Do you think any movies are educational?

Do you think any movies are educational?

My answer:

Yes it is can be educational and fun to watch. It is learning too also.

Hope my question is very good!

Some of them are, but only if watched with the understanding that the filmmakers have and always will take creative license and that not everything shown in a movie is accurate.

That being said, I recall watching Glory many times in my junior high and high school history classes as well as Roots, All Quiet On the Western Front and others that I can't quite recall right now. I know some school districts have shown Schindler's List as well, though my school did not.

__________________

Most of the movies I've ever seen play fast and loose with scientific facts, laws of physics and of nature, and bend and shape history, geography, and even time to their pleasure. Even when the real facts are more interesting. Some are even out-right anti-intellectual.

Glory was such a shock to most viewers simply because most people were unaware of the number of blacks who served in combat units during the Civil War. (Blacks also served in the American Revolution, including some in integrated units. A small number of blacks were always in the US Navy from its inception to beyond the Civil War simply because blacks were sailors in merchant ships in almost every country. The sea was integrated well before the US was.)

Among the lies told in that film, Frederick Douglas was not an old man as depicted when he addressed the black regiment. It's just that his portrait as an old man is better known that those from his younger years. Moreover, the black regiment recruited in the North was a rare unit. Most of the black units were formed virtually on site in the South staffed by liberated slaves in occupied parts of the former Confederacy.

Whatever educational merits some films may have, they have just as much power to misinform. My favorite example of this is Titanic, which wildly misrepresents the general behavior of the ship's passengers as being chaotic and almost completely selfish, when there are numerous accounts that suggest the exact opposite was true. The family of one of the men depicted in the film actually threatend legal action, if memory serves, because of the manner in which he was defamed.

Even films I especially enjoy, like Braveheart, take some liberties with the facts, though at last that one does so in a way that paints its protagonist in a positive light, as opposed to Titanic painting people in a negative light. I'm sure we could come up with dozens of examples.

Now, some people argue that nobody should be foolish enough to accept these films as fact, but they can be forgiven for assuming erroneously given that these films are based on historical reality, and in some cases go well out of their way to tout their accuracy, albeit usually in regards to things like costumes and set design.

I realize I'm branching off into another topic, but I'm not sure there's really a lot to say to the actual initial question. Are movies educational? Well, some are. But that goes without saying, so I'm not sure what this thread is really supposed to be asking.

I think films, in general, can be educational when you're looking for a summary of a historic event. Never classify a movie that is "based on a true story" or "based on actual events" as the definitive truth and swear by it, as such.

I always look further into a films truth after watching it, just to see how accurate the film actually was. I suggest that anyone who judges a book by its cover to do the same.

As far as film being educational to a film student, yes. Anything and everything that happens in this world is educational. You see one person do something, you either a) learn from their mistakes and avoid it or b) see that what they did is very helpful and mimic their movements.

However, to simply ask if film is educational is like asking if water is wet.

__________________
"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

I agree with Spudracer on all points.

Movies can be very educational simply by exposing us to some event in history, social issues, technical advancements etc.

Obviously films take artistic license, so you should always do your own research on subjects based on fact or actual events.

Here are some of the films I think have some educational value:

The Tuskegee Airmen (TV Movie) - Based on real group of WWII Black pilots
Crash - Makes a hell of a social statement
Black Hawk Down - Based on a real event
The Day After Tomorrow - Warns about complacency regarding Global Warming
Roswell: The UFO Cover Up - Based on an actual event in 1947
Gia (HBO) - About a top model fighting her battle with AIDS
Milk - About Harvey Milk, a political gay activist
All the President's Men - About the breaking of the Watergate story
A League of Our Own - About a women's National Baseball league during WWII

Every movie I've ever seen is educational in one way or another, even if it teaches you how NOT to make a movie. I've never demanded my films to be historically accurate. I don't watch movies to learn about historical accuracy or details, although many can teach you that (All the President's Men, for example), but I especially love older movies which show you how people dressed, talked, what cars they drove, what was popular at the time. If you watch a film, shot in 1934 and set in 1934, you can be sure that it's not going to have pop culture for any years AFTER 1934. Now, it might be slightly behind the times, but there are only a handful of films which are ahead of their times, and I'll leave it to you to decide which ones they may be. (That naughty boy Kubrick often gets mentioned about here.)

