Social Education 69(4), pp. 189-192 © 2005 National Council for the Social Studies Reel to Real: Teaching the Twentieth Century with Classic Hollywood Films Karl A. Matz and Lori L. Pingatore Making students’ learning cal artifacts, virtually primary source docu- works to support all three. At work, Bow experiences as direct and real as possible ments, that are very easy to obtain and yet has caught the eye of a wealthy young man, has always been challenging for educators. are too rarely used. Here, we hope to give a friend of the store owner’s son. In this Ancient wars and forgotten statesmen teachers a sense of which films are most brief beginning to a feature length film, often hold little excitement for students. appropriate and to provide a workable viewers see three important locations as Innovative teachers often use artifacts and method for guiding students to critically they were in the late 1920s. We see the primary source documents to transform a examine these historical artifacts. downtown department store, so different vicarious learning experience to a much from the suburban malls we know today. more direct one. Lee Ann Potter observes Celluloid Anthropology We see the humble apartment, the decora- that primary source documents “allow us, Students can study films in a manner simi- tions, and the absence of technology. And, quite literally, to touch and connect with lar to the way an anthropologist studies a finally, we see the restaurant. the past.”1 culture. If we were to study the culture of While watching this film, as any Films, like artifacts and photographs, a community in the Brazilian rainforest, other movie of a different era, viewers can also bring students closer to the people we would observe social rules, modes of can observe manners and behaviors, note and events that they are studying. Teachers dress, the role of religion, the structure of what things are important to the characters have long used film to make social studies the family, and other established social in the film, observe the various topics seem more real, first as 16mm mov- and cultural codes, procedures, or modes of ies from state and university libraries, and traditions. Classic films can be vir- more recently as videotapes and DVDs tual windows into the past, allowing from instructional media suppliers. Many students to observe how the average are invaluable, particularly for units, for American lived decades ago. example, on colonization or the Civil War. In the late 1920s, actress Clara But Hollywood feature films can also serve Bow, who popularized the 1920s as a type of primary source or artifact in the flapper style, starred in a film enti- social studies class. tled It. The film catapulted Bow Beginning in the late 1800s, as the to fame and had a defining effect motion picture industry evolved, films on her generation. In the film, as have served as a primary source of enter- “The It Girl,” Bow plays a “lowly” tainment. Prior to the invention of the tele- salesclerk in a large department vision, from the early 1900s to well into store. She shares an apartment the 1960s moviegoers relied on films not with a friend and co-worker only for entertainment but for news and who has recently given birth information as well. During the first half out of wedlock; since the new of the twentieth century, filmmakers shot mother is ill, Bow’s character thousands of hours of newsreels docu- menting the people, places, and culture of their time. These old moving images, both Actress Clara Bow is pictured in New York City in the early fiction and documentary, provide histori- 1930s. M a y / J u n e 2 0 0 5 AP Photo 189 Examples of classic Hollywood films useful for studying different periods can download this eight-minute film from Learn more about each of these movies at the Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com the internet at the Internet Movie Archive, www.archive.org/movies/movies.php. This 1910-1919 1950-1959 film archive has numerous newsreels, Caught in a Cabaret (1914) - The Wild One (1953) - Marlon Brando instructional films, and feature films that Charlie Chaplin, Mable Normand On the Waterfront (1954) - Marlon Brando are part of the public domain; these can be Mabel’s Married Life (1914) - The Trouble With Harry (1955) - downloaded and transferred to a DVD or Charlie Chaplin, Mable Normand Alfred Hitchcock viewed right from a computer. