life is beautiful is a really good one, any teacher who syas its not good sounds interesting, because it shows clear links between the accurate depiction of personal memory/history and the covered up history presented by the nazis. you have to focus on either the representation of an event, a situation or a personality. so the use of that movie focuses on the representation of that event, memento through charcterisation represents a situation of a man with anterograde amnesia. the important aspect is not only the link between history and memory the composer is depicting, but also the the truth which can be derived, 'representation and meaning'.
best of luck for monday, i wouldnt attempt to do a novel now, use movie or a personality such as MLK.