Historical Documentary of Civil War - Movie Review Example

The films show the war in different manners and applying different methods, and it is rather interesting to compare some of them. The aim of this paper is to compare such memorable documentaries about the Civil War as The Civil War of Ken Burns, Gettysburg Stories of Valor - CIVIL WAR MINUTESTM III by Keith Carradine and The Last Days of the Civil War. The paper will compare and contrast these films and show the importance of the documentaries for our understanding of American history and its main features, characters and events, as well as explain and evaluate how they are useful and not useful in their representation of history through television. 2. The Civil War of Ken Burns is a significant example of historical documentary.

The filmmakers showed the Civil War with photos, voices of people who lived through the war and informative narration that helped spectators to feel the sense of epoch and time. In addition to that, Ken Burns "often gives life to still photographs by slowly zooming-in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another" (Ken Burns, From Wikipedia). This effect gives spectators a good opportunity to trace the main features of the film objects and events. The film consists of nine episodes and also includes about sixteen thousand photos, images, newspaper paintings, anecdotes and insights of different historians.

It covers the period from the beginning of the war with the explanations of its causes till the end of the Civil War in 1865. Ken Burns underlined that "It was something that also became a kind of 'emotional archaeology,' trying to unearth the very heart of the American experience" (Why I decided to make The Civil War). The film photos, as well as the narration give a good notion of the Civil War events and characters - so, the film is rather useful in its representation of the Civil war and American history in general.

While watching the film, people can get a vivid understanding of real war characters and events - it is very important for those who are interested in American history. Such documentaries have in general very positive significance - they develop young people's historical knowledge and induce them to be proud of their country and their heroes, and television can play one of the main roles in this process. The Ken Burns' film The Civil War proves this statement - people have an opportunity to understand the historical process, find appropriate parallels with contemporary history events and analyze the events from the historical point of view.

Television is a great instrument for people's education (especially for youth), and such documentaries where real pictures and impressions of real people are clearly shown can promote our interest for history. Documentary films (such as Ken Burns' The Civil War) can give an evident picture of the Civil War, and from this point of view documentary films differ from historical books. In addition to that, television and media technology play growing role in our understanding of historical and as follows world problems and