. It
is directed by the Michelangelo of 1970s violence, Sam Peckinpah. Sgt.
Steiner leads his men, attempting to keep them safe while a shirker and
glory seeker repeatedly sends them into danger in order to win his Iron
Cross.
- Bataan
(1943)Dir. Tay Garnett. With Robert Taylor and considered one of the
great war movies.
- The Bridge on the
River Kwai (1957):This is probably a masterpiece. It is
about the ambiguities which exist even in a very clear cut war. No film
had a greater affect on me as a teenager. Ebert's
Review.
- Schindler's
List (1993): The story of a rather unattractive German
businessman who witnesses the horror of the Nazi regime and begins to
attempt to save the Jews working for him. study
guide
- Wannseekonferenz
(1984): This is the verbatim re-enactment of the meeting which
launched the Holocaust (the "Final Solution"). It was held in a home in
a suburb of Berlin. The film lasts exactly as long as the meeting:
eighty-five minutes.
- Wallenberg:
A Hero's Story (1985)
- Sink the Bismarck (1960): The great German battleship
Bismarck breaks out of the Baltic Sea and into the North Atlantic to
break the convoys supplying Great Britain. Its guns sink Britain's great
battleship H.M.S. Hood and the entire British navy seeks revenge. The
Bismarck attempts to gain refuge along the coast of German occupied
France where the planes of the Luftwaffe can give it cover. Based on the
epic sea telling by C.S.Forster.
- Is Paris Burning? (1966): In this sprawling, star-laden film,
we see the struggles of various French resistance factions to regain
control of Paris near the end of World War II. The Nazi general in
charge of Paris, Dietrich von Cholitz (Fröbe), is under orders from
Hitler himself to burn the city if he cannot control it or if the Allies
get too close. Much of the drama centers around the moral deliberations
of the general, the Swedish ambassador (Welles), and the eager but
desperate leaders of the resistance. Summary written by Carl J.
Youngdahl {zomno@casbah.acns.nwu.edu} from IMDb
- A Bridge Too Far (1977): This is General Montgomery's "Market Garden" plan to
break into Germany quickly in order to end the war in Europe quickly.
(This is the battle that is making General Patton cuss in the film
mentioned above.) A huge spearhead through Holland to the Rhine Bridges
in order to make a quick thrust into the industrial cities of Germany
and end the war quickly is the goal of this huge attack. You are let in
on the details of the planning and tactics of the Battle of Arnhem
so that you can witness the unraveling of a great effort which was
guaranteed to succeed. It shows the inertia of bureaucracy, the wild
claims of True Believers, Murphy's Law and dumb bad luck all in play in
spite of optimism and a good cause. I like this film a lot. It's tone
reminds me of The Longest Day mentioned above. You can understand
why World War II, for all its slaughter and waste makes our
grandfathers' and great grandfathers' eyes go to tears but also shine. I
always saw sadness in the eyes of my uncles, but also a pride I have not
seen since.
- Twelve O'Clock High (1949) The controversial Bomber Campaign
against Germany. study
guide
- Memphis Belle (1990) study
guide This is the film biography of the famous plane and its
crew.
- Catch 22 (1970) The Joseph Heller war novel. If you claim you
are too crazy to fly another mission because you believe the percentages
are catching up with you, then your fears are rational and you are fit
to fly.
- Slaughterhouse Five (1972) The Kurt Vonnegut novel about
aspects of WWII. Some was filmed in Richfield near Cedar Avenue and the
Crosstown. Billie Pilgrim "time travels" as a result of attempting to
cope with his WWII experience. Vonnegut had actually experienced the
bombing of Dresden by the Allies. He was a prisoner of war in Germany.
- The Thin Red Line (1998):The U.S. Army in Guadalcanal.
I am really looking forward to this non-Spielberg effort. I am as eager
to see it as Apocalypse Now. It is the close in story of the Battle of Guadalcanal.
It grew slowly into a battle of gigantic proportions in the jungles of
the Island and on the waters around. This battle had an almost mythic
presence to the kids like me growing up in the shadow of WWII. It was
not a miracle like Midway. It was a huge, determined and focused effort
that seemed to build slowly as both sides began to realize its
importance. My uncles never spoke of the glory or the luck or the
violence. They always spoke of the effort, the labor and the
determination and the dirt and sweat. I saw the film on 2-15-99. It was
as as my uncles had described the war. Their war was right in front of
them: twelve feet wide and a hundred yards deep. This film carries the
fear and the claustrophobia better even than Deer Hunter or Apocalypse
Now.
