DCUSH Spring 2014
Word Count: 1,004
Prompt: How has film depicted American History? American History has been viewed in many different ways because of the way that the different films project the real life events that occurred. During World War II, there had been many things going on all at once. All these movies deal with important historical events that happened during this era, whether it happened in Poland, France, or fighting the Axis Powers in wherever they happened to be. Film has affected the way that people view World War II for many decades because of the way that the different movies have represented the war. For each category that World War II had, there had been many different movies produced in the past few decades since the war and there are many that can give a way better understanding of actual war life had been or what civilian life had been, but Captain America: The First Avenger, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Inglorious Basterds all show either an accurate way or a non accurate way to view World War II. Captain America is accurate in the sense that shows how important it had been for young men to fight for their country. Yet, when it came to creating the perfect soldier, that is where the movie became pretty inaccurate because back then if you were not fit or met the special characteristics to be in the military there was nothing that they could have done about it to be allowed in there. Other details on how soldiers in general had been sent all over Europe to help the allies beat the Axis Powers and all of the dangers that they had to go through during those very difficult battles. The one big detail that doesn’t make it accurate at all is the in the real life war, there was not anyone like Captain America actually physically fighting for the United States. The other details about going fighting people like the Germans and Japanese had been accurate because both of those groups of people had been the reason to why the whole war even began. Which leads to also why the United States decided to enter into the war could be blamed on the Japanese for the attack at Pearl Harbor, on December 7th. This movie falls more with a mixture of being both pretty accurate and not so accurate to what happened in the real life events. Even though Schindler’s List did not involve a great deal of America in it, the fact that the author had been American and had been influenced by what had been going on in the world around him shows that the world problems affected or influenced the minds of great authors and directors during that time, even if they had been going through some very hard situations during that time period. In the movie there are many factors like the black and white screen that help the viewer understand and feel a stronger connection to what the people went through during World War II. The way that Schindler’s List had also been directed and all of the details that had been put into the making of the movie help viewers see the pain that many of the Jews or the people that lived during that era had to go through. Schindler’s List shows a great example of what life had been like during World War II and also how it impacted the American society, when it came to film making and the movies that had been produced because of it. In the movie, Saving Private Ryan, it shows the dangers of having to fight in the war. I think that there are some details in the movie that can show how extremely dangerous the battle zones were during the war, especially because World War II had been where there was more technology added to