History Vs. Hollywood

In honor of Pearl Harbor Day when the Japanese and then sixty years later Michael Bay launched an attack on unsuspecting veterans a discussion of film depictions of actual events.

My recent favorite was Joyeux Noel about the Christmas truce in the Great War. The European perspective helped, particularly switching languages.

I was intrigued to discover from U-571 that the Enigma machine was captured by the Americans - how foolish of British historians to delude themselves it had anything to do with us. But I should have realised I'd been lied to all these years - look at the propaganda job the Brits and Aussies did about the Burma campaign.

But I think we all know Mel Gibson owns this thread.

Why whatever do you mean?

Heh. Yeah, Braveheart was a such a treasure trove of historical accuracy.

Michael Collins is a major offender, in my eyes. There are too many examples to list, starting with insinuations made about de Valera's supposed involvement in Collins's assassination.

One of the most outrageous distortions was the killing of a northern Unionist by a car bomb. In Dublin. Circa 1920.

Considering car bombs weren't even used in Ireland until 50 years later and then it was in the North, I can't understand why this was put in the movie. The most unsettling explanation is that it was done for humourous effect, seeing that both the politician and Stephen Rea are both from Northern Ireland. Another reason was that Neil Jordan assumed the audience knew nothing about Irish history and would need a helpful hint, i.e. a car bomb to remind them where the movie was set.

In any case, a particularly asinine and offensive scene among many.

Heh. Yeah, Braveheart was a such a treasure trove of historical accuracy.

And The Patriot. Ohhhhh, The Patriot.....

*spudders with incoherent rage*

History v. Hollywood: This time, it's personal.


Ahem. Carry on.

I have the hardest time trying to explain my hate of this movie. Most people just think I'm being nitpicky as a historian and I should just sit back and enjoy it. I try to tell them, but they just won't. listen. It's...flames...on the side of my face!

Why, in one hundred years of Hollywood movie-making, has there still been not one good movie about the Revolutionary War?

"The Patriot"--I had such high hopes. But Gibson seemed to have the mistaken idea that Hitler's SS was running around South Carolina in 1781.

Well, there's America (' A rushing, leaping drama of charm and excitement!") but I suspect that's about as accurate as Birth of a Nation. Presumably it comes down to the American obsession with the Civil War at the expense of all other aspects of US history except for possibly Pearl Harbour. Whereas we don't get worked up about our Civil War anymore (too long ago and the losers won in the end) and literary portrayals are split 50/50 in sympathy I think.

Of course 90% of Civil War movies are unspeakable from a historical point of view since they mostly portray a South that never existed anyway what with the loyal plantations of faithful slaves who wanted nothing more out of life that the opportunity to show Ol' Massa how grateful they were for letting them work past Quittin' Time.

Speaking of "Braveheart"--it's not like the real story wasn't cinematic. In the real story, the Gay Prince becomes King Edward II (and he was gay, that's one of the few things Gibson got right), his French wife has a son of possibly questionable parentage (several years after William Wallace was executed, alas), and the French wife and her lover go on to mount a revolution, depose Edward in favor of his son, and have Edward murdered.

That would make a pretty good movie.

One small thing about "Braveheart" that always bugged me: Edward I's court is shown speaking English. You could pass this off as the standard 'foreigners speak English when Americans aren't looking' Hollywood convention, except that the French princess speaks French with her lady in waiting when no one else is around. It's the English royal court, at the end of the 13th century. They would all have been speaking French. I believe Henry V was the first king after the Conquest to use English in his private correspondence.

I keep seeing people get all derisive about Gibson's role in these movies, and while as producer (and director in Braveheart's case) he could have done some research of his own and corrected them, I think it's important to remember that the most egregious errors here are the fault of screenwriter Randall Wallace. Gibson's no saint, but it seems to me that Wallace is the one with the onus to get the facts right in the first place.

Aw, but it's so much more fun to blame it on Mel Gibson, especially now that he's unleashed his crazy.

Presumably Gibson could have requested script-changes if he wanted, though. Or admitted he was making a Robin Hood-type piece of nonsense which wasn't meant to be taken seriously. It's not like it's a particularly obscure part of history.