- The Bridge at Remagen (1969): Dramatic account of crossing
the Rhine by the American army.
- A
Midnight Clear (1992)
- The Battle of San Pietro (1944): This is a heartbreaking
documentary of the Italian Campaign by the great John Huston. I believe
this film was censored or blocked for a time during the war. Over one
thousand Americans died in this battle.
- Hope and Glory (1987) Directed by John Boorman...one of my
favs. Kids growing up in London during WWII. Their view is not the same
as the adults. The film is sensitive to the social changes being forced
by the war (women, discipline, class). The kids are shown enjoying the
world of bomb shelters and feeling joy when their school is blown up by
Hitler.
- Europa Europa (1991)(Hitlerjunge Salomon): Some of you
have seen this film in your German classes. Solomon Peel, a Jew,
attempts to survive WWII by joining the German Army and is admitted into
the Hitler Youth. It is based on a true story. If you have to chose
between Empire of the Sun and a film like this...see this one.
- The English Patient (1996) A complex plot. See it. War in
North Africa and Italy. A character of dubious loyalty and nationality
falls in love with a married woman. Many linking consequences ensue for
many people. Wonderful scenes of the more mundane and lethal aspects of
war. Nobody seems to feel neutral about this film.
- The
White Rose (1982)
- Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987): A Catholic boarding school in
France tries to hide a Jewish boy among its students. Louis Malle
directs.
- Casablanca
(1942): Hey, why not? I love it and the war is mentioned. It
introduces you to the complexity of politics in the North African French
colonies and, perhaps, helps you understand Operation Torch and the
politics of France in the invasion of Africa. This film is an American
classic and you should watch it just because. Ebert's
Review. study
guide.
- Mediterraneo (1991) A wonderful film about Italian solders
left to protect and hold and island.
- Fat Man & Little Boy(1989) The building of the Atomic
Bomb and its use. study
guide
- Albert Einstein: Light to the Power of 2 (1997) study
guide
- The
Brylcreem Boys(1999) The political complications of war on
display in an Irish Prisoner of War camp. Yes, Ireland tried to stay
neutral in WWII and imprisoned all soldiers from both sides. So, one
camp holds Canadians, British and Germans. It is a very nice film.
Besides, guys, you get to see Jean Butler in her first film. Trust me.
(review) This
is not only good history, it is a great "date" movie. If you like
prisoner of war films from WWII be sure to see: Stalag 17 (1957),
McKenzie Break (1970), The Great Escape (1963).These films often are
good social history and make you reconsider when you want to complain,
"Man! This school is like a prison!"
- Sahara (1943):A fine film about the war in North Africa.
Humphrey Bogart. Notice how the Italian soldier is portrayed. A U.S.
tank picks up five British soldiers in the desert war. I love this film.
- The Man in the Glass Booth ( ) The trial of Adolf
Eichmann.
- Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) A dramatization of the great
trials of the German Hitlerians after WWII. study
guide
- The Nasty Girl (1990)(DasSchreckliche Madchen): I
really love this film about a girl who writes a contest essay about her
town during the Third Reich. Carolin wants to write one of those soft
laudatory and patriotic essays but, she discovers things about the town
that the older generation do not want her to open to the light of day. Finding the whole truth becomes her
obsession.
- 700 film
titles about World War II from IMDb
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Rivalry
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- Swept Away ( 1975) A wonderful leftist political fantasy
about a Capitalist beauty oppressing a humble worker/sailor (Giancarlo
Giannini), and the role reversal and social justice that reigns when the
couple find themselves marooned together on a socialist island paradise
where men can regain the powers they have lost because of Capitalist
exploitation. The choir boys in Lord of the Flies should have had
it this good (speaking in a socio-political- sense). A film by the great
Lena Wertmuller. I often wonder what Left-Feminists think of this film.
