Historical Accuracy in TV and Film

[Brazen]

The movie was not a kids movie.

  It was billed as "a movie for all ages"

It seemed pretty obvious to me the target audience was the same as the book.

It was hardly All's Quiet On The Western Front.

[Valmy]

trailers (for TV, which I have seen) did NOT advertise it as a kids movie. it was SPIELBERGS NEXT WAR MOVIE EPIC

I cannot account for the fact that Hungarians advertised a kids movie, based on a kids book as an epic war movie for adults.

Well Americans did the same.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm with Beethoven and Valmy.

[Tamas]

trailers (for TV, which I have seen) did NOT advertise it as a kids movie. it was SPIELBERGS NEXT WAR MOVIE EPIC

I cannot account for the fact that Hungarians advertised a kids movie, based on a kids book as an epic war movie for adults.

it was a major british network. 

[crazy canuck]

The movie was not a kids movie.

  It was billed as "a movie for all ages"

It seemed pretty obvious to me the target audience was the same as the book.

It was rated PG-13, so a movie for all ages above 13

Nowhere in the marketing I saw was it being sold as a kids movie.

I am not surprised you didnt notice since you are now surprised it was a kids movie.

From the Dreamworks description -

From director Steven Spielberg comes "War Horse," an epic adventure for audiences of all ages

.

http://www.dreamworksstudios.com/films/war-horse

[Brazen]

It was rated PG-13, so a movie for all ages above 13

Nowhere in the marketing I saw was it being sold as a kids movie.

If it were at all accurate or adult the starving French would have eaten the bloody horse.

[Admiral Yi]

On the topic of Warhorse, definitely agree it was crap (though nowhere close to the crappiness of Paeschandele), but the horse stunts were absolutely amazing.

[viper37]

Do you care about historical accuracy in Movies or TV shows at all?

If you vote for option #3, please give an example of where you draw the line.

Question inspired by this review. Pics with a little more commentary can be found by clicking the link.

http://exurbe.com/?p=2176

Depends what.  Totally anachronistic behavior or costumes for the time period might bother me of a purely historical piece.  If it's supposed to be fantasy/science-fiction, I ain't that bothered.  Even then...

See, in Last of the Mohicans, the weapon used by Chingatchook is not something east-coast indians used.  The rifles weren't invented yet, they were used by Kentuckians during the revolutionary war.  The Coat of Arms of the British soldiers ain't right either, this regiment wasn't there at the time.  If you dig deeper... Well, a professional soldier would never invite his daughter to join him on the front.  We know, historically it didn't happen.  We know Monroe didn't die that day.  We know there was no post-battle massacre at fort William-Henry.   We know, the way they leave the lake, and reach a river, it doesn't fit with the actual geography.

Is it a bad movie for this?  Not at all.   Indians are accuratly portrayed.  They fought they way they are presented in the movie.  Some of the fights during that war (the defeat of Braddock's invincible) happenned mostly the way one battle is depicted on screen.  We know siege warfare was done like in the movie: bring the guns, defenders attempt a sortie with a short ranged battle outside the fort, attacker digs trenches move guns closer, ultimately mortarts are brought in and the defenders either surrender or perish after the walls are battered to dust.

It's the general principle that count.  Had Montcalm been depicted as bloodthirsty savage bent on revenge for the murder of his family, excuting prisoners himself after they surrendered, I would say it was a bad movie.

Take Spartacus.  Everything is hyperbolic.  The violence, the sex... I doubt we could see people fucking in the arena and humans probably don't contain as much blood as is spilled during a 1hr episode.  Yet, it is a good show.  They took some liberties with Spartacus, from what we know, he didn't jump 12ft in the air to reach the Romans during his escape, it was probably closer to the old Spartacus movie.  Still a good show.  I can excuse the hyperbolic, it gets the message pretty right: Roman society was just a tad more violent and less "moralistic" than ours.

[Queequeg]

I forgive inaccuracies and simplifications if I think they get the period right, and am extremely pissed when I think they fuck up the "feel" of a period.  Examples;

Deadwood's swearwords are generally a lot less blasphemous and a lot more sexual than you'd expect for the period (also way more secular in general), but it's fantastically well written and I think the look at the civilizing process as an important, more accurate antidote to The Virginian inspired bullshit hero narratives. 

