by Using film as a digital history platform can be arguably controversial depending on who you ask. While film is an excellent platform to portray storytelling, certain elements in filmmaking can make historical moments relatively unrealistic. Movies such as 300, Gladiator, and Pirates of the Caribbean are movies that either reference or display aspects of historical accuracy in their movies. In filmmaking, the need to grab the audiences attention is critical in order to keep the audience engaged with the film and wanting to come back for more or a sequel. More times than not, history can be a hard genre to portray accurately if the topic doesn’t have that “it” factor, which often leads to making script edits in order to make the movie more appealing.
As an educator, my aim with film would be to provide critical thinking activities similar to how we historians would interpret history through primary and secondary sources. Each film would aim to cultivate deeper historical inquiries through a class and individual discussion about the accuracies and inaccuracies when comparing them to other historical material. However, these movies aren’t just going to focus on historical accuracy, but also how some aspects were used to capture the audience’s attention. These movies have found ways to keep the audience involved, and therefore should be taken into consideration for using some of their techniques into digital history projects. Below would be the films I would use for the class:
- Khartoum (1966)
- 12 Years a Slave (2013)
- Gladiator (2000)
- All the President’s Men (1976)
- 300 (2006)
- The Last Emperor (1987)
- Saving Private Ryan (1998)
- The Woman King (2022)
- Gettysburg (1993)
- The Last Samurai (2003)
Talking about digital storytelling makes me reflect on my project. Similar to the movies, I have focused heavily on captivating my audiences in ways to keep them engaged on the activities. By utilizing interactive and media tools that can keep the audience intrigued, the activities provided in the project will keep my audience engaged in learning about the historical topics they’ll learn about. With that in mind, I believe these tools and methods will help contribute greatly to my digital project in the same way filmmakers have kept their audience engaged with historical movies. To conclude, digital storytelling is important in order to maintain a flow that the audience can follow and avoid any disinterests they develop about a topic.