- La Dolce Vita (1959) Set in Rome on the verge of the
prosperity of the 1960s. It has the tone and mood of The Great Gatsby
and Hollywood all in one. Roman celebrity and the birth of the
paparazzi along the Via Veneto. The lives of the people are glittering
but essentially hollow like so much of 1950s culture was judged to be by
my generation. It might be time for me to see this classic again. This
is a must-see for those of you who love film. Roger
Ebert's Review
- The
Third Man (1949) A masterpiece. Orson Wells makes the
greatest entrance in film. He gives the great speech about peace and
war: "You know what the fellow said: In Italy for 30 years under the
Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they
produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In
Switzerland they had brotherly love--they had 500 years of democracy and
peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." This film is set in
Vienna is the aftermath of World War II. It is loaded with the sinister
mistrust and evil behavior that would mark the international scene from
Yalta to the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is a fine film.
- Gentleman's Agreement (1947) Anti-Semitism in the U.S. study
guide
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1970): This is the
story of one day in the life of a prisoner in the Workers Paradise in
the Soviet Union. It is based on the book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
This film may be hard to find in video stores. You might also try to
find The First Circle (1972). Solzhenitsyn became too big to kill
and was eventually kicked out of the Soviet Union. He came to New
England where he worked on a multi volume personal history of the Gulag...a
string of labor camps that were strung like islands out into and across
Siberia. He had been in prison there and wanted to create a record of
the Soviet regime's policies toward its people and his friends in
sending them there. When the Soviet Union fell apart he went back. Time
will tell whether he is a great writer. He was certainly a witness to
one of the most degrading and murderous systems in European history. His
fame may fade as our memory of Soviet terror fades. He wrote the books
so that we would never forget.
- Radio Bikini (1987 ): An award winning documentary about the
sailors and soldiers who participated in the nuclear tests at Bikini
Atoll just after WWII. The film contains a lot of footage of the tests
and preparations for them. Some of the footage of bomb blasts has
appeared again and again like Kennedy assassination tape and has become
part of our collective consciousness.
- Exodus (1960) A dramatic account of the creation and founding
of Israel after the close of WWII. Survivors of the holocaust head to
Palestine by ship. The British, mandated to keep order and peace, are
caught in the role of attempting to stop or reverse the tides of history
and opinion and are caught in the middle. Those struggling to create a
new Jewish nation-state are the protagonists and heroes.
- Atomic Cafe (1982): A strange, funny and frightening
documentary of life in a nuclear power in the 1950s. It is made up of
clips from film and television regarding the Cold War, fallout shelters,
radiation, and "duck and cover." See the dark and funny side of the
decade of Wall and the Beaver.
- The Ugly American (1962): Marlon Brando plays his best type
of villain: a smug, confident, likable, professorial, well meaning, ivy
league, aristocrat with three names - Ambassador Harrison Carter
MacWhite. He is one of America's "Best and Brightest" who, through his
well intentioned bungling (reminding us of the recent "Don't judge us by
our actions, judge us by our intentions" bunch who were prominent in DC
at the beginning of the 1990s), brings about havoc in a Southeast Asian
country (Vietnam? ....as if I have to ask.) But, look at the date that
the film came out. None of us, except for those who did well in the Time
Magazine Current Events Test each year, knew where Vietnam was. We knew
there was a place called Indochina and that the French had had some
trouble there. Who knew that it would become one of the defining events
of our generation? And, this book, by Lederer and Burdick, was there
first and was eerily accurate in its verdict. study
guide for the book
- Dr. Strangelove or,
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb
(1963): A great satire on the Cold War and the madness of some of
the thought processes abroad in the land. As you watch this film, you
should know that Minnesota had at least one town that resisted
fluoridation of its water supply because it was seen as enforced
medication and that fluoridation just might be a Communist plot to
poison us. By the Great Kubrick.... Ebert
Article. study
guide
- One, Two, Three (1961): A love story and comedy about the
Cold War and the attempt to bring Coca-Cola to the Communists and to
West Berlin. But, at the same time, C.R. MacNamara (Jimmy Cagney) must
keep his boss's daughter from marrying a Commie. It was the first time
we all chuckled about the dark side of the Cold War.
- The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966) This
film and Dr. Strangelove began to break the clinched lips of the
"Cold War." study
guide
- The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965): Richard Burton
plays Alec, a British spy sent behind the iron curtain to pretend to be
a defector in order to mislead the dirty-rotten-Commies. In the process
he begins to see his own role and his handlers' true attitudes toward
him. He becomes thoughtful. He decides to come in out of the Cold War.
