# data[].attributes.body
In 2006, a movie was made showing visual versions of some of the most popular works written by Edgar Allan Poe. The movie was written and directed by Ric White (and of course Poe) and produced by Willing Hearts Productions.
I have attached a trailer of the movie below which I found at www.poenightmares.com, the website for the movie.

I thought that this was a fitting start to this display of arts based on the antebellum period since we read a short story by Edgar Allan Poe this week titled "The Black Cat."
This trailer starts off with a list of famous horror writers that came after Poe, which shows that Poe is seen not as a great author or known for his great ideas and intellect but simply that his stories were horrific. We discussed in class how Poe writes with a Gothic style that differs from horror, yet still he is compared to authors who write far less about the human condition and far more about supernatural things as in Bram Stoker's Dracula or Stephen King's It.

One thing I found interesting about various forms of arts based on the antebellum period is that they seem to be few and far between. Many films, TV shows, paintings, etc. focus on the periods during wars but when researching media based on the antebellum period, I came across few results. I believe that this shows the value of learning about the wars but how history and media may simply gloss over this period before the war.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1861, Hugues Merle painted what Nathaniel Hawthorne considered to be the best illustration of his novel, The Scarlet Letter.  The book itself is widely known through TV shows and movies as the story where a girl wears a red A- an A for Adultery.

Below I have an image that depicts the 1861 painting done by Merle as well as a more recent image from the 2010 film "Easy A," a film in which the main character chooses to wear a large red A on her clothing to adopt the personality that is being forced on her at school.

I thought that because we have been reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and because the most memorable reference to this story that I have seen in my lifetime is Easy A, it would be interesting to use it as an artifact. However, I also discovered that there was a work of art based on the book that was actually painted during the antebellum period. I took this opportunity to compare the two images side by side so that they can be analyzed for differences in appearance, not just in plot.

What does this say about the book? Well, the older work of art actually depicts the character from the book, whereas the movie Easy A is merely a reference to the book. The movie itself actually doesn't take much from the story, but it does allude to the adultery in a modern way. I think that the modern reference to The Scarlet Letter however shows how little most people really know about the story. After reading only the first 10 or 20 pages, we have got passed as much information as many people know about the book: an adulteress and a red A on her dress. Easy A riffs on this a little but the story is not similar in any aspects. I think this goes to show that sometimes

# data[].attributes.body
In 1992, a movie version of the 1823 book The Last of the Mohicans was released.

In this movie, two tribes are depicted; one tribe is considered the villain of the movie while the other tribe consists of the last of the Mohicans and they are the heroes of this film.

Although this story takes place in the 18th century, during the French and Indian war, the book was written in the early 19th century so I thought that perhaps it would work well to relate to what we have been reading in class.

In this movie, Native Americans are shown to be a little stereotypical as well as being both the hero and the villain instead of just the enemy or outsider as they have been frequently seen in our readings. I thought specifically about Hawthorne and Apess when I looked into this movie because Hawthorne showed very little of their culture at all, but did tell of a man who worked to convert the Native Americans to Christianity while Apess told a story about his life and how he was thrust into indentured servitude at the age of 5 until he turned 31. I found that this movie was interesting in that it shows Native Americans as being violent but it redeems itself by making the heroes also Native Americans.

One thing that was interesting to me was the idea that the Native Americans fought alongside the colonists in this story. In many readings, as I mentioned, we have read that the Native Americans are more on the outside than living side by side with the colonists so it is interesting to see them working together in this film.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Last of the Mohicans - Official® Trailer [HD]

# data[].attributes.body
With a set release date of Christmas 2019, a new movie based on the book Little Women is in the works. With a cast starring Emma Watson (one of my favorite actors) I am excited for this version of the story.

Little women is a story about domestic life. Although there is no trailer for this film, it seems from the few pictures online that the movie will be set in the 19th century and will probably attempt to stay close to the original book.

However, last year a film with the same name, Little Women (2018) released in honor of the 150th anniversary of the novel. This film seems to be a modern retelling of little women. In the trailer we see cityscapes and subway trains, jeans and plastic headbands. The story seems to be highly focused on one characters dream to escape the domestic life that her sister chooses by marrying.

I found this story to be relevant to the readings we have had in stories like Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern. In her story, Ruth isn't necessarily trying to escape a domestic life, but instead she is forced to make a living on her own. Both Jo in Little Women and Ruth in Ruth Hall are writers trying to make it on their own.

The film seems to follow the plot of the original novel pretty closely but I think it is interesting to see it modernized and how that changes the way that we view the characters in the story.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Little Women Trailer #1 (2018) | Movieclips Trailers

# data[].attributes.body
In a movie released in 2018, Emily Dickinson is portrayed in a comedic way as a scholar imagines what Dickinson's life have been like.

