Why do the American movies seldom talk about the Us revolution

Originally posted by tommy  why do the American movies seldom talk about the Us revolution.Us revolution is a great event in the American history. The event showed the national spirit of American people.American  movies always reflect the national spirit.Why don't they talk about the revolution? Is it because of the pro-British altitude of some  movie producers?May be there is another reason.Movie makers can not handle the problem of slavery. We know that when American showed for freedom loudly,theu didi not grant freedom to their slaves.even Washington and Jefferson were slaveholders,a great paradox.Movie producers do not know how to handle this paradox in the movie, if they glorified the revolution, this will anger the black community? Let discuss

In public schools, history of any sort is so poorly taught (if at all anymore) that the connection Americans have with their past has become very tenuous.  In the universities, it is the other way round.  History is well researched, eloquently taught, and very fine material is published.

Unfortunately, mass media is an entertainment delivery system, and a miniscule number of movie goers have studied history at university level.  So we get "The Patriot" (Mel Gibson) or that piece of garbage, "Revolution" (Al Pacino of all people).

I think one of the best am rev films I have seen is a musical..."1776."  It certainly showed in an entertaining way some of the major issues that caused the break with England. 

From what I hear from teachers I know, the American War for Independence might as well be the Thirty Years War or the Peloponnesian War since American high school students don't know anything about them either.

On the ECW, there is only "Cromwell" and the series "By the Sword Divided" that I can remember.

Cromwell was a waste of fine acting talent.  Richard Harris overdoes it as Oliver C.; Frank Finlay and Robert Morley are completely wasted, and Alec Guinness plays a ridiculously clueless Charles I. 

The series was OK but concentrated more on the personalities of the families than on history.

I really do believe that all these eras are receding so far into the past that people are too disconnected to relate to them.  We see this in the forums:

Europeans committed "genocide" against the natives of wherever they went.  That is an opinion of complete ignorance, but it gets a lively reaction.

Crusaders were "terrorists," "savages" or worse because they behaved and thought in terms common to most peoples of the eleventh and twelfth centuries......and so on.

It seems to me to be getting worse since the turn of a new millenium.  History seems more irrelevant, or is increasingly distorted for purposes of agenda, that it is the perception that the whole discipline is nothing but a curiosity if not a waste of time and resources in the educational system.

Originally posted by tommy Thank you for your replies. i will treasure your ideas. i know Patriots, I love this movie.I also know some other movie about revolution, such as John Paul Jones(the Admiral,not the singer),George Washington,and part of John Jakes 'Kent Family series mentioned US revolution(Bastards,Rebels0.The problem is as comparing to those movie about civil war ,wild West experiences.,World War 2,the number of revolution movie is relatively small.You may have same feeling,when I ask about Us revolution movie,You may mention one or two, Patriots,or 1776, but not more.But if I ask the movies of WW2(even Japan and Germany are the close friends of US,may be Germany nomore,after Iraq war?),civil war, Wild West experiences,you may mention more

tommy:

Just as a point of interest, John Paul Jones was, of course, an important figure in American naval history, but he was never an admiral in the U.S. navy.  There were no U.S. admirals before the Civil War.

However, after the war with Britain, Jones was an admiral in (of all navies) the RUSSIAN navy of Catherine the Great, conducting operations against the Turks in the Black Sea.  

Another example of how things that seem so odd today were common practice in other eras.   

Its wasnt unnacurate, it was just a bad movie with bad acting.  Battle scenes were nice.  If there was one thing I did like about it was that it showed un un-idealized picture of war.  There may have been one side shown in a worse light than the other but the movie was good enough to show war as soemthing that has no sparkling pure good guy.  Anyway, the samrt people in the revolution fought in the most cruel fashion, considering hte might of the British army.