It was the first time I saw the name John Le Carré. In a strange way the
idea of Detente came out first in the spy novels and films. They were
strongly anti-Communist but always left open the possibility of
friendship between Cold warriors. Notice the ambiguity in the James Bond
films. He can kill them or love them and often works with them. These
books and films often gave a human face to the dirty-rotten-Commies that
we did not get from our Social Studies teachers.
- Philby, Burgess and Maclean (1977) shown on PBS television.
British production. Derek Jacobi is Guy
Burgess, Anthony Bate is Kim
Philby. This is a real Spy story. It rocked the West.
Cambridge University graduates gone bad. If you want to see how this
affected the U.S. mentality see the television series: I Spy, The Man
from U.N.C.L.E., all of the James Bond films, Mission
Impossible from television alone. If individuals in my generation
are often suckers for the most absurd conspiracy theories, this may be
why. We were all raised on this diet. Look at the tv series above for
the real thing. See the Anthony Blunt story below for a better version
of reality. This is the story of one of the foremost spy rings working for the
Communists and operating in Europe.
- A
Question of Attribution (1992) The denouement of the
great and attention gripping case of British spying in the 1950s
(Philby- Burgess- Mclean) as it comes to Queen Elizabeth's own art
advisor: Sir Anthony Blunt. It is a wonderful film about counter-spy
police work and the similarity between the way the mind of a police man
and an art historian works. These great spy cases will explain to you why there was
a mistrust of the British spy organizations by the C.I.A.
in the 1950s and beyond. This is real life and much more interesting
than a novel.
- The Manchurian Candidate (1962) This is an excellent document
about the paranoia induced by the Cold War. Oliver Stone grew up on this
kind of fodder and has never gotten over it. Conspiracy seen everywhere.
I found it fascinating when I was a teen -ager. Soldiers captured during
the Korean war are "Brainwashed"
and sent back with no memory of what happened to them. One is programed
for assassination. He shoots a presidential candidate. Frank Sinatra had
this film pulled from distribution after Kennedy was shot the next year.
It has only recently been re-released. (Do I believe there are
conspiracies? Of course I do, but only after considering: dumb luck,
incompetence, institutional and governmental stupidity, coincidence and
individual skill and determination. Oswald was, after all, an ex U.S.
Marine.)
- Seven Days in
May (1964) a military coup attempt in the U.S.A. Fiction. This
is a good document from the mood of a section of America in the 1960s on
the eve of the Goldwater-Johnson election.
- On The Beach (1959) The world dies in the wake of nuclear
war. One U.S. submarine survives to explore the California coast. The
cities are deserted. It is a very dark film. We worried a lot after
seeing it. It is an excellent document of the times.
- White Nights (1985) A Russian dancer defects to the West. It
is very nice. study
guide
- Eleni (1985): A reporter from America seeks to be the foreign
correspondent in Greece in order to find out why his mother was executed
thirty years earlier during the Communist uprisings and the attempts to
put them down. His mother had been executed by Commies and he wants to
know why. It has become his life obsession.
- The Year of
Living Dangerously (1982): This film was the first time I saw
Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. A love story against the huge
background of the (1963?) crackdown by President Sukarno on the
Communist power in his very complex and beautiful country. It was a huge
and bloody event of the first magnitude in the Cold War. This is a fine
film scholars. It also helps educate you as a traveler and cautions you
into not getting in over your head.
- Go Tell The Spartans 1978): This is a good film about the
Vietnam war. It points to many of the flaws in America's
conceptualization of the war at a very very early phase of that war.
Burt Lancaster.
- The Deer Hunter
(1978): I love this film so much it hurts. It reminds me of the
kind of guys with whom I grew up. Some parts are highly metaphorical.
These are the guys who are sent of to war by the graduates of Harvard
and the Yale Law School. These are the guys who are asked to fight the
wars and what happens to them. It is set in Vietnam but is larger than
that single war in its meaning. It was the first film in which I saw
Streep. It was obvious that she was special.
- Apocalypse
Now (1979): Hollywood loves to tell the story of the
victim. There are a few works of art - like Orwell's To Shoot An
Elephant - that deal with the impact of colonialism on the Power -
the Perpetrator - the Colonialist. This is what I see in this film.