Rome did something vaguely similar-the victory of the Populares over the Optimates and the creation of a new, authoritarian, populist Empire, with the two central characters representing the old Republican order and the new Dominate-Empire, racially mixed and chaotic.  The combat is also a great deal more realistic.  However, Egypt and Asia Minor are both completely, totally inaccurate. 

Andrei Rublev and The Seventh Seal both get to some of nihilistic depression of the Plague (also, obviously, commenting on loss of life after WW2).  Both have fantastic elements, but work. 

Barry Lyndon simultaneously plays with common depiction and understanding of the period while also presenting 18th Century Europe in all it's glory. 

Apocalypto got a lot of the specifics wrong, but I think the constant genocide required by Mesoamerican native beliefs was accurately depicted.  It was really neat to get in to the head of a simple hunter-gatherer, never having seen a town, thrown in to a dying city of tens of thousands to be slaughtered for reasons you can't comprehend.

The New World is one of my favorite movies of all time, and gets to some of the heady cultural contact of the 17th Century and the Puritanical protoliberal hope of the colonists. 

Seven Years a Slave is a more recent example that I like. 

I love The Leopard.  I have no idea why movies tend to avoid depiction of the mid-19th Century national unifications.  There's a lot of room for drama. 

I don't think enough people are familiar with Zhang Yimou's early period dramas.  To Live and Raise the Red Lanterns are both fantastic, and the latter is an all-time favorite.  Really fascinating look at 20th Century Chinese life.\

Danton.  Gerard Depardieu's performance is memorable, and it doesn't devolve in to complete hysterical melodrama. 



However, a few obvious examples that seem especially egregious. 

Kingdom of Heaven is a terrible movie.  It gets a lot if the history right, and the combat is accurately depicted as more of bunch of big men in iron shirts pushing shields at eachother, but the Noble Muslim v. Evil Christian bullshit is extremely tiresome, as is the Hitchensy New Atheism of a fucking Crusader.  Also, the "HEY I'M FROM FUCKING NORTHERN FRANCE BUT I'M GOING TO TEACH YOU BROWN SHITS HOW TO BUILD A FUCKING WELL!" scene was retarded.  Deeply, deeply stupid movie, and the extraordinary performance of Eva Green and (especially) Edward Norton are wasted. 

The Tudors just isn't very good.  A man who had one bastard to his name and 6 wives was not going to be fucking outside of marriage all the time.  I also really resent any depiction of Sir Thomas "Burn the fucking Protestants" Moore as a stand-in for Erasmus. 

Also, Elizabeth.  Cate Blanchette was great, but I'm really tired of seeing the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the persecution of the local Catholic population as the great destruction of the Spanish Empire.  That's happening on the other side of the channel in the Low Countries. 

[Maximus]

I have long since given up on expecting historical accuracy on the History Channel, let alone a historical movie.

What? Now you'll tell me that Ancient Aliens is not historical accurate?

It's like the opposite of history.

herstory?

[Viking]

I also liked that movie about the English Civil War.  Can't remember the title.  Obi wan plays the king.

Cromwell with Alec Guinness and Richard Harris.

They're making a TV mini-series of Wolf Hall with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell. Hope they make a decent job of that. Probably stands a better chance than trying to cram it all into a film.

The two characters in Showtime's "The Tudors" that stole the show for me were Natalie Dormer and James Fraine they WERE Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell.

[The Brain]

I'm not anal about historical accuracy. Most movies do not try to be historically accurate. The Seventh Seal doesn't try to be historically accurate and it's an awesome movie.

[viper37]

Man, I bet you really hate Star Trek.

Anyway that is Sci Fi where they basically have magical spells, they just have to reverse the polarity.

that's the best part, where there's a disruption of the time space continuum

[viper37]

Also one thing I've always been curious about is what happens when a plot point is around a foreign speaking character obviously from a certain country-what happens when it comes to that country's version?

nothing.  I.e. french speaking character meeting an english speaking character and they use French in the original version, they use french for both in the dubbing, usually, without accents.  Sometimes, they keep the original actors for a foreign dialog or singing.

[viper37]

I'm not anal about historical accuracy. Most movies do not try to be historically accurate. The Seventh Seal doesn't try to be historically accurate and it's an awesome movie.

most historical movies are based on historical novels wich themselves aren't historical... yet, everyone bitches about the movies.  Braveheart is a good example of this.  The movie is based on the book and is quite faithful to the book.  Alas, it hasn't much to do with the real history.