Film Essay
Reading is a
passive measure of learning. Information can be picked up and received from the
text, however the impression it creates is not necessarily powerful. However to
watch, the viewer is able to literally See what is happening. It forces the
viewer to engage and interact with emotions, forming passionate ideas and
thoughts about characters or ideals expressed. Therefore watching movies allow
the viewer to empathize with the characters and history generating personal
thoughts and opinions on the subject that reading alone can’t provide.
When
books attempt to capture ideas of characters, the expression of these ideas
becomes ambiguous. Differentiating between who says or thinks something becomes
a difficult task dropping interest levels. However, through the use of film, viewers
are able to attach ideas to faces and imprint this knowledge in the mind. This
is because watching is an active mode of learning. The viewer is forced to
engage with the screen. There is some limitation on which movies are appropriate.
When selecting a film, one must juxtapose power and accuracy. If the movie is
bland, then the viewer looses the required engagement, but if the movie isn’t
accurate or true, then there is no purpose to watch it. Glory perfectly
encompasses this balance of power and accuracy. The viewer is introduced to an
interesting character, Robert Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick) on his quest
to lead the 54th regiment of Massachusetts. This was a landmark
event, because this was one of the first all black regimes in the Civil War. To
add emotion to the film, the director chose to portray some events in a
fictional manor. To paraphrase The Civil War Memory, a large portion of men in Shaw’s regime were
free men, not the runaway slaves that the movie depicts. I believe that Ed
Zwick choose to make this decision to further the notion that Shaw was unable
to empathize with these men in the beginning of the film. To portray these men
as runaway slaves gives Shaw unfamiliar territory because the African American
men he was friends with were rich free men. Other discrepancies with the film
and the historical accounts were minor, like the direction the men attacked
from. All of these examples are proof that movies aren’t just made for
entertainment of the viewer, but for the education and realization of history
in an honest scope.
To
paraphrase Ed Zwick (the director of Glory)
The strength of the film is clear because it was able to withstand the most
crucial force that acts upon movies, time. This alone is proof that when the
time and effort is put in backed up by research, directors are able to capture
the truth and display it in a meaningful manor teaching in an interactive and
progressive way.
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