Printable View
But isn't that's like saying that Walter Scott and Bram Stoker shouldn't have written Ivanhoe and Dracula respectively? Or that medieval bards shouldn't have romanticised Robin Hood and Richard the Lionheart?
It could be extended to any number of movies and literary works-- Gone With The Wind, Othello, War and Peace... even The Iliad and Odyssey.
Meh, if you're going to be pointing out ahistorical movies - you might as well include every western film ever produced.
Meh...you have already voiced my opinion.
(Galdiator was a very dull movie. I saw the first 25 minutes, and the last two minutes of the credits. I slept through the rest of it.)
Unfortunately nearly all the people who watch a "historical" (to use the term loosely) movie often don't know anything else about the events depicted, and so think that what they saw in the movie was what actually happened.... most people have only a vague idea of what has happened in the world recently, let alone a few thousand years ago. After seeing movies they get all sorts of strange ideas which are totally historically inaccurate.
The other issue to reflect on is that even those well-versed in history may have a pretty divergent view of the "actual" events. There's very few historical events that, presented to a group of eminent historians, wouldn't generate a lively discussion as to what really happened.Quote:
Originally Posted by aimlesswanderer
So it's not very useful to quibble about inaccuracy in movies. Movies are stories, not documentaries. Fiction has always taken liberties with its milieu for the sake of a good story. History is the greatest backdrop of them all.
(This of course, from a notorious mutterer of black curses every time he watches a "column of mob" fighting an ancient battle...)
True, but many of the events in movies are not just a different interpretation but are completely made up and utterly bizzare. There's a big difference between "they were victorious and killed 50k of their foes" and "they got massacred to the last man and the whole country depopulated".Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
Exactly. It's one thing for historians to disagree over certain aspects of an historical event; it's another thing entirely for the facts to be wildly distorted all out of proportion to reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by aimlesswanderer
It's like when I was deeply irritated about the use of stirrups in Gladiator, and my friends were (understandably) laughing at me: "Well, what if you were seeing a film about the Crusades, and all of the knights had machine guns? Or a film about Vietnam where the soldiers carry lightsabers?"
Some historical violations really take you out of the movie, destroy your willing suspension of disbelief, and generally ruin the mood.
Star Wars IV, V & VI are all historically inaccurate due to I, II & III :laugh4:
Pape is onto something. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
In a way all movies are inaccurate, certainly all historical movies are inaccurate to the expert eye... The essential question is the one mentioned in the BBC article that was referred to above: does a movie capture the spirit of an event or episode, or doesn't it?
I have seen Sophokles' Elektra played on stage in a 'Vietnam setting', complete with machine guns and helicopters, and it was great in the latter sense.
The Lemur is right that annoyance is often in the details, such as the stirrups in Gladiator. In my experience, the same goes for satisfaction, for instance in Stone's Alexander where the Macedonians spoke with Scottish accents, suggestive of an independent warrior race from the mountains, which I thought was a brilliant solution to the whole Greek-Macedonian dilemma.
I watched two historical movies recently:
Napoléon. Video.
A six hour movie, painstakingly historically accurate. A visual feast for sure, for those into Napoleonic warfare or period costumes. And with some splendid Empire furniture (:jumping:).
However, the movie feels like simply a filmed version of Napoleon's Wikipedia entry. It's all rather bland. All that is achieved by it, is a dramatised documentary about his military campaigns and love life. Albeit with a lavish budget. It doesn't add anything to what everybody already knows.
(Should you ever stumble upon it: it's not great. It's not bad either. The elaborate art direction saves it. It's worth checking out if you are into Napoléon and his age.)
Marie-Antoinette. Video
It's a highly stylised historical interpretation. Paris Hilton meets Sex in the City, with a loud eighties punk music soundtrack. At first, I was shocked. I want my serious costume drama! Then, the movie turned into such an eye-opener to me. Of course Marie-Antoinette was just a bored teenager. :wall:
Rebellious, bored, too pampered. More concerned about her new pink shoes than about macro-economics. The very anachronisms Coppolla used gave me that historical sensation.
It sticks to the facts alright. Somewhat. But facts are for Wikipedia and amateur historians. Interpretation and narration are real history. And in this respect, Marie-Antoinette totally owns Napoléon. The historical leeway that the director Sofie Coppola allowed herself gave her movie it's historical value. And it's better history because of it.
