Need help selecting film about war for 9/10th grade HS students

[shooter58]

My vote goes to "We Were Soldiers" based on Col. Moore's book about his own Vietnam experiences. A true story well played. Most realistic thing I've seen about Vietnam, and I was there, I know.

 

[Pevey]

1. Gettysburg
2. Zulu
3. We Were Soldiers.
4. Battleground- No one had metioned it yet. An up close look at the battle of the bulge from the riflemans point of view. Unfortunately the only hispanic in the movie, Ricardo Montalban, gets killed off midway through but he has a very likeable role. I think its good to show your students that hispanics fought and died defending this country. Rodriguez was an LA kid that had never seen snow, loved baseball and was best friends with an older man in the squad. It's one of my favorites.

 

[RnR]

Swing Kids perhaps...

 

[camonympho]

band of brothers..altho long is awesome..windtalkers is another great one.. and the great raid really gets to human nature.. personally with what you have stated about the backgroundof the kids.. id see windtalkers or the great raid as best choices.. windtalkers based on the navajo's part in ww2 and the great raid being a band of coldiers that were basically outcasts and dirt farmers that werent expected to achieve much.

 

[camonympho]

after bringing this thread up to my son (who is 15 and in 9th grade).. he suggests windtalkers, black hawk down, or saving private ryan. his comment on showing just one section of band of brothers is the fact that kids would not have the chance to get to know the characters of the band of brothers series. He probably can speak better than me on what would get attention.

 

[Roswell 1847]

4. Battleground- No one had metioned it yet. An up close look at the battle of the bulge from the riflemans point of view. Unfortunately the only hispanic in the movie, Ricardo Montalban, gets killed off midway through but he has a very likeable role. I think its good to show your students that hispanics fought and died defending this country. Rodriguez was an LA kid that had never seen snow, loved baseball and was best friends with an older man in the squad. It's one of my favorites.

Great movie with some memorable scenes.
When Richardo is left behind hidden under the overturned jeep.
When one guy breaks his false teeth so he gets sent to the rear till new teeth are made. This sort of little known detail is important in showing how rules were rules.
And perhaps the best.
All the guys lounging around till they hear a mauser safety click, then they all turn as one and let loose a fire storm of .30/06 that all but wipes out the German patrol that had come within seconds of massacring them.

 

[robmkivseries70]

Hi All,
This has been a great thread with many good movies listed. I'd thought about this too and would suggest "The Patriot" as it begins with the early history of America and could lead to many discussions of why we became to country everybody wants to come to.
Best,
Rob

 

[Anonymous Coward]

"Gunner Palace?"

Either that or "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame."

 

[Hardware]

You mention you will be covering the holocaust. I saw a pretty powerful documentary when I was in high school called Night and Fog. Had to get a permission slip signed for graphic content. No punches pulled on this one and I cannot recommend it enough as material about what happens when a government slips into madness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_and_Fog_(film)

 

[xd9fan]

V for Vendetta

 

[bogie]

I don't like Windtalkers all that much... Of course, that could be my reaction to all the gasoline that was clustered around the grenade and mortar explosions... Someone needed to slap Woo around for that one...

How much can you get them to read?

 

[greenflash107]

I love war movies. Band of Brothers would be my pick

 

[bwavec]

If you are going to show Blackhawk Down, it might be even better to find the version with the audio commentary track by the four TF Ranger vets.

It gives you a lot of insight into what happened, the background and some of the other concerns as well as some true life stories that relate to what you are seeing in the film. These guys do a great job of explaining why Shughart and Gordon do what they do at the Durant crash site. And they talk very openly and very plainly about comrades that are killed and how they really died, and what it was like to be in that situation.

 

[ExSoldier]

I teach social studies in an inner city high school. I have taught 9th gr world history but I hate the little monsters so much they were afraid I'd start offering fresh student blood to the Red Cross for donations that my school principal now gives me all seniors and has for many years. Depending on whether or not you'll get into trouble for being very graphic I'd say BlackHawk Down for the kind of low intensity conflict we face today. I also like (for WWII) Patton for the grandeur of scale or Saving Private Ryan or for something tamer try Memphis Belle. My school is deep in the inner city so I wind up showing Glory or the Tuskeegee Airmen (sp?) or films with similar ethnic themes. I also liked The Devil's Brigade (not all that realistic in some parts but still fun) Stay away from the modern crap like Jarhead or Three Kings. I'd sooner show Forrest Gump. Band of Brothers is EXCELLENT but in the time it takes to show you can cover half a text book. If you're like me, you simply don't have the time to show a miniseries.

 

[ExSoldier]

I teach high school & while I love "We Were Soldiers" I can pretty well tell you that ANYTHING rated "R" for either nudity, sex or violence is going to be radioactive to one's career, especially concerning 9th graders! I can get away with showing it to seniors IF I send a note home first. But a lot of parents who are devout Christians (more in the inner city than you'd think) will scream bloody murder and trust me, the scapegoat ain't sittin' on the School Board! Just look in the mirror when thinking about going outside district guidelines on movies. ALL school districts have such "guidelines."

