Paper detalis:
Final paper for history class analyzing American history depicted in film.
In this particular assignment I am analyzing the movie “The Help” (2011).
Assignment Guidelines
• Students will produce a detailed analysis of a film that depicts some aspect of African American history.
• Your analysis should focus on the following four topics:
1. History as it is represented in the film: What is the historical narrative presented by the film? What cinematographic devices are used to enhance the portrayal of the past? How does the shooting and editing of the film contribute to its depiction of history? Does the film use symbolism in its dramatization of the past? How, overall, is the past interpreted in the film? Does the film reflect a particular bias or point of view?
2. The History depicted in the film as it is understood by historians: How did historians interpret the past represented in the film at the time of its release? What is the dominant interpretation of the past represented in the film currently? In what ways does the film conform to, depart from, or challenge these interpretations?
3. The historical context that informed the making of the film: In what ways was the film shaped by the historical contexts—political, ideological, cultural, etc.—in which it was made? Can the film be ‘read’ as a historical document that reflects the time of its production? How?
4. The critical reception of the film at the time of its release and its subsequent influence: How did critics and audiences respond to the film? Is there any evidence that the film changed its viewers’ understandings of history? How did the film influence subsequent writers and directors? What is the current range of opinion, among film critics and historians, of the film’s significance?
• Papers should be coherent, concise, and well-organized examinations of the topics above.
• Papers should be double spaced, 11 or 12 point Times New Roman font, with standard margins, and no gaps between paragraphs. It should be no more than 10 pages in length. Be sure to proofread and edit carefully: spelling and grammar count (!). You should cite your sources using MLA
Notes from professor: I would like to clarify my use of the term ‘history’ above. Not all of the films on the list of suggested movies for this project, or the films we have viewed as a class this term, are ‘historical’ in the sense that they portray what we usually think of as the ‘historical’ past. Birth of a Nation, for example, is clearly ‘historical’ because it was made in 1915 but depicts the late 1860s. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, by contrast, was made in 1967 and depicts the times in which it was made. Yet both films are ‘historical’ in the sense that they attempt to convey some aspect of the social reality of the United States at a particular time. ‘History,’ after all, begins the moment ‘the present’ ends, which means, in effect, that everything we think or sense is already history by the time we register it as knowledge or perception. I mention this because I want you to think about even ‘contemporary’ films about ‘current’ events as historical texts. This means that if you are studying a film about the ‘present’ day, you can still analyze the way it represents ‘history’ even if that ‘history’ is very recent. In a case like this, dealing with the second topic—the history depicted in the film as it is understood by historians—can be a bit of a challenge, simply because the film might represent history that is so recent that historians have not yet had the opportunity to say much about it. It is often said, however, that the first draft of history is written by journalists. In this situation, then, you should turn to journalistic and media commentary to illuminate the history your film deals with.