Gabriela Childs

September 11, 2014

USH Film Essay 

Films are a great way to learn about historical events in a fun way. They are filled with real history and if the director does it correctly will keep you interested and engaged with the film. 12 Years a Slave and Glory both are oscar winning history films based on true events. The film makers wanted to make a statement with these films and show the real story behind these two films. 

Glory is a Civil War themed movie. The director took a chance with a young actor, Matthew Broderick, and came out with an award winning film. The movie won 3 oscars, including best actor with a supporting role(Densel Washington), best cinematography, and best sound. This film also was nominated for a golden globe for best picture, and over 20 other awards. Besides being known at the award ceremonies, this film is known by many people as “the best civil war movie of all time” according to James Berardinelli on Reelviews. Berardinelli comments that Zwick was able to grab the audiences attention without losing the historical elements. Glory focuses on 5 stories instead of just 1. He has 4 other african american soldiers along with Brodericks role that are the focus of the movie. Many other critics besides Berardinelli praised the scene of the movie where Trip was whipped. Most everyone who watched this film would agree that the scene is a heart wrencher and tug on your emotions. This movie is now being shown in many high schools because of it’s historical accuracy. The historical elements that were not correct were minor according the Ashbrook website. Instead of going from the north down to the souther they went from south to north in real life. Robert Shaw, played by Broderick, was not Governor Andrews first choice in command. After going through so many people, Andrew could not find a person who would be willing to lead a black regiment so he asked Shaw. Shaw was going to decline but slept on it and decided to be apart of the regiment and lead them. In the movie, they said most of the african americans there were not freedmen but instead slaves. That is not the case. Most of the men were freedmen. Zwick wanted to show that African Americans are people to and that some white people understand that they are people just like us. Zwick’s motivation behind this movie was to show the history behind this regiment. The only criticize he got for this film was that Shaw was the only fictional character. Some of them are half true but Shaw is the only documented man. He probably did that because he wanted the POV to be Shaw’s. “I think the choice was to focus on neither blacks nor whotes but on the regiment. One of the point of views was to explore a time in which both blacks and whites found some commonality of purpose.” That was a quote from one of Zwicks interviews he had with Michelle Berry, a MIT tech student. Zwick succeeded in the way he showed the film. The total gross of this film was 26.8million which was impressive but 12 Years a Slave has got this movie beat. 

12 Years a Slave is an emotional 2 hour film of watching a mans life turn upside down because of slavery. The film has won 214 awards, including, best motion picture, best actor with supporting role, and best writing for Oscars, Won best motion picture in Golden Globes and has even gotten on MTV’s movie awards as movie of the tear and best male/female actor/actress. Along with these major awards it has been nominated for several other Oscars, Golden Globes, and 200 other awards. That is over 400 won/nominated awards and the movie well deserves it. The historical accuracy is the same as Glory’s. It was small minor details that got the best of the movie but no one would know the difference if they didn’t look up the historical accuracy of this movie or read the book. Soloman had 3 children instead of just 2, he was not sure if he was drugged or not but signs point to being drugged. The slave who was murdered in the movie was not actually murdered in real life. Robert, the name of the man, died of small pox on the ship and the plan to escape crumbled after the death. William Ford, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, was actually a nice slave owner. Ford wanted to use the slave as property but in order to do that he did not let them come to harm. In the movie though he was portrayed as a hypocrite. Soloman wrote in his journal/book that “There never was a more kind, noble, candid Christian man than William Ford.” Other minor details were that Patsey did not beg Soloman to end her life and she did not go to Mistresses Shaw’s house to speak over tea(which we did not see in the movie during class). Historyvsholly explained everything from the correct to the wrong versions depicted in the film. McQueen’s interview, broadcasted on Youtube, explained his reasoning behind the film. He wanted to get Soloman’s story out into the world and let people know what he went through in those 12 years that he was a slave. McQueen selected the lead actor very carefully saying that he had to have a certain way of holding himself. He had to have humanity and show that Soloman was able to keep his faith and continue living his life and making the best of the horrid years. 97% of the people on rottentomatoes all said practically the same thing. 12 Years a Slave held your interest and kept the intensity high. Also like Glory this film is in many people’s minds are “the best slavery film of all time.” It shows people who may not have known, that America the world we live in today was not the same place we lived in this time period. The only bad ratings this movie got was because the film was hard to watch and became a heartache to see him suffer like McQueen was able to do so easily. The opening weekend of this movie was almost 1 million dollars and it has ranked over 54million. 

Both of these films are ranked so highly in historical films that they would be great to show in class. Students need to be engaged with what they’re learning and these films can do that. Yes, they’re both hard to watch but they show the real story and the statement that they made with these films. The films are amazing and have so much history in them that they would be hard to say no to watching them in class. People around the United States are showing them in high schools now because of that history accuracy and letting people get a glimpse of what it was like to be a slave or a civil war soldier in a black regiment.