{"id":203443,"date":"2026-04-03T13:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T02:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=203443"},"modified":"2026-05-04T13:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:25:24","slug":"topic-film-fiction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/topic-film-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Topic – Liberty in Film and Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nRevised: 4 May 2026\n<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/a> | Further Reading<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Introduction<\/h2>\n\n

(This page is being redesigned and reorganised. In the meantime, see these pages from the old website on this topic.)<\/p>\n \n

I have used films in my teaching and lecturing ever since I began teaching at University in 1986. They were a regular feature in my first year introductory courses on Modern European history, my upper level courses on \u201cGerman Europe\u201d and \u201cThe Holocaust,\u201d and most extensively in my course \u201cResponses to War: An Intellectual and Cultural History\u201d in which, over a period of a decade, I showed about 100 different films. [See "The Politics and History of\/in Film<\/a>" for more details of the films I have used.]<\/p>\n\n

My more mature thoughts on the connections between film and history can be found in the Honors level seminars I taught on \u201dReel History: History IN Film and Film AS History<\/a>\u201d and \u201cFilm and the History of Occupation, Collaboration, and Resistance in WW2<\/a>\u201d; and the guide I wrote on \u201cThe Study of War, History, and Film<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

The week long Summer Seminars organized by the Institute for Humane Studies during the 1990s on \u201cLiberty in Film and Fiction\u201d gave me an opportunity to show and discuss films with a group of students who were in creative writing and film studies programs. This experience encouraged me to eventually write my own screenplay for a \u201cpolitical\u201d movie of ideas and the life of the French political economist Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat during the 1848 Revolution in Paris; as well as to attempt to apply Austrian economic insights into \u201chuman action\u201d and the ideas which motivate this \u201caction\u201d to the analysis of film. [This of course prompts one to make the obvious pun on the traditional cry of the film director to begin filming with a call for \u201cAction!\u201d i.e. "human action".] <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Further Reading<\/h2>\n\n
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Michael Curtiz, \u201cThe Adventures of Robin Hood\u201d (1938) – a man who “speaks treason fluently” to tyrants<\/p>\n\n<\/td>\n\n

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A selection of things to look at:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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  1. "A Guide to the Study of War, History and Film<\/a>"<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cA Guide to 69 War Films: From Spartacus to Aliens<\/a>\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cDulce et Decorum est pro Patria mori\u201d: The Idea of the \u201cSweet and Fitting Death for the Fatherland\u201d and its critics in selected War Films (Draft) (1998). [HTML<\/a>]<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cResponses to War: War Films and the teaching of history\u201d (1993). A Paper given at \u201cScreening the Past\u201d [HTML<\/a>]<\/li>\n
  5. \u201cBastiat goes to the Movies, or \u201cFilming Freddie\u201d: How to Popularise Economic Ideas in Film\u201d (2017). [HTML<\/a>]<\/li>\n
  6. \u201cSome Thoughts on an \u2018Austrian Theory of Film\u2019: Ideas and Human Action in a Film about Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat\u201d (Sept. 2019) [HTML<\/a>]<\/li>\n
  7. My own attempt at a screenplay about economic and political ideas: a film about the life of Bastiat: "Broken Windows". A Screenplay about the Life and Work of Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat (1801-1850)<\/a> with an accompanying Illustrated History of the Life and Work Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat<\/a> to help the director plan his\/her shots.<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n<\/td>\n\n<\/tr>\n\n<\/tbody>\n\n<\/table>\n\n<\/div> \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Revised: Introduction | Further Reading Introduction (This page is being redesigned and reorganised. In the meantime, see these pages from the old website on this topic.) I have used films in my teaching and lecturing ever since I began teaching at University in 1986. They were a regular feature in my first year introductory courses … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"wf_page_folders":[107],"class_list":["post-203443","page","type-page","status-publish"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203443"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204504,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203443\/revisions\/204504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=203443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}