Dale Banham and Russell Hall present a multi-faceted rationale for an in-depth study of the 1991 film, JFK. They treat it as an ‘interpretation’ in the National Curriculum sense, constructing a varied and meticulous learning journey towards its analysis. By the end of that journey pupils had examined the central message of the film, analysed how such a message is conveyed in the film and reflected upon why the film embodied its particular interpretation at this particular time. In the now well-established tradition of National Curriculum ‘interpretations’ work, these pupils therefore found themselves exploring the changing American society of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, as much as the Kennedy era itself. There is also a second dimension to this example of planning - one that connects with Dale Banham’s influential earlier work. Banham and Hall manage to integrate a study of interpretations with plenty of knowledge-building (something that many history departments claim is very difficult to do). Readers of Teaching History or regular conference-goers in the U.K. will recall much of Banham’s work but he is perhaps most famous for his advocacy of serious in-depth work at both Key Stage 3 and GCSE, not as an argument against overview or outline understanding, but in support of precisely that. The ‘overview lurking within the depth’ is a phrase history teachers associate with Dale Banham. (Read his 2000 piece on teaching King John in depth to Year 7 in Teaching History, 99.) This time, with JFK, Banham and Hall continue to develop two fundamental paradoxes in children’s learning - (i) knowledge matters, but knowledge will not build itself in pupils’ heads if you just try to cover lots of content; (ii) overviews and big pictures matter, but pupils are more likely to understand, construct or enjoy them if they arrive at them through depth and detail.