Historical films can be valuable points of entry for students who are more likely to be interested in watching a two-hour dramatic presentation rather than reading a historical text.  Today’s students are raised in a visual culture and popular films can help introduce them to historical topics that they might otherwise not be inclined to study.  Historical documentaries aimed at a general audience serve a similar introductory purpose.  As one student remarked to me, “I’d never read about the Civil War, but I really enjoyed watching Ken Burns’s documentary.”

That said, it is important to emphasize to students that they should be skeptical viewers of any one presentation of a historical event.  Applying their skills as historians, they should question whether the portrayal in a film is accurate and reflects multiple sides of the story.  Understanding that different people might bring different perspectives to their understanding of historical events is crucial in judging the authenticity of any historical or biographical film.  This is even more complicated when the film has been created for a popular audience.  Students should be asked to imagine counternarratives to the one being presented in any film and to employ historical research to either validate or question a film’s conclusions.

I would be inclined to use documentaries over commercial films for students, even though both may have a particular slant that colors their presentation of the historical facts.  Film records made at the time of the actual events—if available—would be most valuable to use.  Still students would be encouraged to examine the films as just one document among many sources that can be interpreted to give a full historical account.

Having students create their own digital stories can be quite valuable in both illuminating the power of short documentaries to explore historical questions but also the limitations imposed by the visual medium.  If they are asked to encapsulate a historical or biographical story within a brief documentary, students will quickly realize that they have to make informed choices about the images, sounds, and visual documents that they include in their productions.  Key questions to consider would be:

• Whose story are you trying to tell?
• How can you present this story in a nuanced way?
• What counternarratives should be included and why?
• What are the limitations of visual storytelling and how might you overcome them?