Bibliography
Burns, James, Government By the People, 2001-2002 edition (Prentice Hall). This is the Advanced Placement US Government text that is rather short and simple. It is heavily laden with terminology and is especially important in this respect in that the test is largely a measure of a students understanding of the language of government. It also, for this purposes of this unit covers concepts like the role of media in politics, political ideologies and political patterns of behavior including the idea of political socialization.
Corrigan, Timothy, The Film Experience, 2004 (Bedford/ St. Martin's). This book is written on the college level but might be a nice resource for teachers wanting to learn more about the discipline of studying film. For my unit chapter 10 on global and local perspectives that includes a discussion of History and Hollywood, the context of historical films and a discussion of film and culture seem particularly useful.
Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, Armitage, Out of Many: A History of the American People, fourth edition (Prentice Hall, 2003). Advanced Placement U.S. History textbook that can be a fairly tough read without some guidance. The real perk of the text is that it includes practice data base questions at the end of each chapter. Although the book is quite involved it proves to be an excellent reference for students of history. For this unit I simply used it as a reference for the material of the women's movement of the 1970s.
Turner, Graeme, Film as Social Practice, second edition (Routledge Press, 1988). A rather complicated book that deals with issues related to film and its various interrelated consequences in a larger cultural sense. But it also delves rather deep into some concepts that students on the high school level, unless quite advanced would have trouble understanding. Teachers, however, would be quite interested to read the chapter on film in text and context that I reference in this unit. It is not overly verbose, clearly helping instructors comprehend how a film has both a meaning unto itself and a meaning within the general culture from which it was derived.
Filmography
An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Writ. Davis Guggenheim and Albert Gore, Jr. Paramount Pictures, 2006. Part docu-drama, part lecture this film very directly tells the audience that there is a global warning problem no longer available for debate. It insists that the notion that scientists believe this phenomenon to be unknown is false and that there is a tremendous amount of evidence pointing directly to a green house effect of unfathomable proportions. Gore also paints himself as a long time crusader for this cause and interjects a number of personal stories to draw the audience to his sense of humanity. It is at the same time an indictment of those who remain unsure about the global waning trend, most pointedly the current administration.
Bowling For Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore. Writ. Michael Moore. Alliance Atlantis Communications, 2002. This film exposes various problems with the American gun ownership and begs viewers to consider whether or not violence in this country is directly attributable to our obsession with the protection of the right to bear arms. Michael Moore, in particular, focuses his animus on the National Rifle Association and its' President Charlton Heston.
Fahrenheit 9/11. Dir. Michael Moore. Writ. Michael Moore. Lions Gate Films, 2004. This film attempts to portray the Bush Administration as insincere in its motives to begin the War with Iraq after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Moore uses visual imagery and his own overdubbed editorial to make the President look like a fool in most cases, and in others, to have motives that are completely apart from what his rhetoric might otherwise indicate. It is a severely critical view of our impetus to war and unsympathetic in its presentation of Bush, his Family and his administration.
Fog of War: Eleven Lessons form the Life of Robert S. McNamara. Dir. Errol Morris. Writ. Errol Morris. Sony Pictures Classic, 2003. This documentary deals with various historical and political issues that arise from the various experiences of Robert McNamara, one time Secretary of Defense under both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. In the film McNamara and Morris explore questions about the use of the Atomic bomb, complications surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis, and our entry into and exit from the Vietnam War. It is reconsideration, if you will, as former Secretary McNamara looks back at his life and tries to give Americans some sense of the wrong and right in war. Indeed, his testimony reveals how thick sometimes the fog of war can be, thus clouding our vision of the true nature of its existence,
Comments: