Jake Teachey

US History

Works Cited

Sources, Film Research -  Glory & 12 Years a Slave

IMBD- 12 Years a Slave

Rotten Tomatoes- 12 Years a Slave

IMBD- Glory

Rotten Tomatoes- Glory

Historical Accuracy 12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave Critique

12 Years a Slave Steve Mqueen Youtube

Glory Ed Zwick Inteview

Jake Teachey

September 12, 2014

History Essay

I pledge

For years high schools across the country have been showing movies during class as a way to enhance your understanding of a topic. Many people have opposing views on movies being part of the educational curriculum. There are many reasons why I see movies as a beneficial factor to my learning experience. Movies are a easy and informative way to learn about a subject because they bring in a new point of view to the classroom, and make you understand a topic in a more relatable way rather than reading from a textbook.

            In my US History class we have watched two very famous films. These films have helped me understand about slavery in the USA. I have drawn a deeper understanding about what it was really like to be a slave back in the 1800’s. One of the movies we watched during class was 12 Years a Slave this movie was incredibly moving and heart wrenching. Having won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the Year before watching it in class I already had high expectations for the film. Needless to say this film was an incredible story. The director Steve McQueen could not of done a better job on depicting the troublesome times of slavery in the United States. One part that really struck me while watching this was Masters, and owners of the plantations. The first master that the main character Solomon was sold off to work for was portrayed as a very reasonable and caring man, but doesn’t this make him the worst out of all of them? If he was such a kind man behind closed doors to Solomon, but such a cruel man out in the open it makes him no better than any of the other slave owners if not worse because of his hypocritical qualities.

            The second movie we watched was called Glory. Although this movie also won many academy awards much like 12 Years a Slave did, it didn’t intrigue me as much. I think one thing I need to take into consideration is when both of these movies were filmed. 12 years a Slave was filmed in 2012 making it an extremely recent film meaning the production quality was much higher. One of Glory’s down falls was the fact that it was filmed almost 30 years ago making the production quality much lower. I feel as if Glory were to be filmed in more recent times the movie would be much more appealing to me. Both of the movies had relatively the same budget for film production.  Glory came weighing in at 18,000,000 and 12 years a slave coming in at 20,000,000 US dollars. So I do not think it was a matter of money that made one movie less appealing to me than the other I think it was simply the time period they were produced in.

            Besides the fact that Glory is such an older film there still was some incredible sceneces in the movie. I think this movie really helped show how much the slaves/ freed black men helped out during the civil war. This movie also shows and proves that the blacks are no different than the whites are. I think one of the main points this movie brings up is equality. The producer of this movie Ed Zwick puts in better words than I could “There was a untold side of the war that I felt needed to be shared with the American population, a side that shows equality in warfare”.

            In conclusuion I feel as if movies are actually extremely benifiaical to my learing experience. I think that I have gotten more out of watching those two movies than I could ever gotten from taking notes and listening to lectures (no offense).