A FIlm Study on Cry Freedom

A significant movement was the Black Consciousness movement. This movement was all about being proud of your heritage and not thinking that you are inferior to the white man. During this time, police brutality towards blacks was quite common. In the first scene, we can see the police storming the illegal township and hitting unarmed people, storming houses and then beating those blacks, as well as raping women in the town. Then the government covered up the story by saying that the blacks were not harmed and some even handed themselves in. One other significant movement in the asses was the Durban movement.

This movement also included a critique of structural Marxism. Marxism had to be reformed to accommodate human agency. These developments were connected with the working class. Another significant characteristic that defined the Durban movement was their policy of non violence, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Examples of such non-violence were workers simply folding their arms and refusing to work. January 1 973 marked the beginning of such strikes, when 1200 night watchmen refused to work and demanded a pay raise. On January 10, another group of workers from A. J.

Keller Transport Company started a strike and demanded better pay. Such strike were very effective as the companies needed the blacks because if they hired white workers, they would be forced to pay more, due to the trade unions which the white workers were apart of. One of the most significant events in the asses was Jowett, which was a small township of Johannesburg. On June 16 1976, 20000 students protested, influenced by the Black Consciousness movement. It was a peaceful march to begin with, but then apparently stones were thrown at police and then the police opened fire.

Riots continued and nearly 200 people were killed on the first day. Question 2. There are many strengths and weaknesses by portraying history in film. I for one believe that its strengths outweigh the weaknesses. To begin with, watching a movie is much easier than reading through a textbook or sitting through a lecture. Movies are made to entertain, so it is not surprising that people would rather watch a movie than sit through a lesson of working from a textbook. Even historians agree that movies can give many ideas about the past to students and the public.

For example, the movie ‘Dances with Wolves’ was an excellent movie as it gave viewers a good insight of what life was like in the Native American lute, while still entertaining viewers with the right amount of dramatists material. An example of the historians that mentioned earlier includes Robert Bert Toppling, who suggested, “filmed history was becoming so ubiquitous that it was appropriate to view filmmakers as historians. The filmmakers’ interpretations are different from the work of print-oriented scholars, but their dramas and documentaries often provide quite useful inquiries into the past.

There are many strengths in historical films, but as I said, there are also many weaknesses. The most obvious is that the filmmaker did no research into the topic, so you ND up with a movie that is filled with historical errors and that is of no use to anyone. An example of this is a surprising one. ‘Breather’ is a great movie but has many historical inaccuracies, such as the situation about the crown. In the movie ‘Breather’, the King of England invaded Scotland in 1280 after the death of the Scottish king died and left no heir behind, while in actual fact, the king did not die until the year 1286.

And even after he had died, he had a granddaughter who took his place. It was only in 1296 when Edward installed himself as King of Scotland. A person who shares this mindset of movies not being as effective as normal techniques is Richard Bernstein of the New York Times who noted “Moviegoers often got minor details right in their depiction of costumes and settings , but their stories about the past were greatly distorted. ” Question 3. There are many different strengths and weaknesses when talking about whether ‘Cry Freedom’ is a good source for understanding.

I personally believe that it is a good historical source, as I found it entertaining but also factual with what I had learned in class about Steve Bike. Firstly, we’ll talk about the strengths of he movie. As I said before, I found the movie factual with what I had learned. For example, the first scene of the movie. In this we see an illegal township and the conditions people were forced to live in just so that they could keep their jobs. Then we saw the police storm in and begin to commit atrocities against the blacks, like raping women.

The main strength of the movie is the whole theme of Black Consciousness. Black Consciousness is about being proud of your black heritage and not feeling inferior to the white people. There are two really good scenes that I think portray this idea very well. The first is when Mr. Woods and Bike are walking around the Bantus. Bike explains how blacks are brought up in these really poor areas, and if they survive and eventually find a job in a town, they see the places that the whites live in and can’t help but feel inferior.

He then says, ” Because no matter how dumb or smart a white child is he is born into that world. But you, a black child, smart or dumb you are born into this. And smart or dumb, you’ll die in it. ” This is basically reinforcing the point that white children have more opportunities than a black child ever would. The second scene that tuck out was when Nameplate, Bikes’ friend, was responding to Mr. Woods when he said that the whites were moving toward integration for blacks.

Nameplate replies by saying ‘The best you want from us is to be allowed to sit at your table, using your silver and your china, and if we can learn to use it like you do, then you will kindly let us stay. We want to wipe the whole table clean. It’s an African table, and we will sit at it at our own right”. This is speaking about how apartheid is repressing the black culture, but also shows the aim of Black Consciousness The movie has some weaknesses if you were to use it as a historical source.

Firstly, the movie begins in 1975, so therefore doesn’t exactly give us an insight on what Bikes’ life was like before the movie, like what he did to be banned, or how he started the Campanile clinic, which was a result of oppressed blacks looking within their own culture for help. But other than that, I can think of no other weaknesses in the movie. You may think that the actors looked different to the people, but Richard Attenuator’s purposefully chose the actors like Denned Washington so that it would be more authentic. Washington even had the caps removed on his front teeth so that he could have Bikes’ gap-toothed smile.