ABSTRACT
There are many pedagogical modes that historians and teachers use to teach history through film. This chapter focuses on three modes: the representational, the representative, and the epistemological. It examines two films from the post-9/11 era that deal with the difficult issue of torture and the complicity of the United States in its propagation: Standard Operating Procedure and Zero Dark Thirty. It deeply focuses on the representational and representative modes of analysis to help students step back from their preconceptions and develop the conceptual tools to question the epistemological conceits not only of film, but of written or textual sources as well. It is important to discuss with students the structure of the film itself. It, like most narratives, has a beginning, middle, and end. It also has a point of view.
