hist475

To be honest I took this class because I needed it to graduate, I was not excited about writing down and memorizing a bunch of random names. But I can already see this class is not going to be the typical history class. We watched the movie, The Mission last class period. I loved the movie but was absolutely terrified about doing a blog due to my computer skills and I have never did one, then I read the article.

James Saegar criticizes how Hollywood changes history. Saegar discusses how the movie portrays the Guaranis taking Christianity in very quickly when historically the Guaranis took a very long time to accept Christianity. To defend the movie, they cannot make the movie last 7 hours to portray the amount of time it took the Guarani to accept Christianity. I think they did well showing the murder of the first priest and then the acceptance to show there was a time the Guarani were against the Jesuits. Another complaint of Saegar was this killing of the priest at the falls portrayed the Guarani as killing Christians was in their nature. I disagree, ironically this killing got the point across to me that there was a time where the Guarani were against the Jesuits. The filmmakers instilled the point in my head in three minutes, so what if they were portrayed as quite harsh or they did not have a banner come up that said “thirty years later” after the falls death, they sparked my interest, and entangled historical facts.

Another issue Seagar claims is that the movie was geographically wrong. Not to be blunt but, I do not care if the movie was filmed at the exact location of where it actually took place. The scenery would not have even looked the same as it did back then, so even if they would have filmed the movie there Seagar would have proclaimed the scene was not the same as it was in the time the movie was portraying. Filmmakers trying to tell a story about history have major obstacles and will always have critics. The geography the film used did a very good job of giving me history. I will never forget the movie and the images, when if I had to write down in class San Migeul, San Carlos and so on I would probably memorize them for an exam and forget them the next week but the movie engraved in me. Through the film I will actually take so much more away than  I would in the normal classroom setting.

Films make you retain the information and sparks your interest for many reasons. The biggest one I believe is because of the emotional tugs. Emotion played a big deal in the movie The Mission, at the end I was having an emotional breakdown and had to glance around and make sure no one was watching. By getting to know the characters and seeing their pain and death it captivates one so much more than writ ting down so and so died in 1750. Movies are so much more entertaining. Even though the facts may not all be perfectly presented it sparks one’s interest, I wanted to go and google and see what happened to the Guaranis, making us interested in what we are learning should be a big goal in the educational system and movies do that. Another goal should be that we retain the information we learn, movies do this as well, I believe learning through film should be introduced in more classes.