US. History In Film

[bi11y-mays.livejournal.com]

I am preparing a syllabus for US. History 2111, which is a survey course covering all US history from colonization to current, for a university I am applying to teach at (a large liberal Arts college in the Southeast US), and I plan for the students to watch a film that is historically based (or at least reflects the time they are filmed in) and write a review and response to the film. Here are some movies I have personally seen, and plan to include:
Thirteen Days (2000)
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Reds (1981)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Birth of a Nation (1915)
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
All the President's Men (1976)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
The Graduate (1967)
Malcom X (1992)
1776 (1972)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Modern Times (1936)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)

I am interested in 1) hearing what everyone here thinks of my list, and 2) give me suggestions in case I missed a few and ones I might need to watch and see if they are applicable. Thanks!

For my foreign friends, what are some films of American history that appeal to you?

Comments

[paft.livejournal.com]

U: Teaching people about the uses of film to proffer propaganda, as well as an example of how the Lost Cause was exploiting New Media in its favor long before Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 Truthers, and Sandy Hook Truthers even conceptually existed. There are a great many historical contexts you could use that film for. It's actually a much better choice than Saturday Night Fever and the Graduate.

It could be, especially in the context of a film history course. But I could also imagine it being presented to a class as an accurate depiction of the founding of the Klan, of the south during reconstruction, etc.

Which it is not.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Thing is that nobody would present it that way in an academic setting. This kind of thing would require approval from the dean or department head, and neither would probably want to chance the kind of bad publicity here. I'm taking a Holocaust class that will include viewings of Jud Suss but this isn't to present it as anything other than showing what Nazi propaganda actually was.

You're right that it was inaccurate, but it's also worth noting here that the real Civil War will never make it into your average textbook, not least because adding in the blunt reality that it took a huge number of white and black Southerners to provide the Union with manpower sufficient to win the war and the degree to which the Confederacy had elements of a military dictatorship and multiple mini-civil wars would lead to a picture much more like the Lebanese Civil War than the traditional narrative. It'd be too nightmarish for US ideology to allow in terms of actual courses.