[KMCG]

If you’re English, the problems with BRAVEHEART don’t relate to fabrics or pipes, but Gibbo’s anti-English resentment and hatred (which would later morph into anti-Jewish style riffs). His (and the writers) irresponsible disregard for historical accuracy stuck in this boys craw (it got worse in THE PATRIOT…”hey, let’s have the English do some Nazi crimes”).
I understand that historical epics ‘now and then’ have always played fast and loose with the truth, in order to fund the story, but it still rankles, even though I can admit it’s a mighty fine film, in purely cinematic terms. I think of it more along the lines of HIGHLANDER 😉

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

If it is some consolidation, I enjoy BRAVEHEART the movie but did not even get any anti-English resentment or hatred from the movie. I have the highest respect for the British history and culture even after seeing that movie. It was just one particular King even in the movie, so it’s not as if the movie had a blanket statement that “English are bad”.

it got worse in THE PATRIOT

Well, that was Emmerich. 🙂

[Malte Müller]

I enjoy BRAVEHEART the movie but did not even get any anti-English resentment or hatred from the movie.

I second that. The history is not really pleasant place and is not in England vs Scots probably and the movie is clearly from the Scots point of view even. And you should never watch the tv series VIKINGS if “some” historic inaccuracies are a problem 😉

[W David Lichty]

…I understand that historical epics ‘now and then’ have always played fast and loose with the truth, in order to fund the story, but it still rankles…

I’m on board with this. The default smart opinion for some film critics regarding faithfulness to an account is “That’s not what I go to the movies for,” which is my exact reaction to what I usually see as a needless dismissal of truthfulness. I don’t go to the movies to see not the story, and I’m increasingly tired of having to fact check before or after a thing. I’m not impressed when critics use the phrase “slavishly faithful,” which often excuses lazy solutions to solvable narrative problems.

Embellishing unheard or unrecorded dialogue is inescapable. 1776 did this by raiding the letters our historical figures had exchanged in their day. Selma, disallowed from using any of Martin Luther King jr.’s actual speeches, had to come up with its own ‘Kingy’ stuff, apparently doing that very well. In these forced digressions, we can see faithfulness in the work.

There are other acceptable trade-offs, like protecting identities. Shattered Glass, one of the best movies of this century so far, was meticulously factual except for the supporting cast’s characters, representing journalists who were then still working, and still early in their careers, whose words and actions all happened, but were shuffled around among the renamed characters for the film. I suppose economy is also okay. Rudy amalgamated a lot of helpful people into one guy, played by Charles S. Dutton. Malcolm X did the same thing because Malcolm himself did that in narrating his story to Alex Haley, and while Haley’s account has come under some reasonable suspicions, at the time, when it hadn’t yet, Spike Lee was extreme in his faithfulness to it, and I hold it as his best movie, and one of the best — as in most watchable, most entertaining — historical films ever made.

I even get the cases where it’s almost necessary to change something to get the main idea across. A Beautiful Mind replaced hallucinating a UFO conspiracy with a Soviet one, because as viewers, we needed to believe what John Nash believed, and in 2001 we would not believe that there had been an actual UFO invasion in the ’50s, and the real story – this is what it was like to be him in this way – would not come across. We’d just think, “Man, this otherwise bright guy is nuts about flying saucers.”

I think what bothers me is avoiding even the attempt. The most likely thing is that at its incept, any such project began with someone fascinated by the actual historical account. It grabbed them enough that they wanted to spend months or years re-conveying it. See Malcolm X again (and again and again, as I have). If it interested you, dear film maker, why won’t it interest me? Why not do the work to make the engaging stuff salient to the film? It’s what brought you to the project, why can’t it keep me in my seat? Why all the hokum? While he shepherded All the President’s Men, did anyone tell Robert Redford, “You know what would make this event more interesting? A high speed car chase with some gunplay,” or “What if Carl Bernstein were Carol Bernstein? Then we can have romance and get the ladies in, or even some sex and get the kids in. Look, Mack, if Hawks did it with His Girl Friday, why can’t we?”