 

[cbsbyte]

The problem here is that most Hollywood war movies are absolute garbage. There are only a handful of American war films that show anywhere near accurate portrayals of soldiers in a conflict. Most older, pre-1970s) American war films are too patriotically pro war and inaccurate of the portrayal of soldiers. While newer movies tend to be highly political in their portrayal of a war. The newer movies are technically more accurate in regards to the actual equipment used, uniforms, and time period over older films but are too big budget for my tastes. While there is nothing wrong about showing the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, and having a strong anti-war message. It seems now most movies like to beat one over the head with the message. There is no middle ground. I would suggest some very good foreign films which seem to be better balanced between have a strong anti-war messages but at the same time accurately show the conditions of soldiers in war.

Das Boot
Stalingrad (German movie)
Talvisota (Finnish Movie)
Downfall
Breaker Morant
Band of Brothers
Come and See
The Bridge
Battle of Britian
Letters from Iwo Jima.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Jarhead is just too much of a movie. I would go with Blackhawk Down. If I were showing some high school kids about war, I wouldn't pick wars from 60-200 years ago as my first choice. BHD shows war as it is now. I can't imagine any high school student in 2007 finding All Quiet on the Western Front at all entertaining. Band of Brothers is outstanding, but again, WWII was a long time ago. I think that they would view it as just a movie about a past that has nothing to do to them. A movie like BHD on the other hand applies to them a great deal, as that is exactly the kind of war that is going on right now.

 

[lysander]

IMHO Jarhead does an excellent job of showing how the downtime can get handled by a bunch of young, testosterone filled grunts.

There have been several mentions of Breaker Morant which is a fantastic movie. Breaker does a great job of raising questions about the morality of war.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned by anyone else, or if anyone else had this experience, but when I completed Basic in the Army we had a weekly movie session. Each movie was shown on Sunday during "commander's time" in the afternoon. It was part of the "Army Values" program and each week, the film selected was supposed to highlight a particular value.

Films would be viewed by the entire company, then we would break off into platoons to discuss the film. I can't remember which film went with which value, nor can I remember the order, nor can I remember all of them, but I do know we watched the following:

Saving Private Ryan
The Longest Day
Breaker Morant (just parts of the movie)
To Hell and Back (our DS made us watch this one in the platoon area as it was his favorite)

 

[distortion9]

Thank you for all the posts.
My goal for the movie is to reward them for having finished a long workshop (chapter) about a topic that they dont understand or comprehend fully. None of the kids have ever been to NY and although they are exposed to violence frequently (we get about 4 kids killed a year out of 4650) they don't understand what war is. Hell, I don't myself, except for the little I went through and the drunken admissions of my friends back from the sandbox.

The time limit is 90 minutes. We have a 2 hr class because it is intervention. Their english is good enough but their attention spans are abysmal esp when it comes to black and white film. so all quiet on the western front is out.

so far it looks like band of brothers "We Stand Alone Together : The Men of Easy Company" and Saving Private Ryan first 20 minutes.

I don't want to show a movie just to entertain, but I am not a history teacher and don't want to get into history too much either (not because I dont know it, but rather because I dont want to wander off subject - we are focusing on the emotional and expressive aspects of post war writing, not battle strategy or whether the mosin was better than the mauser, for instance).

the ken burns documentary looks very interesting but way too expensive. ill try to get the school to fund one for next year. and dear america also looks very good but also expensive as well.

aside from my academic goal of reinforcing instruction, my secondary goal is this: to impress upon this generation that often seems so foreign to majority america the value of their new citizenship here, however controversial; and to impress upon them the incredible cost of war.

the next workshop we will be doing will be a short one (two weeks before xmas) and will feature a section on the holocaust. speaking personally, one of the main reasons why i own guns is because i read history and learned of all the instances in which enslavement was easy because a people was disarmed and conditioned to not seek armament - the jews in germany, the chinese in nanjing, the bosnians in the former yugoslavia, the tutsis in rwanda.

if anyone here has a copy of that band of brothers episode that i can borrow, please do let me know. i'll pay shipping, insurance, and replace it if damaged in any way. that sounds like a real winner but i think it is available only as a boxed set and pretty expensive.

Silverlance,

With all this talk, I just had to view "We Stand Alone Together" again. I just finished watching it and I believe it is exactly what you are looking for. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006CXSS/ref=pd_sl_aw_manual-1_dvdmanrrt_42053774_6

I recently heard Ken Burns on a radio show I listen to. This is where I found out about his documentary "The War". He said, "We are currently graduating a generation of children that think we fought WITH the Germans during WWII." Yes, "with" meaning on the same side...I was speechless.

Amazon has the complete Band of Brothers box set for almost 50% off at $42.00. It is HIGHLY worth every penny.

I do own the complete set and would consider lending it to you but, for only 42 bucks, I would rather kick in a few bucks and purchase it outright for you to use.

Maybe a few other members are feeling generous this holiday season?