Review
“This handy collection of 79 essays… should be most helpful as a reference guide for newcomers to film studies, but advanced scholars will also benefit from the historical analyses and interpretations of film texts. Highly recommended.” — Choice”Rollins’s reference allows readers to appreciate films in context, enhancing the experience. Film buffs will find the mix of history and cinematic analysis captivating, while historians will be intrigued by the book’s analysis …
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Above all else the movies have to entertain. When they make movies about historical events, sometimes the movies are able to do an adequate, truthful story about what happened. At other times the story gets so ‘Hollywooded’ that any representation to the original event is purely coincidental. Sometimes there’s a meeting point inbetween that you’d never guess.
Example: in ‘The Flying Tigers,’ there’s a love story intermixed with the fighting. A nurse that was with them was asked if there was any truth to this at all. She replied, well, I was over there, there was this very good looking pilot. Why shouldn’t there be relationships between young adults inbetween the fighting.
Another good example is the difference between the two ‘Memphis Belle’ movies. The 1944 documentary was dramatic as well as exciting. The 1990 version was so ‘Hollywood’ as to be silly.
This book breaks down American history into subject areas such as Eras, Wars, Notable People, Crime and the Mafia, Baseball, and many more. In each of these sections the book discusses the major films that apply.