The Front Page was a play, not a real event. History isn’t Shakespeare, or The Odyssey, so go ahead and make Romeo + Juliet, and capture all of the youthful spirit of the thing while retaining the language, and getting people to remember what a great storyteller Shakespeare was. Go ahead and give us O Brother Where Art Thou, and reintroduce the culture to a long set aside style of music, in a pretty delightful film. Unlike much history, many of those such works are well known, so no harm done, and even if I’ve never read The Odyssey, who cares if you’ve mauled it? It’s fiction, and I enjoyed your work.

It amazes me that what George Lucas did to Star Wars is more widely regarded as egregious than what film makers, usually needlessly, do to real events.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Those are some good thoughts, David, as well as examples. Alas, I probably fall in the category you speak of, i.e. those who think there are other, more important aspects to consider in a film experience than correct historical fidelity. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not UNimportant, of course, I expect a certain degree of correctness. But I’m open to some creative liberties. We’re talking an adaptation, after all, and in most adaptations, one makes certain changes for narrative effect.

But I admit I often run towards Wikipedia after I’ve seen movies based on real events, to get the real story and the real facts, just for my own edification.

And yes, I was kinda irritated by a great many incorrect things in the VIKINGS series, being a descendant of vikings myself. So I’m definitely not immune to these things.

[Malte Müller]

And yes, I was kinda irritated by a great many incorrect things in the VIKINGS series, being a descendant of vikings myself. So I’m definitely not immune to these things.

And THE TUDORS was not really better. Still a great series. And since we are a film score forum I found the scores to both servicable but rather dull as a listen (the library had them…)

[Dr. Jacoby]

Just saw for the first time The Game (1997), directed by David Fincher, with Michael Douglas. I had no idea who did the score, but the tone row piano lines reminded me of Jerry’s The Mechanic, which is my favorite Jerry score and, IIRC, Jim Phelps’s favorite score period. At the end of the film, I found out it was Howard Shore, whom I know primarily (but not exclusively) through Cronenberg.

[Sophie]

Finally got around to Idiocracy. Younger me would have loved this. But, uhhh, yeah, no thanks.

[W David Lichty]

Finally got around to Idiocracy. Younger me would have loved this. But, uhhh, yeah, no thanks.

I don’t align much with the article, but Idiocracy is pretty messy. I haven’t seen it since it got its Office Space-like second life, but it was a Movie Night choice when it hit home video. I knew its reputation as an unfinished feeling movie, but you can get away with a lot of film making ineptness in comedies if they’re really funny. It was mildly amusing at times, in that once you’ve laughed at the premise, you can pre-write each next scene in your head way. I’ve thought to rewatch it, given how often it’s been referenced over, really the last 20 years, not just the last ten, but I feel like I’ll relive the earlier experience of wishing it was better.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I haven’t seen IDIOCRACY, but it always seemed to me as if that’s a good setup for SNL sketches, but not necessarily a good plot premise for a feature film. I’ve seen clips of the movie which are indeed quite funny, but unsure whether the movie can sustain that at feature length. I might watch it one day.

Unrelated to IDIOCRACY and as far as historical accuracy is concerned:

While he shepherded All the President’s Men, did anyone tell Robert Redford, “You know what would make this event more interesting? A high speed car chase with some gunplay,” or “What if Carl Bernstein were Carol Bernstein? Then we can have romance and get the ladies in, or even some sex and get the kids in.

Knowing Hollywood, that’s not even unlikely, though fortunately better things prevailed.

I even get the cases where it’s almost necessary to change something to get the main idea across.

I think what bothers me is avoiding even the attempt.

You make some good points and I can understand your argument. On the one hand. On the other hand, I understand that movies are movies and not documentaries, and if I want to learn about history, movies aren’t the best place.

I think it’s great when movies strive for historical accuracy and are still gripping (PATTON is a very good example), on the other hand, movies like GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL or MY DARLING CLEMENTINE portray fairly recent events in history with total disregard for how they actually happened, changing places, character motivations, historic background, etc., yet they are considered classics. (Later movies like Kasdan’s WYATT EARP were far more accurate in their portrayal of the events in Tombstone.)