(Of course, the above is no excuse for historical ignorance or plain stupidity)
I've seen that. Twas an A&E production (or co-production with some Euro company). I really enjoyed it, but I am into that period. Like you said. :sweatdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
Now on 300 Frank Millier gave himself one massive easy out for all the stuff that does on in the actual battle. Dillios is telling the story to inspire the troops at Platea. So all of the crazy stuff can be taken as Dillios embelishing the story.
"300" was meant as a morality tale and a historically correct version of events at the same time. You can't have it both ways, or three ways actually: you can't have Chuck Noris meet Herodotus and present the result (dubbed "bronze-age fascism" by the inimitable Lemur) as a wake-up call for today's western civilization.Quote:
Originally Posted by lars573
Wait, 300 was supposed to be historically correct? AFAIK it was an adaptation (the graphic novel) of an adaptation (300 Spartans), of what was probably adapted from second- or third-hand accounts (Herodotus).
:laugh4:
That, and whether it's exaggerated events or not: the makers, and particularly the pretty much fascist Miller, seem to believe that they are in fact capturing the spirit of the time, the Spartan warrior ethos. Less so the movie directors, more Miller projecting his own idealized society back onto ancient Sparta, and that repels me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zack Snyder
Do you recall what I wrote above about historical veracity as an attempt to capture the spirit of an episode, not the exact costume, landscape or sequence of action?Quote:
Originally Posted by Quirinus
In this sense, Snyder, Miller and Victor Davis Hanson, the classicist who 'advised' them during the making of the movie, seem to think it is historically accurate. Here is what Hanson wrote in the acompanying booklet:
Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the conventions of Frank Miller’s graphics and plot — every bit as formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese Kabuki theater — the main story from our ancient Greek historians is still there. [..] But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story.
Ah, Hanson. The chap who sees an inherent Western culture dating back to the Greeks as essential to Western military dominance, playing on some of the most common of cultural stereotypes in promoting ideas of justified US hegemony. I can see where his attraction to Miller's work comes from...
add pathfinder to that list... jesus that was a horrible movie!
vikings wear plate armour and cowhorn helmets, native americans speak AMERICAN???!?!??!?! and that list goes on and on and on...
Im gonna get Lynched for this, But Saving Private Ryan should be there. Sure it was a fantastic movie, probably my favourite, but its not strictly historically accurate, and some physics isuues are wrong. For example When CPT Miller is showing SFC Horvath the location of the German machine gun nest with the mirror on his bayonet the angle they are looking from would not be showing them the machine gun nest as it is far too "obtuse." The machine gun nest is around the corner almost 90 degrees. Historical errors include the fact that when Pvt. Jackson is in the tower at Neuville he fires seven or more shots without reloading. His rifle, the Springlfield 1903, only holds five rounds. The first Springfield that held more than 5 rounds was not produced until Vietnam
Edit: another one inculde the fact that when they are on the beach you see more than four tanks but on 6 June 1944, only two tanks out of 29 made land.
but should it be in the top 10 for that?
If Saving Private Ryan were ahistorical on the scale of, say, Gladiator, the entire Omaha Beach scene would have occurred in outer space. And instead of Nazis, they would have been fighting Octosquids. And half of the soldiers would have been kill-droids programmed to explode on contact with the enemy. The final battle would have been resolved with a combination of samurai swords and revolutionary nano-bots.
No, Saving Private Ryan does not get to join the club because of a few minor gaffes. Sorry.
Besides, every hollywood movie overestimates the number of bullets a gun can fire before one has to reload.
That what I saw as well. Then the drugs wore off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Now that, darling, is a pitch! Can we do lunch?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Recent piles of excrement have to be the Last Legion and Pathfinder. Good mother of Jesus:thumbsdown:
The last legion. With hot Byzantine Indian ninja chick. Guess that does deserve a place.
yeah bohemian tell them!!! pathfinder sucks
and last legion indeed deserves a place... even the bloody trailer was inaqurate...
:laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
I could deal with that part, but then when the druid started shooting fireballs from the battlements and then it went all King Arthur at the end I was left wondering what I had just sat through... :sweatdrop:
Reviews said all the money that movie made was because of that chick. ~DQuote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S