The Importance Of Written History

Written histories have been known to be more accurate than historical films. Written Histories have been dated back to roughly around 5,000 years ago. There is no doubt that written history has been a great importance to historians and often films are made to depict our history but have been often criticised for their historical inaccuracies, bias opinion and use of the dramatic effect. Written histories are the basis in which how movies occur. Films help us visualise the event although we as humans aren’t there but can have a glimpse of what happened during that event. It wasn’t until the early 20th-century historical films had been shown. The importance of written histories is enormous such as letters and diaries, written history is essentially

Written History is seen as a more reliable source to historians as it is harder to alter and can be shown through the age of the written source as well as the handwriting of the written source. Film and documentaries allow us as the viewer visualise and enables us to use our auditory senses and help us gain a better understanding of the event and can be useful when filmed and documented as closely to the event occurred whereas written sources although it may be more accurate it may be more difficult to comprehend and understand. Films such as Gladiator are an example of over dramatisation of the event and are mostly inaccurate. However Schindler’s List is an example of a film that has been carefully filmed to represent the life of Schindler during the Holocaust as accurately possible to real life, the film depicts events similar to those of real life has been told by those who have been there during that time and or experienced it. Although Schindler’s list has slight inaccuracies it can be used as a source for historians to analyse and gain a better

Films are not like written histories and do not reflect in which time they were made or depict. Films can be dramatised and or biased towards an event or subject. It is often known that films are dramatised and are biased. An example of a film that has been critiqued harshly was the film Selma that was released in late 2014. The film is a film set in the 1960s during which the civil rights movement occurred in America. The film tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr in 1965 when he led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights. They had marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in which led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 which had become one of the most significant victories of the civil rights movement. The Film has been criticised for its historical inaccuracies such as the portrayal of President Johnson as an obstructionist on civil rights. The complaint was made by Joseph A Califano Jr, who was President Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs in the 1960s. In which he had made a statement that in fact, the idea of the Selma march was President Johnson’s idea rather than Martin Luther King Junior. One of the problems with historical films is that there is a blurred line between being truthful while taking shortcuts and making the film entertaining but historically inaccurate and misleading. Historic Films can be