"It Is as It Was": Feature Film in the History Classroom
John Paul II after previewing The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s controversial film about the last hours of Christ that was released on February 25, 2004. At least that is what was reported by Steve McEveety, Gibson’s producer. Several days later, a Vatican spokesperson denied the authenticity of the Pope’s statement, fueling the controversy already gripping the film. Maybe only the Pope’s boss knows what the Pontiff really thought, but his specific views are not what caught my attention; it was the notion behind the unsubstantiated remark. Can any film, or any historical representation, be “as it was”? The answer for most historians is no, and Gibson has come under attack for saying the film is “just the way it happened” (Lampman 2004), and for denying the creative leaps necessary to tell any historical narrative in which documentation is sketchy, as detailed in the Los Angeles Times (Shapiro 2004). Hollywood films based in history are inevitably a blend of historical record, fiction, and a filmmaker’s perspective. If films are not perfect representations of the past, then how can and should we interpret their images and messages? How might teachers talk about or show historically based films during lessons in a way that promotes students’ historical understanding? In this article, I write about more than simply using film as a pedagogical tool, which we accept as a given, and focus on exploring more deeply what it means to interpret inevitably inaccurate film portrayals in a way that promotes, rather than diminishes, historical understanding. In the following sections, I examine previous conceptions of the relevance of Hollywood film in high school, consider what recent researchers tell us about Hollywood film and students’ historical understanding, and offer specific suggestions for how to use films to promote students’ historical understanding. I use the topic of World War II as a context.