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - James Dean The sidebar offers a list of Hollywood 1919-1929 Marty (1955) - Ernest Borgnine films, organized by decade, which can be Safety Last (1923) - Harold Lloyd used for this kind of history study. Many The Showoff (1926) - Louise Brooks 1960-1969 classic films are available in local video It (1927) - Clara Bow Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) - stores, or may be recorded from one of the Sunrise (1927) - Janet Gaynor Audrey Hepburn excellent classic film channels on television. A Patch of Blue (1965) - Sidney Poitier Turner Classic Movies shows award-win- 1930-1939 The Graduate (1967) - Dustin Hoffman ning classics from the 1930s to the 1980s The Dentist (1932) - WC Fields Easy Rider (1969) - Peter Fonda and routinely shows silent films from the It Happened One Night (1934) - Clark Gable 1920s. Not all of these films are contem- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) - 1970-1979 porary with the times in which they were James Stewart Five Easy Pieces (1970) - Jack Nicholson made, and not all take place in real set- The Sunshine Boys (1975) - Walter Matthau tings, so the teacher will have to choose 1940-1949 All the President’s Men (1976) - carefully. Meet John Doe (1941) - Gary Cooper Dustin Hoffman It is not necessary to use the whole The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - Saturday Night Fever (1977) - John Travolta film; and it is often wise not to do so. This Dana Andrews is particularly true when more recent mov- Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) - 1980-1989 ies are used, since many have questionable Barbara Stanwyck The Four Seasons (1981) - Alan Alda language and depict adult subject matter. Terms of Endearment (1983) - Teachers should preview films to select a Shirley MacLaine 15- to 20-minute sequence that is particu- Mystic Pizza (1988) - Julia Roberts larly illustrative of the world in which the Say Anything (1989) - John Cusack characters live. Even a carefully selected segment of a 1985 film can be used for transportation, examine clothing, and Choosing Appropriate Films this activity; it may surprise students and take notice of contemporary speech and The films that are most effective for this even the teacher to note how much life has language. purpose are those that are actually set in changed in 20 short years. Alleman and Brophy recommend the time in which they were filmed. A film the use of timelines to help students rec- made in 1920 about people who live in Studying Classic Movies as Artifacts: ognize changes people have experienced 1920 has the potential to be much more A Lesson Framework over time.2 Films can highlight and expand accurate than a film made in 1970 about Putman and Rommel-Esham have the events we typically place on timelines. the 1920s in which the details are invented described an approach for the integration For example, we know that when women and dramatized. of oral interviewing, reading, and writing finally won the right to vote in 1920, this In addition to Hollywood mov- to study changes over time during the past new measure of equality brought with ies, newsreels and, perhaps surprisingly, century.3 Hollywood films, newsreels, and it rapid and profound changes. Simply citizenship and morality films made for documentary films from the past can serve comparing the women in a 1917 Charlie schools in the 1940s can also be useful as as the impetus for a similar study. Chaplin comedy with those in Clara Bow’s historical artifacts. One example is a short Divide the class into five equal groups. 1920s films illustrates the changes in wom- school safety film made in 1960 called The groups will be responsible for only en’s lives in that short period of time. Bicycle Today, Automobile Tomorrow. one aspect of the time and place they are The right films can provide a rich This film on bicycle safety compares rid- about to study. Each group should first and varied timeline of twentieth century ing a bicycle to driving a car. The details in decide upon a reporter who will record America, offering insight into people’s lives the film, a boy’s rolled up blue jeans, a little the members’ observations to share with and depicting the changes that they expe- girl in her pleated skirt and bobby socks, the rest of the class. All members of the rienced over any given period. the cars in the background, and the bicycle group will work individually while viewing itself, reveal the world of 1960. Teachers the film to write down as many examples Social Education 190 of their assigned aspect as they can. When or signs in store windows. Sometimes Fashion the film is done, the group members will economic norms are discussed in film • Pleated skirts with wide belts for collaborate before sharing with the rest dialogue, such as one man telling another women. of the class. Some members will notice how much he makes or how much he spent • Men wear ties everywhere. things that others did not. The goal is for on a certain item. • Not many people wear blue jeans or each group to generate as complete a list Students should be guided to look not sweatshirts.