Freedom 250 at the Movies
From now until July 4, I want to encourage people to think about freedom, America, and movies.
I have loved movies since I was incredibly young. To this day, I will watch almost any movie that comes out.
So, naturally, in the context of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I immediately started thinking about the movies which best illustrate patriotism and American history. The more I thought about it, the more I realized movies must be an essential part of the Freedom 250 celebration. They are integral to our culture and profoundly contribute to our understanding of America and history.
When Thomas Edison invented the first commercial motion picture in 1891, he launched an American industry which would become a worldwide phenomenon. Today, 135 years later, there have been more than 500,000 feature length films made worldwide, according to some estimates. Hundreds of thousands of those films were made in America (the exact number is unknown because a lot of the early silent films have been lost). Thousands more are made every year.
When I began thinking about essential American movies, the range of choices became overwhelming. One way to approach it is by narrowly defining the topic. A movie like “How the West Was Won” clearly relates to America’s development. Similarly, The Twelve Oaks - the Ashley family mansion featured in “Gone with the Wind” - is in Clayton County, Ga. in my old congressional district. I have always been partial to that film as a romanticized, southern version of history (even though it fits a lot of the left’s critique of America since its central narrative viewpoint is nostalgic about maintain the Confederacy with slavery). One can enjoy a film without endorsing its message. Of course, having been born in Harrisburg, Pa., I have always been impressed with the movie “Gettysburg.” Joshua Chamberlain’s speech to the Maine soldiers is as good a talk about freedom as I have seen.
When you are trying to understand the generosity and optimism which have defined much of the American experience, Jimmy Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life” is amazingly powerful. There are good reasons for it being rebroadcast year after year eight decades after its 1946 release.
For sheer emotional engagement about patriotism and love of country - transcending even romantic love - it is no wonder that 84 years after its 1942 release “Casablanca” remains one of the best films ever made. Spoiler alert: Humphrey Bogart plays a hard-bitten soldier of fortune who finally has a chance to be with the woman he loves - but he realizes that the requirements of winning the war outweigh his own personal passion. It is a bit schmalzy, unbelievable, and profoundly moving at the same time. As a study in movies that grow far beyond studio expectaions, there is no better example.
Daniel Day Lewis has contributed enormously to the movie interpretation of America. His film “Lincoln” is a master class in acting and directing. Director Stephen Spielberg showed us how hard the legislative process can be - even with one of our greatest presidents trying to force it to work. In a totally different setting, Lewis’s portrait of the American frontiersman in “Last of the Mohicans” captured a significant part of the American experience in moving west and opening up a continent.
What movies would you include in the Freedom 250 list? What categories would you set up to better understand how to rank the movies? What criteria would you use to include or exclude a movie in terms of its contribution to our understanding America?
From now until July 4, I want to encourage people to think about freedom, America, and movies.
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My pitch for the movie that best represents the American spirit is Apollo 13. Besides its setting of exploring space, it's the fact that in the face of danger, Americans refuse to accept failure as an option, a line straight out of the movie.
When faced with what might seem like an impossible hurdle to overcome, Americans will find a way to make a square peg fit into a round hole, again, straight from the movie.
The movie captures the essential ideal of American optimism and problem-solving under pressure. The idea that ingenuity and teamwork can overcome seemingly impossible odds.
It’s a thread that runs through our American story from the founding to today.
The HBO mini series, John Adams