The film itself focuses heavily on the poetry of Dickinson as well as her relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan.

The trailer doesn't explain any of the plot of the movie and gives only simple glances into the characters. What the trailer does that is interesting to me though is present quotes from reviewers and critics about the film. The most interesting of these is the very last one presented on screen, "Could forever change the narrative of the world's most famous woman poet." I  found this to be fascinating because I think that having a movie that postulates that Dickinson was a lesbian changes how people view her in general and especially will change how readers interpret her poems.

This relates to the poems that we have been reading in class by Emily Dickinson and especially when we talked about how she never married and how she had a close and possible sexual relationship with her sister-in-law.

The fact that the film is called Wild Nights with Emily which references one of her poems that we read in class is interesting in it's own right because not only does it relate to passion which we see in the trailer, but readers of the poem can also read deeper into the meaning of the poem "Wild Nights" as it expresses a passion that the speaker cannot have. The poem shows us an emotional connection to someone or something that is desired. This might be linked to the idea of a lover that Dickinson could not have.

# data[].attributes.body
In 2013, the film adaptation of 12 Years a Slave was released. This story is based on a true story of a man named Solomon Northup, who was born in New York a free man but was abducted and sold into slavery where he remained for 12 years.

This film relates to two novels that we read this quarter. The first novel that I believe this film is linked to is The Heroic Slave by Fredrick Douglass. There are two main similarities between these two stories. The first of which is the fact that both stories seem to imply that Canada is a part the journey to freedom for many slaves. The film showed a Canadian man as the one who helped Solomon find his way back to his family, and the book by Douglass showed that Madison was able to find his freedom for the first time in Canada even as a fugitive slave. The other thing that happens in this movie that reminds me of Douglass' novel is that both Solomon and Madison are helped by kind white strangers in order to find their freedom.

I also made the connection between this film and the last novel we read in class called Our Nig. Solomon is from the north, the same place that the Bellmont family and Frado are in the novel, yet both Frado and Solomon are put through something terrible because of their skin color.

What we learn through this trailer is that not only are we Americans still working to learn more about our history through true stories and fictional narratives, but we are also working to include as many resources for this information as we can through the use of film adaptations that reach a wider population of people in order to show the history of slavery and our country.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
12 YEARS A SLAVE - Official Trailer (HD)

# data[].attributes.body
This exhibit demonstrates the significance of the Antebellum time period in modern media with a focus specifically on how similar works are treated in the film industry. The exhibit contains 5 movie trailers as well as a screen shot from a movie which show important features from literature in the Antebellum period and how they are adapted to fit with today’s culture.

By looking at each of these posts separately, we learn a little about the time period before the Civil War, many of which are focused on the treatment of women or the treatment of black people. By viewing these posts together, we get a bigger picture of what the Antebellum period’s literature looked like. Women were writing to show their own experiences trying to support their families without the ability to readily find work in Ruth Hall; they were writing stories that depicted what their lives were like growing up as a biracial girl in the north in Our Nig. Men were standing up for the rights of men and women alike by writing stories about sinning in a time when religious ideals ruled over the expectations of both genders (although they affected women more readily) which we see in The Scarlet Letter. And stories from black men tell us the experiences that they went through as they were forced into slavery and their determination to find freedom from oppression.

The reason that I was drawn to using film adaptations was because film allows cultural relevance to expand to a higher population of people and it also allows for a new demographic to obtain the knowledge of people outside their own perspective. A good example of this is with someone like myself. Although I enjoy novels, I am not really big into history and I have often overlooked historical novels because I worry that they will be boring. However, historical novels as well as historical films that are made in a way that can draw people in, will teach new people about history in a way that is more interesting to them and perhaps lead them to look more into the topics presented.

Another interesting thing about using film as the main theme in my padlet is that there are so many films that make or remake stories about novels from the antebellum period. This shows that not only are we still interested in learning more about it and reaching more people, but we are still finding new ways to look at the story and to present it to an audience in ways that keep the story relevant. A good example of this was in the post about Little Women. This post I mentioned two recent movies, but there are at least two other film versions of the book. The same could be said for movies based on The Scarlet Letter which I chose to mostly focus on the subtle connections between Easy A and the novel instead of posting about the film based directly on the book.

The original intent of the project was going to be to showcase various forms of art, but I realized early on that the significance of the Antebellum period was more interestingly depicted in film because it reaches a larger audience than fine arts do. I struggled to find paintings or other forms of art made recently that focused on that time period. But because film is so culturally relevant to us now, the film industry has created a huge supply of historical films based in this time period that we can use to supplement our knowledge of the period along with the texts that we read in class.