Film Reviews for
HIST 431
An optional assignment in HIST 431 is to review a film of
merit pertaining to the Great Plains. The
following films, one way or another, meet the definition of “films of merit” for
review in this course. Others—well, ask, and maybe we can work something out.
Please use library or commercially offered copies if available. To check out
an item from Prof. Isern’s collection, write him a Facebook message, and he will
bring it to class. (The request has to be made by message, so that we have a
coherent record of who has borrowed what.)
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Genre
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Title
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Production
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Notes
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Where?
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Feature
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Powwow Highway
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Homemade Films, 1989
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Promo blurbs call this “the first Native American road movie.”
Embedded in it are all sorts of allusions and observations about
reservation conditions in the late 20th century.
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ODIN (VHS) / TI (DVD)
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Red River
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1948
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John Wayne as the semi-deranged drover bringing a herd
up the Chisholm Trail. You have fun critiquing the historical flubs, but
this is a classic, and so don’t discount its mythic import.
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ODIN (DVD & VHS) / TI (DVD)
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Friday Night
Lights
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Universal, 2004
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High school football in West Texas—is this really the way
it is?
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ODIN (DVD) / TI (DVD)
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The Alamo
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Touchstone, 2004
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Billy Bob Thornton as an ambivalent Davy Crockett.
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ODIN (DVD & VHS) / TI (DVD)
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The Searchers
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Warner Bros., 1956
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John Ford + John Wayne, but there’s a lot more to say about
this disturbing film. It operates off the literary platform of the
captivity narrative, raising issues about race and the frontier that are
hard to handle.
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ODIN (VHS & DVD) / TI (DVD)
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The Last
Picture Show
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Columbia, 1971
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An amazing cast in Peter Bogdanovich’s
rendering of Larry McMurtry’s novel. A cinematic
classic, of course, and particularly pertinent to HIST 431 as a treatment
of the atrophy of small-town community on the plains.
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ODIN (DVD) / TI (DVD)
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Shane
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Paramount, 1952
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George Stevens’s rendering of
Jack Schaefer’s classic novel. Alan Ladd exemplifies the Western myth,
riding into a conflict between ranchers and farmers, pitching in on the
side of progress, and then riding away again.
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ODIN (DVD & VHS) / TI (DVD & VHS)
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Picnic
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Columbia, 1959
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Stifling small town in Kansas, hot sexuality suppressed
(William Holden and Kim Novak). The film will seem hokey, but it was
sensational at the time.
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TI (DVD)
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North West
Mounted Police
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1940
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(Haven’t been able to find a print)
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???
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In Cold Blood
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Columbia, 1967
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Based on Truman Capote’s “nonfiction novel” treating the
Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas. Robert Blake’s best role, as
Perry Smith, the murderer.
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ODIN (DVD & VHS) / TI (DVD)
|
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Badlands
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1973
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Set in South Dakota, 1959, based on the murderous
exploits of Charles
Starkweather and Caril
Ann Fugate.
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TI (DVD)
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Hud
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1963
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Based on Larry McMurtry’s Horseman,
Pass By, the film features Paul Newman as the wayward son of a stalwart
rancher, but Patricia O’Neal steals the show.
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ODIN (DVD)
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Sea of Grass
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1947
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Spencer Tracy stars—more description needed.
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ODIN (VHS)
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Days of Heaven
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Paramount Pictures, 1978
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Cinematography stars in this postmodern, class-conscious
lyric drama set on the Texas plains. Featuring Richard Gere
before he was big.
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TI (DVD)
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Thunderheart
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Tristar, 1992
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Quite a cast (Val Kilmer is the lead, an FBI agent) in a
modest, but well-made film. Loosely based on the tribal political situation
at Pine Ridge in the 1970s.
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TI (DVD)
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Bugles in the
Afternoon
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1952
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Custer at the Little Big Horn—more description
needed.
