Best films on 20th century American history?

Which one? There’s been a slew of them over the years. I recommended the Hampton doc because of its rather clear documentation of a police assassination, but there’s definitely something to be said for a Panther doc with a wider focus.

You know, Harlan County USA would be another great one.

Warner Brothers stuff (of the era) would give a really good feel for the Depression. There’s a lot to choose from though, Off the top of my head, I’d recommend Gold Diggers of 1933. Theoretically, an escapist film, the Depression is always very much a part of the story, even invading musical numbers such as “We’re in the Money” and “Remember my Forgotten Man.”

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Berkeley in the 60s is such a fantastic documentary. i had read a lot about that time period and the Berkeley scene before seeing it, but MAN does that really tie it all together so it makes sense.

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I’m not going to do a section on politics, but maybe there is a film about foreign policy or diplomacy, so I’ll check it out. Wag the Dog is on the list - but then do I have it as a part of foreing policy section or the mass culture/media section? Hm.

And of course, this was what I meant - Style Wars… I’ll let you know if I want to borrow it! Thanks!

The semi-recent PBS one - Vanguard of the Revolution. It’s on my netflix list and I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. But I do always mention Fred Hampton’s assassination, so maybe that would be a good one, too.

It seems like maybe this would be a good one too:

It would challenge the notion that labor movements were not part of southern history/heritage, when they very much were.

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Dealing with events around the Battle of Blair Mountain.

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I’ll second this recommendation. Great film and should be fairly accessible to a college age audience.

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I agree with you in principle, but students should not see The Crowd. They won’t realize how unprecedented it is. People should only see The Crowd after they’ve seen everything else first.

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I thought of some.

In the forground this is this the “date movie” that is the ancestor to all subsequent date movies. In the backround is a bit of verismo moviemaking that documents what traveling long distances on the road was like during the Depression. This includes such things as: tourist cabins, communal bathrooms, over-heating Model Ts, passing out due to lack of food, theft, hitchhiking, hobos traveling by boxcar, and budgeting you finances. You don’t often see those aspects of life in a Hollywood movie.

And this brings me to:

Not only is this one of W. C. Fields’ best movies, it is also a fascinating documentary of middle-class American life during the 1930s.

This movie is a musical/drama/documentary of African-American popular culture in the US between the two world wars. It first taught me about Jim Europe.

The 1930s was the most progressive decade of the 20th century, and by the late 30s black-American entertainment and intelectualism was entering mainstream-American consciousness. In some ways this movie was the high-water mark of that social progress, because after the war the tide seemed to go back out again for a decade or so.

But let’s not completely fool ourselves, there is another side to this movie’s production. It got made by a pragmatic white studio that primarily wanted to encourage patriotism in the black population so they would help in the war effort. MGM was Hollywood’s least progressive studio.

Intersting aspects of American culture to consider. And it’s loaded with great music.

There are still echos of Breakfast at Tiffany’s style on the streets. Still the odd creativity of Andy Warhol’s factory can be found. But this is the movie that launched a thousand gritty NY dramas of the bleak 1970s.

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EDIT: Not just a dry documentary about a dead bureaucrat who smoked a pipe. The narration was written by the screenwriters of Blade Runner, Unforgiven, and Twelve Monkeys and read by the voice actor who played the machine in Colossus: The Forbin Project. Freeman Dyson (the Dyson Sphere guy) explains the story of Faust as part of his interview.

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I’d recommend The fog of war

To get a picture of what a lot of those foreign policy decisions looked like from the inside. He’s not exactly an unbiased source, of course, but who is?

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For a chilling expression of the Cold War zeitgeist, how about Fail Safe?

For all you young folks, yes, we really did think we could die in a nuclear holocaust at any time.

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“Twentieth-century American history” + “John Goodman” makes me think of

There are two versions — one is a documentary and the other is a dramatization.

EDIT: The documentary is on YouTube

I liked how the Panthers’ white lawyer (Skip Andrews) was just as militant as they were — he called the cops “pigs” and “enemies of the people” in a public speech.

Midnight Cowboy is about the only film anybody’s heard of where the protagonists are homeless people. It was pretty realistic when it was made, though I doubt it’s that easy to squat a condemned building in Manhattan anymore.

Oh, that reminds me

released in 2000 but it’s about the 1990s

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Here’s one that might be interesting to compare to current events.

A nuclear standoff in the Actic Ocean. Richard Widmark is excellent as a captain determined to out-fox a Soviet submarine by acting single-minded, heartless and crazy while pursuiting it.

Even though the ending can be predicted from far away, it’s still quite upsetting when it finally arrives.