Lastly, here at MoFo, every movie is educational because whether or not rufnek has seen it, he'll tell you exactly what's right (occasionally) or wrong (helluva lot more times) with it, and he'll keep telling you too. That's educational in more than one way.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Braveheart paints plenty of people in a negative light, in order to make Mel Gibson look good. Like, Robert the Bruce. Or anyone English. Or Irish. I've seen Scottish people pretty offended by the liberties taken with their history, and having them all running around with blue paint on their faces several hundred years too late...

I LOL'ed

I like historical films not so much for the historical events, but for how people lived there day to day life, the way they dressed and specially how they fought, before i saw the patriot, i had no idea why people stood and lined up a few meters from each other and fired, it seemed ridiculous and i dint understand it until i saw it, and now i have a better understanding of 18th century warfare. Even tough most of the battles are not historically accurate.

Since the event is shrouded in mystery and cover up, I'm going to have to disagree with you for mentioning a movie based on Roswell. There's no clear cut answer in regards to what actually happened.

I know this... Because of this movie...

__________________
Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Every movie gets a message through in one way or another, as long we are open and can "read" the message it tries to get across, and all the nuances...

Haha yeah I learn so much of what NOT to do by watching horror movies

don't split up, don't go into the dark cabin, dont answer your phone unless you have caller ID, dont be black, dont be the slutty sexy one, dont have sex, always carry a loaded .45 with hollow point ammo, run awayfrom the sounds of the screams not towards them, make sure your cell is always fully charged, don't poke the dead body, Dont trust the friendly/weird/sexy stranger.

Okay, Spudracer, I respect that...
I guess we just disagree on what is historical. It is a fact that Col. Blanchard, commander of the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell Army Air Field, ordered a press release and that Major Marcel went to his grave claiming the debris was nothing of this earth. He was the intelligence officer of the most elite military unit in the world at that time, and very familiar with all types of weather balloons, which is what the Air Force later purported it to be. Was it a UFO? Who knows, but it is still a part of history and I think that makes it educational. The Kennedy assassination is still shrouded in mystery but it happened. I think controversy is, in itself, educational.

Yes, but we can prove the assassination on Kennedy actually happened. We can't prove or disprove what happened in that New Mexico field back in 1947, which makes it hard for any Roswell subject matter to be taken seriously. You can't be historically accurate with something if you don't have all the facts. Controversy is one thing, conspiracy is another.

Agreed. If you were to make a film about the possibility of alien landings, that might have some educational value. A film which takes a conspiracy theory and treats it as fact, however, isn't really educational.

Anyway, The Day After Tomorrow isn't educational by any standard, really, whatever you think of global warming.

I think it is the 'who really shot Kennedy and why' element that is the conspiracy referred to.

I've noticed that this thread has so far mostly referred to historical accuracy. However, what can mostly be learned from movies is surely about human relationships, regardless of the historical context?

Movies are not meant to be all fact - that's why they carefully use the words "based on". They will always take artistic license. I'm simply saying that if the movie exposes us to some piece of truth we didn't know anything about before, then it has served some educational purpose - you don't have to believe or agree with the premise, but learning that others do believe it is sometimes informative and may lead you to research the subject on your own. As for Roswell, you are correct, we will never know for sure what landed in that field, but we do know that SOMETHING did and it caused a real stir, one that the Air Force responded to. They do not deny that debris was recovered, they simply attempt to put to bed the idea that it was alien. As for conspiracies, I think it is educational to explore different points of view.