Lots of medieval hstory would make good films - shame all we ever get is Joan of Arc then straight on to the Tudors. You could do a good family saga about the Wars of the Roses (Romeo and Juliet stuff) or Stephen Vs Mathilda (were they lovers or not? Sadly the answer is not but either way there are daring escapes and betrayals a-plenty)

True, but that's assuming he knew changes needed to be made, and that those changes were not so all encompassing that it would have shut down production, which no studio is going to authorize. It's the writer's job to do the research; the producer has a billion other things on his plate, so if it's not something he already knows a lot about, he's not going to have the time while he's trying to get a movie made, the scheduling of which is not always up to him. I'm not saying Gibson's completely blameless, just that it's depressing to see everyone lump on him because of the Gibson Hatewagon and forget the other person who bears the larger responsibility.

One thing I'm wondering, though, is just how much power (or how little) a writer has with respect to the movie process. I think it's far more likely that a screenwriter could research everything and come up with a completely historically accurate screenplay for a movie, and then turn around and have the producers or whoever turn around and say, "Yeah, but we need a love story between these two characters" or "Not enough action sequences" or "Boooooring. Take out all that factual stuff and add in a lesbian love scene."

Movie execs and/or producers ultimately want a movie that they can sell and make a lot of money from. They're not too worried about tossing out historical accuracy in order to increase their bottom line, I don't think.

That's actually how it works for a lot of movies, but Randall Wallace is one of those screenwriters who is pretty much brought along with his screenplay, and any rewrite requests are sent to him.

Most of the movies I watch are history-based, and some can be really, really good, and some just suck. Like, for example, Das Boot--even though it was based on a book based on a true story and took some creative liberties with the characters, all the technical stuff--the boat, the officer's club, even the portrayal of the interactions between the sailors--was awfully close to perfect.

On the other hand, U-571 was a metric ton of useless. And I refuse to see Pearl Harbor because I'm pretty sure it would make me scream in agony.

But Braveheart wasn't a spec script, was it? It seemed like a pet project early on for Gibson. I think he's also made culpable for a lot of the historical fudgery, because by astonishing coincidence, everything seemed toc hange to make his character look good.

You have a problem with kids playing Little League baseball at 7:55 in the morning on a Sunday?

And who couldn't love a movie called "Pearl Harbor" that runs for three hours and only spends 45 minutes on the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Never mind that, how about casting Clark Gable as Charles Stewart Parnell. I caught a bit of this on television once, and in spite of being fascinated by Irish history, it was so turgid and dull that I couldn't take it for more than five minutes. Interesting how they managed to get away with the adultery-is-romantic theme back in 1937.

I don't know how much of the film was taken up with the Piggott forgeries, but it's truly an accomplishment to make that dull.

Well you know the supposedly authentic King Arthur, I heard from some one that worked with the crew and yeah they hired the two most expert guys on Arthurian stuff and the real time period to tell them whats what and did not listen to a word of it because some else wanted to blow things up, hence the glacier lake in May battle. But had the gall to keep the opening text about recent historical evidence means this... and the historical advisors' names in the credits making them a laughing stock among their peers.

ETA: There was brief mention to about the behind the scenes bitching about making the consultants obediently stand by the results on the promo duties.

I think it's important to mention that Gibson is anti-gay and his views on gay men can be seen in his representation of Edward II. The only way it could have been worse is if the Prince had a poodle named Precious.

I present Alexander. Before that film I never realized that Alexander the Great was a kind ruler spreading culture and freedom as opposed to the imperialist dictator who ruled by the sword. And did Macedonians really wear that much eyeliner?

After the vacation in Egypt they did.
Yeah that film was all kinds of wrong history included.

Can we just leap to the conclusion that the next Tudor movie is going to be pretty far off the mark history wise since the most recent batch have all been.

I'm so glad I've come to realize that I'm just into the history movies for the pretty. It makes life so much easier. I mean, I love Elizabeth, but I wouldn't exactly use it to teach a history class.