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Should Historical Films be Accurately Portrayed?

But yes, they should stick to truth and realism if they are going to tell about historical events or claim to describe historical times. Even thought King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are very deep into supernatural fantasy, their historical depiction should be at least consistent with the selected historical times (tribal post-Rome period, feudal high medieval setting...)
Yes this illustrates another paradigm, that of historical fiction put to film.
Beowulf
Odyssey
troy
Percy Jackson (depicting ancient Greece)
Lord of the Rings etc..
while all the above are fiction, there is some level of historic backdrop requiring historical and cultural accuracy to stay true and respect the author's art. Some extent Lord of the rings does pay respect (mostly) to Tolkien, others like Beowulf are made into comedic children's cartoons.

A high watermark of achievement here is Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" which is how historical films (even fiction) should be. I like to give credit where it's due.
 
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Documentaries should be 100% factual. Historical dramas or movies based on real events should have free artistic license to make the movie more entertaining or to appeal to larger audience.

If you want historical accuracy, find a documentary. If you want to be entertained by a historical drama or a movie based on real events, then there nothing wrong with that. Just be aware of the nature of what you're watching.
Make sense but the line is effectively blurred to a general audience. People watching "Le Miserable" forget it's fiction and think are transported to 18th century France or worse, medieval dramas where everyone has cosmetic dentistry, clean ironed clothes, washed blow dried hair and clean cobble streets and choreographed conversations in American accents more like 2000s NY instead of Medieval middle English.
 
I think the problem boils down to the fact that Hollywood is a business and the business is entertainment.

For the most part, accurate portrayal of history would not entertaining - or at least entertaining enough for their profit margin. Thus Hollywood must make it more entertaining in order to sell their product. And movies are far more profitable than documentaries.
Yes agree 100%
 
No. Because movies are creativity. It's art. Let them tell the story as they like, as long as it isn't too violent, evil, or lewd. Naturally, the viewers can form their own opinions.

My daughter and I both love Walt Disney's Pocahontas. In this movie, Pocahontas is a young woman, not a child. She and a sea captain named John Smith fall in love and bring unity between the two peoples, ending a war. Yeah in the movie version, the white people are horrid, but it's a whole lot more kumbaya than what really happened.

My daughter and I both know that the plot of this film is the biggest load of malarkey.

At the end of the movie, John Smith returns home to England to recieve emergency medical care for his battle wound. Desperately they hold each other's hands and pledge to never forget one another. The indians are so so sad to see John Smith go.

Pocahontas stays with her people. The end scene is the British ship sailing out of the harbor in Virginia and into the open sea.

At this point, as the ship is sailing off the screen, I like to playfully interject a narration "And thus, the white people all went back to Europe.

So that the Indigenous Peoples could have free range of their ancestral lands, those very small amounts of Europeans who came later volunteered to live in communities, on parcels of land that were less arable, known as White People Reservations.

They asked the Native Americans 'Please oh please could we live on small parcels of land, where the land is inhospitible to growing crops, crowded in the same house, generation after generation, without any right to sell the land, or any upward mobility? For you, you are the rightful owners of the land, and we wouldn't want this to be Stolen Land.'

Later still, the Europeans so loved the New World and wanted to share it with their friends, that they invited their friends from Africa to come along on ships. They gave their African friends the best accommodations on the ship. The whites volunteering to sleep in the bilge.

And once they got to the new world, the Europeans asked the Native Americans, very kindly, if they could spare some some more land, of the Indians' choosing. But this time, to share good arable, fertile land with their African friends.

The Europeans built big stately homes for their African friends. Oh how the whites begged to live in little shacks and grow and pick cotton for the Africans. Oh how service made their lives so fulfilled.

And that's exactly how it happened, in real life. It all started with the White people going home, leaving the Virginia Colony to its rightful owners."
 
Later still, the Europeans so loved the New World and wanted to share it with their friends, that they invited their friends from Africa to come along on ships. They gave their African friends the best accommodations on the ship. The whites volunteering to sleep in the bilge.

And once they got to the new world, the Europeans asked the Native Americans, very kindly, if they could spare some some more land, of the Indians' choosing. But this time, to share good arable, fertile land with their African friends.

The Europeans built big stately homes for their African friends. Oh how the whites begged to live in little shacks and grow and pick cotton for the Africans. Oh how service made their lives so fulfilled.

