Answer the following question(s) in a formal, argumentative/persuasive essay. Your answer must be typed, double-spaced, and should be no more than 5-7 pages in length. Be sure to consider the question of context, provide specific examples from the films as evidence to support your argument(s), and include citations when appropriate.
How and why has the cultural view of the American Civil War in film developed since 1915? What were the main themes and topics that films have addressed? How and why did they address them in the ways that they did? Did the movies made about the Civil War show more about the context of the times in which they were made than they did about the past? Do you agree with those scholars who argue that, although the Confederacy lost the actual war, the South won the conflict in the movies? Why or why not? In your historical and cinematic judgment, what is the single best film on the Civil War? Why? (Note: It does NOT have to be a film shown in this course!!) What Civil War movie remains to be made in order to give us a better historical view of the conflict and its significance?