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Movie Reviews
The information appearing in parentheses in each headnote represents the address to which inquiries can be directed about the rental or purchase of a film. If the film is not currently available for distribution, only the name of the production company appears. The absence of an address or other indication of a distributor does not necessarily mean that a film will always be unavailable for rental or purchase. In some cases the producers plan to release the films for general and educational use, but they had not completed their contractual arrangements at the time the Journal went to press. Many Hollywood films and docudramas from commercial television are available in video stores.
Indivduals who wish to propose films for review in the Journal should communicate with Robert Brent Toplin, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 601 S. College Rd., Wilmington, NC 28403-3201 <toplinrb@uncw.edu>.
| Transforming America: U.S. History since 1877. Dir. and prod. by Julia Dyer. Dallas TeleLearning, 2005. 26 programs, 30 mins. each. (Dallas County Community Colleges, 9596 Walnut St., Dallas, TX 75243-2112; 866-347-8576; <tlearn@dcccd.edu>; <http://telelearning.dcccd.edu> [Sept. 12, 2005])
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| Four years ago, Dallas TeleLearning introduced Shaping America, a twenty-six-segment, thirteen-hour documentary history of the United States to 1877. Now, the same producers have released a post-Reconstruction counterpart, appropriately titled Transforming America. The documentary is designed to integrate with the second volume of Bedford/St. Martin's American Promise and is available as a complete distance-learning package including instructor resources and student guides or as individual video segments. |
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The producers frame the documentary by asking questions about the evolving meanings of freedom, equality, and American identity throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Asking what it means to be an American at any given moment, the video focuses on the effects of transformational events and trends on the lives of individuals, a wise choice for a documentary meant to illuminate a comprehensive textbook. Like its precursor, Transforming America combines narration, expert commentary, and primary sources layered over photographs, moving images, maps, paintings, drawings, documents, and artifacts. |
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