Glory Movie Themes

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The New World, The Patriot, Glory, and Lincoln are the four movies we watched in History Through the Lens of Cinema class this semester. Although those four movies are very different in the times they were made, their major themes, and their cinematic styles, they all reflect a fact to us – the importance of racial issue in American society. By analysis the times they were made, we can also know the racial situations of particular time periods. The New World tells how the English settled in Virginia, and how the native helped the English but were eventually betrayed by them. It also portrays the love between Pocahontas and John Smith. The film received notability for its cinematography, music score, and newcomer Kilcher’s performance. Moreover,…show more content…
It is released in 1989, when the racism was still severe in American, although people had started to find ways to alleviate the situation. The purpose of movie Glory is to remind people that black also did a lot in the Civil War, so they should have the right to be treated equally. Also, it tells the story of 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment to encourage the black men to fight for their glory and freedom, just like what the heroes did in the movie. When recall the process of diminishment of racism in American, it is clear that Glory, which is the first major motion picture to tell the story of African Americans fighting for their freedom in the civil War, could not be made five years before 1989. Thanks to Zwick’s unwillingness to turn Glory “into a black story with a more commercially convenient white hero”[ Paul Tatara, Glory(1989), http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/194041%7C0/Glory.html], Glory portrays the cooperation of black men and white men to fight on the battlefield, just as the actor Freeman said, “We didn’t want this film to fall under that shadow. This is a picture about the 54th Regiment, not Colonel Shaw, but at the same time the two are inseparable.”7 What makes glory even greater is that it does not only embody the difference between racism and egalitarian, but also portrays innate racism that some people got. Those are the reason why this movie was praised a lot, as Mark Bernardin, a writer for Entertainment Weekly said, “The magic of Glory comes from the film itself. It speaks of heroism writ large, from people whom history had made small.”[ Marc Bernardin, Glory, February 13 2001,

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