Mr. Shumski
US History II
11 March 2015
Can Movies Teach History? Over the course of history it was taught through textbooks and actual footage of what occurred, but now in this time period movies have been made to recreate the footage in modern times. Debates over the years has been is history actually being portrayed accurately and if it gives accurate knowledge of the event. Producers of television series and movies of this generation have become the most powerful historians. Movies expose the viewer to possibly see what history was truly resembling, or it can even give a singularity of knowledge. Hollywood created many motion pictures about previous events, but added in things that was not a part in the true event. During 1989 in the New York Times, it was discussed if movies can accurately grasp the understanding of history. Richard Bernstein researched Mississippi Burning stating it showed violence with realistic detail, but it transformed one of the key events of the recent American experience of the civil workers. During The Final Days it was a highly imaginative reconstruction of the end of Richard Nixon’s final presidency, yet the television series showed accurate knowledge on the tense issue of history (Bernstein). The fictional fable of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas created a motion picture of a representation of the time period of the Holocaust. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas accurately represents the Holocaust and what occurred to all the Jewish Orthodox, yet inaccurately represents history with the impossible actions with the overall plot. During the Holocaust between 1933 through 1945 carbon monoxide was originally used in gas chamber until pellets were developed. During this time period of the eleven million people executed during the Holocaust, six million were Polish citizens. Three million were Polish Jews and the other three million were Polish Christians. Most of the remaining victims were from other countries including