Paralleling Joseph
Conrad's Marlow in his novella The
Heart of Darkness , the protagonist of the film descends into
the horror only to step back from the brink. Were he to take that one
additional step forward and into the abyss he would join Colonel Kurtz
in a war beyond the Pale. The flaw in this parallel to the novel is that
the narrator of the film does not lose his soul before our eyes as does
Marlow. Captain Willard is already halfway to the abyss when we meet
him. One might argue that all wars have this effect on the perpetrators
and participants. I don't know. I was lucky not to have been invited to
go to Vietnam. I will never know. I can just stand in silent awe of the
question. This is a great film which you should see as a part of your
education. There are at least two endings. One is a quiet disengagement
by the protagonist, and one ends with an air
strike which attempts to cauterize the jungle and the thoughts and the
nightmares it contains. Ebert's
Review. (The
Novel)
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31:
Toward a New Europe
and the
Twenty-first Century
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- The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) The 1970s were awful for
 fashions,
politics, educational curriculum; but great for film. The Germans
reawakened their brilliant film making potential in the 70s. Their
leadership in film had been crushed in the Hitler years by ideology and
a drain of talent to America and Hollywood. This film makes me think of
strength and the will to survive and rebuild....and that was done by the
women of Germany whose husbands, sons and lovers were lying dead from
Egypt to the bottom of the Atlantic to the suburbs of Moscow and
Stalingrad. That Europe has a Twenty-First Century to look forward to at
all is due to the strengths and life force within the twentieth century
women of Europe. Maria Braun reaches down to pick up the only tools she
has available to survive and grow. She becomes a metaphor for what is
left in the spirit of Germany. And you know that Germany and Europe will
rise again and build on this new energy. I think the women of Russia are
currently the motor and fuel which drives that country onward one day at
a time.
- The Plague (1992):Novel by Albert
Camus. The Plague is a metaphor for many things which isolate,
destroy, kill and devolve individuals as well as nations and cultures.
For Europe to survive the horrors of the Twentieth Century and regain a
part of its cultural and political leadership in a world which needs the
positive aspects of its art and talent and energy it will have to follow
the path of Dr. Rieux's reevaluations. I think this book and film has
something to do with these ideas.
- Fahrenheit 451 (1966) Franciois Truffaut directs. A fine
novel speaking to the anxieties in the wake of the totalitarian regimes
recently defeated and distrubing tendencies toward Totalism in the
republics and democracies which had so recently won. See this along with
1984 by George Orwell. Think about a parallel development in our
time: the loss of freedoms we have easily given up in order to fight the
Drug Wars. Wire taps, search and seizure, freedom of association and
many others have eroded so quietly that few but those with long memories
even are aware it is happening....and often under the most "liberal"
regimes. study
guide
- A
Clockwork Orange (1971) Dirks Review This film, based on the
novel by Anthony Burgess, still bothers people. It deals with some very
important issues of government power and psychological tampering with
the mind and soul through the use of drugs and classical conditioning in
order to "reform" the futuristic punk gang leader, Alex de Large. It is
a satire. The government is as frightening as the gangs. Especially as
we continue to deal with the mad behavior of our Psychology and
Psychiatric profession in the 1940s thorough 60s, when lobotomies were
treated as routine procedures and teachers sometimes still graduated
with a credit or two in Eugenics. See One Flew Over the Cuckoos
Nest based on the Ken Kesey novel, and Francis on the life of
Francis Farmer and the easy abuse of the individual by a profession out
of control with its own confidence and arrogance in the 1950s. There are
intellectual histories to be written here. Connections to the behavior
and research of some of the darkest events in Europe in mid century have
been made.
- Savior (1998): An American mercenary fights for the Serbians
in Bosnia. He has joined the Foreign Legion after his wife is killed in
Paris by Islamic Fundamentalists. It is out of yesterdays headlines and
deals with the frightening world of ethnic politics and nationalism.
- Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1984): Europe will enter the Twenty-First
Century with greater hope than it appeared to have in the middle of the
Twentieth because of books like this. Orwell brought us the
first warnings of the dead end that the mad, romantic, idealism of
Communism was in reality. The fact that we may not have to face the
successors to the Stalins, Lenins and Robespierres of the future is due
to this book and books like it. This is a darn good film version of the
book. Richard Burton and John Hurt.
- The Buddha of Suburbia [in English]
Dir. Roger Miche or
My Beautiful Launderette 1986 [in English] Dir. Stephen Frears,
With Daniel Day Lewis. Presentations of multiculturalism in modern
Britain, based on the scripts by Hanif Kureshi.
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