It’s also interesting to note that this is the one time you will see Wally Cox playing a realistic role. And it’s not just any role. He is playing what is perhaps the first techno-geek in cinema history.

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Perhaps one could go with the sequel:

Actually, I had no idea this was a sequel to The Crowd until I just now looked it up on Wikipedia. I’d recommend this as a great example of people working collectively together during the Depression and as a demonstration that communes were not invented in the '60s.

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Well, maybe, but I felt Errol Morris was too soft on McNamara.

I would compare it to Morris’ film Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., about a Holocaust denier. Morris’ first version of this film simply presented Leuchter’s beliefs with (little or) no comment. Morris felt that Leuchter’s beliefs were obviously wrong and didn’t need to be countered. However, when he screened this early draft for a film class, he found that many of the students were either convinced by Leuchter or came to the conclusion that Morris also endorsed Holocaust denial. Therefore, Morris created a new version of the film which included testimony from experts pointing out the flaws and errors in Leuchter’s statements.

Fog of War very much needed more of this.

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Adam Curtis generally focuses on the U.S. just because he focuses on power. My suggestions of his work:

  • Pandora’s Box 4, Goodbye Mrs. Ant (1992)
  • Pandora’s Box 6, A is for Atom (the whole series is fantastic)
  • The Way of All Flesh (1997) (about Henrietta Lacks’ cell samples and the way scientists were 18 months away from curing cancer for 20 years or so)
  • The Century of the Self (2002)
  • A Short and Unfair History of the Rise and Fall of TV Journalism (2007)
  • The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom (2007)
  • Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe S02E04 Richard Nixon and Moral Panics (2010)
  • All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
  • Bitter Lake (2015)
  • Hypernormalisation (2016)

If you can’t get it through BBC iPlayer or whatever, PM.

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Not a movie, but documentary in audio, I suppose; playing John Sinclair’s fiery sermonette to open the MC5’s live debut album Kick Out The Jams might buffer that thought nicely, and would only take a few seconds of classtime. The first point in the White Panthers’ ten point program was full acceptance of the Black Panthers’ Ten Point Program.

I forgot I’d seen this, but it came on late-night TV last night, and as I re-watched it, it dawned on me that it might be something good for your class.

Pro:

  • Two American social movements (the “family values” wealthy, politically-connected society and rock-n-roll) shown in contrast and conflict.
  • Mass culture is the entire framework, it’s about the record industry and its artists.
  • In terms of digestability/getting the kids on-board, it’s a VH1 production; a fast-paced, easy to understand, and entertaining way to show a protracted political lobbying campaign and senate hearing
  • Dee Snider plays himself and relishes creating the caricature of himself that was the public perception until he reprises his actual testimony, revealing himself to be a sharp, savvy dude.
  • Griffin Dunne is Zappa, the “bad cop,” who sticks it right to Tipper
  • the actor’s portrayal of John Denver is the “good cop” that the senators all like, who makes them understand “gee whiz, guys, isn’t censorship for Nazis?” (fucking DUH.) It’s all structured pretty well.
  • Mariel Hemingway in a rare 00s appearance as Tipper, having fun and out-acting everyone without even trying.

Con:

  • It IS politics. No foreign policy. Just US political process from lobbying to a full Senate hearing.
  • the VH1 thing cuts both ways. it’s a made for TV movie about politics produced by an off-brand MTV. It thankfully keeps it light, but there’s not much choice, either. Heavy drama this ain’t.
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This is probably a weird choice but I was genuinely impressed by Letters from Iwo Jima / Flags of Our Fathers.

Given that both movies are directed by Clint Eastwood, I was expecting them to be quite straightforward “war is hell, but it’s just so dang noble” schlock but both movies are remarkably even-handed and you end up just feeling sorry for everyone involved. Sure, there’s an examination of the sense of honour and duty on both sides but the overwhelming feeling the viewer is left with is how horribly misguided and easily manipulated by propaganda that feeling is.

I’d watch the Japanese film first because it’s slightly smarter (in my opinion) and gives context to what is actually going on in the “victories” shown in the American film, especially the background sound effects.

I watched them back to back and felt pretty horrendous for a good few days afterwards though, so you have been warned…

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And I believe the prequel to “the Crowd” is:

The story of Jim Apperson.

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Not officially, but that’s essentially how Vidor promoted his idea for The Crowd to the studio heads. “Isn’t life like a war?” or some such.

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Hi all! thanks for the many suggestions. I’ve gotten lots of them down on a list I’m compiling. I’ll let you lot know what I do show this summer (if I go this route!).

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