Provocative excerpts from primary and secondary sources (some with audio glosses). Read the rationale behind these sound bites for more information.

701-710 of 734 Sound Bites. [show all]

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701) We must ask what kinds of coverage textbooks provide, beginning with the images they supply. Photographs have been part of the record of war in the United States since Matthew Brady's famous images of the Civil War. In Vietnam, television images joined still photos to shape the perceptions and sensibility of the American people. More than any other war in our history, the Vietnam War was distinguished by a series of images that seared themselves into the public consciousness. (James W. Loewen 235) [SoundBite #4306]

702) Even if teachers do not challenge textbook doctrine, students and the rest of us are potential sources of change. If that statement seems idealistic, consider that African-American students have actively pressured several urban school systems for new curricula. White high school students the wrong to see revisionist movies about American history, whether by Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves) to Spike Lee. Not history itself but traditional American history courses turn students off. Whether we read textbooks, see historical movies, or visit museum exhibits, we must learn how to deal with sources. (James W. Loewen 310-11) [SoundBite #4307]

703) Cinematic stereotypes about African-Americans had been a staple of filmmakers before World War I. . . . Films relating to war and military service represented in some way are an exception to the pattern. (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 16) [SoundBite #4308]

704) The motion picture industry generally had done well during the war years. Moviemakers dutifully had cranked out hundreds of one and two reel features with war plots, most of which had brought an average return of a few thousand dollars. Many of these films were of the trite heroic genre, although some moved far enough into the fantastic to be remembered today as examples of the extremism of the home front at war. (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 41) [SoundBite #4309]

705) By constructing, formalizing, and mythologizing the actions and attitudes of fighter pilots, especially aces, the expert ones who would shot down many aircraft, the World War I air combat films like The Dawn Patrol constructed a mythical reality more real than history itself. (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 66) [SoundBite #4310]

706) A movie like The Fighting 69th helps to make more comprehensive men and events about which there was both great national concern and serious agreement. An industry, such as the movies, tied to markets abroad (often the margin of the film's profit) and worried about censorship at home, well understood what has been called "the dangers of cinematic advocacy." Filmmakers, even advocates such as the brothers Warner, adopted a policy of "watchful waiting." (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 117) [SoundBite #4311]

707) On the surface at least, war-related motion pictures released in the United States during the neutrality years do seem to mirror the country's transformation from a neutral nation to an active participant in World War I. (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 214) [SoundBite #4312]

708) From the opening scene of Oliver Stone's Platoon to the closing scene of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the motive of corrupted innocence is shared by nearly all major books and films that deal with Vietnam. (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 181) [SoundBite #4313]

709) The World War I films of the 1920s and early 1930s provided recollections –- some nostalgic, some horrific, some tinged with antiwar sentiment –- of the often futile heroism and camaraderie of the war. (Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor 249) [SoundBite #4314]

710) The erosion of the presumed boundary between factual and fictional discourses has been the subject of much anguished commentary, with films that focus on the historical past sometimes held to standards of authenticity and verifiability that nearly equal the standards applied to scholarly historical texts. (Robert Burgoyne 5) [SoundBite #4315]