History 478
History of U.S. International Relations
Professor Chris Endy
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Movie Activity

The assignment in brief:
You will select a movie relating to U.S. international relations, analyze it for its assumptions and ideology, draw connections between the movie and our class readings, and formulate your ideas in a 2-3 page essay (typed, double-spaced, about 300 words per page).

Rules:
-Your movie can come from any country and any time (including the present), so long as it in some way relates to U.S. international relations.  Documentaries and sophisticated video games are also ok.

-Do NOT treat your film as a simple reflection of historical reality.  Instead, examine your movie as a reflection of the concerns, biases, assumptions, and ideology of the filmmaker(s).  For instance, how does the movie represent the U.S. government, the American people, foreign governments, or foreign peoples?  Does the movie convey an explicit or implicit message to Americans (or to foreigners) about how they should behave in the wider world?  If we were to think of the movie as having a thesis statement, what would it be?  You can address other questions; these are just suggestions.

-Do NOT provide lengthy plot summary.  Instead, assume that your audience has a basic familiarity with the movie’s plot.  When you describe details from the movie, those details should help illustrate the filmmaker’s ideology, assumptions, concerns, and biases.

-Your paper should draw specific ideas and brief quotations from at least two different class readings.  (A reading refers to a whole article or book chapter, such as Alidio, Tucker, or a chapter in Hunt.).  One way to incorporate the readings is to ask if your filmmaker’s ideology and assumptions seem similar to (or radically opposed to) other historical viewpoints that we’ve studied in class.  You can be creative in how you use the readings, but your emphasis should be on finding interesting parallels and contrasts. 

-Please provide simple parenthetical page citations to our readings, just like in the midterm essay.  You do not need to provide a citation for the movie, but your essay should convey the full title and year of release for the movie.  There is no expectation that you do outside research for this project, beyond analyzing your movie.  However, if you do cite any non-HIST 478 reading, please provide a full citation and bibliography for that outside work.

Tips on developing your analysis.
-Movies as a primary source: If your movie depicts events taking place at roughly the same time as its original release (e.g. a 1955 movie describing the events in the 1950s), you will want to treat your movie as a primary source.  In this case, re-read the tips on interpreting primary sources at the end of the syllabus as you develop your analysis.

-Movies as a secondary source: If your movie depicts events from an earlier time period (e.g. a 1970s movie or a 2010 movie describing World War II), you could analyze this movie as a secondary source.  Evaluating a movie as a secondary source involves asking whether the film shows any particular bias in how it represents the past.  However, if you follow this route, you should also analyze the movie as a primary source.  That means asking how the film’s representation of the past reflected the filmmakers’ concerns about U.S. international relations at the time of the film’s creation (e.g. how did a 1970s movie about WWII reflect the filmmakers’ concerns about the Vietnam War or détente; or how does a 2010 movie about WWII reflect concerns about today’s world?)

-If your criticize a movie for factual inaccuracies, please do so with a spirit of humility and with an understanding of movie-making as a genre.  A typical two-hour movie has a script that amounts to only 10 to 20 pages of single-spaced text.  This constraint means that movie-makers, as a matter of necessity, must simplify events and even combine multiple characters into one figure.  Thus, you should not criticize a movie if it simplifies the past, when compared to a lengthier historical reading.  However, you can criticize a movie if its chosen strategy of simplification betrays a noticeable ideological bias.