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ODIN (VHS)
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Made for TV
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The
Englishman’s Boy
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CBC, 2006
|
Based on the Governor General’s Award-winning novel by
Guy Vanderhaeghe, this fine feature made for the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by Minds Eye of
Regina interpolates the events associated with the Cypress Hills Massacre
with a cinematic recreation of the same by Hollywood in the 1920s. A grim
film.
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TI (DVD)
|
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Prairie Giant:
The Tommy Douglas Story
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CBC, 2005
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Biography of Tommy Douglas, who emerged from Weyburn, Saskatchewan, to install, as leader of the
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the first socialist provincial or
state government in North America and to be hailed as the father of
Medicare in Canada.
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TI (DVD)
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O Pioneers
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Hallmark Hall of Fame, 1998
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Jessica Lange is amazingly good as the heroine,
Alexandra. Overall, a rather good adaptation of Cather’s novel.
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TI (DVD)
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Willa Cather:
The Road Is All
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PBS, 2005
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Straightforward biographical treatment of the Great
Plains’ greatest novelist.
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TI (DVD)
|
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Corner Gas: Season 1
|
CVV
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Television comedy filmed in Rouleau,
Saskatchewan, fictionalized as Dog River. Check out the website.
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TI (DVD)
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Corner Gas: Season 2
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CTV
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Corner Gas: Season 3
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CTV
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Rawhide: The Complete First Season
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|
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It’s coming
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Gunsmoke: The Complete First Season
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It’s coming
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Documentary
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Northern
Lights
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1973
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The Nonpartisan League in North Dakota.
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ODIN (VHS)
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The Charisma
of Competence: The Achievement of William L. Guy
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Dakota Institute, 2010
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A laudatory political biography that argues Bill Guy was
the most significant agent in the modernization of state government in
North Dakota.
|
|
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The Plow That
Broke the Plains
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Farm Security Administration, 1936
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An artful propaganda film made for the FSA by Pare
Lorentz, presenting a powerful interpretation of the causes of the Dust
Bowl—and proposing an answer to the problem.
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ODIN (VHS) / TI
|
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The Germans
from Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie
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Prairie Public Television, 1999
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The migration of the Germans from Russia and their
distinctive culture on the North American plains.
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NDSU (VHS) / ODIN (VHS)
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Iron Spirits
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|
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The Mennonites of Manitoba
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Prairie Public Broadcasting, 1998.
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Description needed.
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NDSU (VHS)
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Born
Hutterite
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National Film Board of Canada, 1996
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Description needed.
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NDSU (VHS)
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Picture This:
The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City,
Texas
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Mino-Eye American, 1991
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Documentary about the making of The Last Picture Show in Archer City, Texas. Plenty of inside
information on relationships among those who made the film, also reactions
of local citizens.
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(DVD)
|
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Lewis and
Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery
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PBS
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A Ken Burns documentary. Check out the PBS website.
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Guidelines
for Reviews
1. Choose
a film of merit, such as one of those listed in the tables above. If
reviewing television shows, treat content equivalent to a feature-length film.
(For instance, three half-hour episodes of a TV series.)
2. Do
some background research on the film, checking online reviews and whatever
else is convenient, to prepare you to view the film thoughtfully.
3. Jot
a few notes as you view. Brief quotes, stunning images, key points.
4. Write
the review soon after from your notes and recollections, to a length of 300
words.
5. Summarize
the content, but do more than just summarize. You should point out particular
features of interest and give an evaluation of the film.
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Rubric for
Evaluation of Film Reviews
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Summary
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A good summary captures background and plot of the film.
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10
|
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Critical
Evaluation
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A critical review points out strengths and weaknesses of
the film and, most important, its value to us as students of the Great
Plains.
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6
|
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Appropriate
Length
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Target length: 250-300 words
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2
|
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Matters of
Style
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Composition, grammar, and punctuation are important to
communication.
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2
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Points Possible for Review
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20
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