And that's exactly how it happened, in real life. It all started with the White people going home, leaving the Virginia Colony to its rightful owners."
Sounds like a nice story :)
 
No. Because movies are creativity. It's art. Let them tell the story as they like, as long as it isn't too violent, evil, or lewd. Naturally, the viewers can form their own opinions.

My daughter and I both love Walt Disney's Pocahontas. In this movie, Pocahontas is a young woman, not a child. She and a sea captain named John Smith fall in love and bring unity between the two peoples, ending a war. Yeah in the movie version, the white people are horrid, but it's a whole lot more kumbaya than what really happened.

My daughter and I both know that the plot of this film is the biggest load of malarkey.
My family loves Disney animation and I think they get a pass. Halle Bailey who played the Little mermaid might not look like Hans Christian Anderson's Ariel, but she has a voice like an angel and is a great actress (regardless of the criticism).
 
My family loves Disney animation and I think they get a pass. Halle Bailey who played the Little mermaid might not look like Hans Christian Anderson's Ariel, but she has a voice like an angel and is a great actress (regardless of the criticism).
It's actually accurate, to have Halle Bailey play Ariel. Because someone swimming around every day in nothing but a bikini, would have to have at least a caramel complexion to protect against solar radiation, living in the Caribbean Sea, where the live action movie takes place.

And the animated film takes place in the Aegean, again a place where redheads who live there often need a little bit of melanoma removed from time to time.
 
Make sense but the line is effectively blurred to a general audience. People watching "Le Miserable" forget it's fiction and think are transported to 18th century France or worse, medieval dramas where everyone has cosmetic dentistry, clean ironed clothes, washed blow dried hair and clean cobble streets and choreographed conversations in American accents more like 2000s NY instead of Medieval middle English.

We can't fix "stupid". Seriously, I don't think most people watching Le Miserable believe it is authentic. They know it's a Broadway play.
 
My daughter and I both know that the plot of this film is the biggest load of malarkey.

And that's exactly how it happened, in real life.

Sounds like you are teaching your daughter early to not believe "I speak true, honestly" and "based on the true events" -assurances even from the people she trusts. Either that, or she will have eventually a real rude awakening if she really buys those stories. 😄

Seriously... I see your point. In obvious children's productions last thing I would want, or expect, is the historical horrors to have thrown at children's eyes. Besides, I don't expect anyone, including children when they begin to grow up and meet real historical facts, to stick as a truth to something they saw at the Saturday morning toons (relating to my worry about entertainment making historical facts fuzzy to adult audience).
 
It's just a bit sad at times to see one's reputation destroyed just for Hollywood effects, long past their own lifetime.

Reminding me of a 1961 flim I saw yesterday, which was quite authentic and living up to the actual history- "Sink The Bismarck!" When they portrayed German Fleet Admiral Günther Lütjens as a devout Nazi, when historically speaking, he wasn't at all. With the film depicting him addressing the crew of his ship proudly proclaiming, "Never forget that you are Germans, never forget that you are Nazis!" (BS)

In fact at the time of his death with the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in 1941, he was actually being investigated by the Gestapo. But then there were a number of high-ranking Naval personnel whose allegiance was still in line with their Kaiser, and not a "Bohemian Corporal".

A deceased member of my extended family was also maligned both in another person's autobiography, and later in a film made based on the same book. Made for an amusing character perhaps to an audience, but with a false and less-than-complimentary narrative. One that I can still find certain website forums discussing.
 
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Make sense but the line is effectively blurred to a general audience. People watching "Le Miserable" forget it's fiction and think are transported to 18th century France or worse, medieval dramas where everyone has cosmetic dentistry, clean ironed clothes, washed blow dried hair and clean cobble streets and choreographed conversations in American accents more like 2000s NY instead of Medieval middle English.

Oddly enough that reminded me of one thing in particular I appreciated about the remake of "Midway. All those naval officers in their khakis, which looked terrible. Particularly in Hawaii when all that constant rain and humidity kept them looking pretty shabby.

A minor detail that the original film didn't bother with. But then Charlton Heston probably demanded that his clothes be cleaned and pressed at all times...lol.

And unlike the original, the remake gave Woody Harrelson an excellent hairpiece to appear as Admiral Nimitz. Something Henry Fonda probably would have refused to do in the original 1976 film.
 