So yeah, I know BRAVEHEART is not “real” history, it’s basically a medieval knight fantasy, but it’s a sweeping epic tale and I take it as that. But I also think it’s great there are folks out there ready to jump at such films and point out if there are grave historical inaccuracies, so these films are not to be taken at face value.

[W David Lichty]

You make some good points and I can understand your argument. On the one hand. On the other hand, I understand that movies are movies and not documentaries, and if I want to learn about history, movies aren’t the best place.

My guess is that many of us agree broadly: On one hand, movies aren’t the best place to learn history. On the other hand, if you’re going to tell your own story, then why not just make up your own story. Those are far ends of the spectrum, and we may be at different positions in between them. My specific issue is that “It’s a movie” isn’t a broad umbrella, a free-for-all, or good enough to be a default. And we know that many, especially kids just learning history, have no reason to expect someone to be fabricating critical events when they claim to tell a true story. “Caveat emptor” is a flag waving mostly over those who want to dupe us, and it’s not a good social compact. Diversions beyond, as I think I said above, some necessary things like filling in gaps of unrecorded dialogue, should be warranted by the film making case, rather than the tendency’s ubiquity and the reliably offered excuses.

Do a little work and either:

1. Make the actual scene or story as interesting as it was to those who lived it or told it. Find the drama rather than fabricating it. Just do the work.

2. If you simply want to make a big romp, then extract the contra-historical elements altogether and tell your story. If Raiders was about the spy who kept the D-Day plans from falling into the hands of Hitler, rather than an archaeologist rescuing the Lost Ark of the Covenant, which presents not an unhistorical object, but an easily discernible unhistorical quest, the same movie (minus melting faces) could be as good. But since there was no need to return the stolen D-Day plans from the princess before June 6th, it would also be dinged for being needlessly historically preposterous, and every other historical inaccuracy would be noticed, and would join it on a bunch of lists. It would be an “I enjoy it, but…” movie.

A great example of just that, U-571, didn’t need to be about The Enigma, which the Brits obtained, not the Americans. It’s a MacGuffin, so pick another one, like Notorious did. Invent something, you storyteller you. Make the movie about trying to find Atlantis before Hitler can claim their giant heat rays and warrior dinosaurs, film the same film, and then listen to reviews saying, “This fantasy action picture actually gets a lot of details about submarine warfare in the 1940s right, and what a romp!” By being honest, it would be championed for the things it nailed, rather than given caveats at every turn because of a needless deception, which I think is a fair word to use for these, whatever the motivation. It’s still a knowing lie.

And if you can’t do either of those things, dear film maker, be straight.

3. Start with “Loosely based on the true events of …” or some such.

That’s my issue, the blanket excuse, and those rarely work well in general. Historical movies can get the feel of a time across in a way textbooks can’t, certainly the look, the sounds, music, allowing us to be immersed in that time and place. That’s the kind of useful (and enjoyable) thing that can anchor events into memory, so why not get them right? To put your stamp on it, Mr. Producer? “I can’t just tell it like it was, anyone could do that, I need to bring something, make it my own, otherwise why was I here?” Maybe. Honestly, I think it’s just done because it’s done. Often, each new person who enters the writing process on a picture looks at the existing story not as a nearly finished sculpture, but as raw material, whether it’s a Gremlins or a Bohemian Rhapsody. “I’ve got to turn what I’ve been given into something, or I’ll be replaced next” all but necessitates diverging.

But some oversight wouldn’t hurt. “You’re not here to change the story, but to make this one work. Or to tell us there’s no way to do it without boring people into disconnection, so we can chuck it and really make the movie we want to see.”

It can happen, the fabrication, but it’s hard to excuse its being de rigueur.

[GerateWohl]

Biopics like Ghandi or The Last Emperor pull some of their power and fascination out of a certain historical accuracy.
I mean, looking for three hours at a fictious story about Ghandi would probably be quite boring unless you take the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer route.

[Author]

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