I do like a few historical movies where the people the movie is portraying is shown or interviewed at the end of the movie. While they are not perfectly accurate, it "feels" more credible than otherwise.
Examples:
Catch Me if You Can

and The Best of Enemies

While I realize that neither of these movies are absolutely accurate, including the real people the movie is about really helps get the point across.
I grew up during the time depicted in The Best of Enemies and the point of the movie's depiction fits well with my personal experience. I lived in a city of C.P. Ellis types. My personal family included. So, even though it is a fictional movie, the depiction of bigotry and lifestyles is very accurate.

Another of my favorites is Hidden Figures
Yes, this movie was also very fictional, but the point it was making is not.
 
Reminding me of a 1961 flim I saw yesterday, which was quite authentic and living up to the actual history- "Sink The Bismarck!" When they portrayed German Fleet Admiral Günther Lütjens as a devout Nazi, when historically speaking, he wasn't at all. With the film depicting him addressing the crew of his ship proudly proclaiming, "Never forget that you are Germans, never forget that you are Nazis!" (BS)
It's very hard to know retrospectively what an individual Nazi was thinking in the 1940s If you wanted to portray them in a film. Roughly speaking the Ash, Zimbardo and Milgram social psychology experiments divide Nazis roughly as follows:
1. Social conformity - Many German people conform to a new standards of Nazism in order to fit in, be liked, and avoid being targeted as traitors and be shot.
2. Informational conformity - Many Germans did not know what was going on (particularly outside of cities) so rely on others to tell them what to do
3. Obedience to Authority - Many Germans see Nazis as authority figures so fall back on "I was following orders"
4. Internalising roles - Basically wearing a uniform and being given a weapon they internalise their role as a Nazi and exert their power (perhaps abusing it) over their enemy.

A good example is Verner Von Braun, the German rocket scientist. After the war Von Braun pretended he was a number 1 type Nazi to his American employers in the US space program. But after he died, evidence emerged he was more likely a number 4 type Nazi.

Another one is Oskar Schindler. In Spielberg's Schindler's list he was portrayed as a type 1 Nazi but he also enjoyed the perks of his status and exploited Jewish slave labour to get rich. How should he have been portrayed in Hollywood film?
 
It's very hard to know retrospectively what an individual Nazi was thinking in the 1940s

Not in the case of Günther Lütjens. Who stuck his neck out so far in 1938 that it's amazing that he was able to retain his rank and military career. It's amazing he remained only under scrutiny by the Gestapo until his death, three years later. Especially given some of the OKW ranking members of the Army who were forcibly retired because of disagreements of Hitler and the party.

"In November 1938 Lütjens was one of only three flag officers who protested in writing against the atrocities committed by Nazi thugs during the pogroms against Jewish citizens, synagogues and property during the so-called "Kristallnacht". At the outbreak of World War II Lütjens was Commander of Scouting Forces."

He was never a Nazi party member.

warships, submarines, uboats, passenger liners, sailing ships, fishing vessels, cargo ships, merchant ships, ship database
 
Oddly enough that reminded me of one thing in particular I appreciated about the remake of "Midway. All those naval officers in their khakis, which looked terrible. Particularly in Hawaii when all that constant rain and humidity kept them looking pretty shabby.
Yeah good pickup. war movies have improved in accuracy from the 1950s. Have you seen the 1993 film Stalingrad? it is quite brutal but in reality the behaviour of German troops on the Russian front would be too extreme even for an R rating.
 
Not in the case of Günther Lütjens. Who stuck his neck out so far in 1938 that it's amazing that he was able to retain his rank and military career. It's amazing he remained only under scrutiny by the Gestapo until his death, three years later.

"In November 1938 Lütjens was one of only three flag officers who protested in writing against the atrocities committed by Nazi thugs during the pogroms against Jewish citizens, synagogues and property during the so-called "Kristallnacht". At the outbreak of World War II Lütjens was Commander of Scouting Forces."

He was never a Nazi party member.

warships, submarines, uboats, passenger liners, sailing ships, fishing vessels, cargo ships, merchant ships, ship database
Yeah but he still put on a uniform so I guess he's a type 1.
 
Yeah good pickup. war movies have improved in accuracy from the 1950s. Have you seen the 1993 film Stalingrad? it is quite brutal but in reality the behaviour of German troops on the Russian front would be too extreme even for an R rating.

I have it on DVD, along with many major war movies. Grim film on so many levels. And to see how low morale was with all the infighting between officers and men, and the army versus the SS.
 

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