# History vs Cinema



## BAYLOR (Sep 5, 2014)

How well does Cinema do in portraying history, Famous historical figures , Peoples , places and events major and minor ? Which films do a good job with  this regard and which film do a poor job .  What factors come into play in how these things are portrayed?


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## J-Sun (Sep 5, 2014)

I think cinema's relation to history is about like its relation to science and perhaps for similar reasons - nothing's ever good enough unless it's been glitzed up into something completely manufactured. I gather certain things like _Apollo 13_ (hey, history _and_ science!) don't score 100 but do pretty well. Things like _Cleopatra_, not so much. Seems like the farther back you go in Hollywood and the farther back you go in time, the worse it gets. Individual dramatic events fare better than larger complex social sweeps, at least in some cases. But I'm not a big historical film buff so it's just a general impression. I'm sure major fans can cite individual items pro and con much better and maybe the overall field is better than I think.


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## Foxbat (Sep 5, 2014)

I think - first and foremost - we have to accept that cinema is entertainment and probably will not be 100% accurate because of that. I think it's okay to a certain extent to apply artistic licence but the audience will probably be hostile towards a movie if it's more or less a downright lie (unless, of course, it's a deliberate parody - something like a Mel Brookes movie).

I think in recent years I've enjoyed _Downfall. _It seemed accurate (from what I know) and was both gripping and horrific. _Waterloo _is another I enjoy and, like _Downfall,_ brings a three-dimensional edge to the tyrant in question.

Another was _The Baader Meinhoff Complex _which, again, seemed a fairly accurate portrayal of the events. _Che Part Two _tended to avoid the reality behind Guevara's execution (failing to mention the removal of his hands and implying that it was a primarily Bolivian decision to execute him without trial). It did not detract from the movie but was an annoyance in the sense that the whole truth was not being told. I could live with it and still regard it as a fine movie.

U571 - on the other hand - is just an insult to the real men who obtained the Enigma code machine.

I think, ultimately, writers and directors simply need to know just how far they can go and when the audience will just simply say no.


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## Abernovo (Sep 5, 2014)

Yes. What Foxbat says.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 5, 2014)

*Braveheart* anyone?


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 5, 2014)

Foxbat said:


> I think - first and foremost - we have to accept that cinema is entertainment and probably will not be 100% accurate because of that. I think it's okay to a certain extent to apply artistic licence but the audience will probably be hostile towards a movie if it's more or less a downright lie (unless, of course, it's a deliberate parody - something like a Mel Brookes movie).
> 
> U571 - on the other hand - is just an insult to the real men who obtained the Enigma code machine.
> 
> I think, ultimately, writers and directors simply need to know just how far they can go and when the audience will just simply say no.



Apparently the writer, David Ayer, of U571 did meet one of the real men who recovered an enigma machine and apparently the veteran wasn't offended with the script/story,* but *Ayer does say now that he regrets distorting history in such a manner and he would not do it again. (After the film got made and he made his fee of course...) 

There does seem to be a great commercial pressure particularly for WW2 films made by US studios for them to be Americanised, 'cause that's the biggest market. I think though there is a lot to be worried about such shenanigans, but then again such pressures are as old as, well, any media. 

Take the D-day landings. When I was growing up the seminal film about this event was _The Longest Day,_ a faux documentary, and it looked at all sides and had a reasonably balanced showing of US, French, German and 'British' involvement (I'll come back to why I've marked out us Brits...). Post 1998 the seminal D-day film has become _Saving Private Ryan_, and although it's purpose is not to tell the story of the full landings, I think there is a danger that because it is so powerful future generations will make it synonymous with D-day - and perhaps come away thinking that the US did everything. Of course not so, the British _Empire_ supplied the majority of the initial forces for the landings. 

Which leads me to why I can't really have a go at the 'yanks' for this. When the UK film industry churned out war films in the late 40's and fifties you'd be hard pressed I think to find the contribution of the Canadian, ANZAC or South African nations in their films - the big market for the films of course being the UK, so it's all stiff-upper-lipped Brits being brave. Going back to D-day I believe about a quarter of those landed on the beaches on the first day were Canadian and I'm not sure even the _Longest Day_ portrays this reality. And talking about the Enigma code machine does the film 2001 _Enigma_ film downplay the contribution of the Polish? 

Finally I have yet to see a UK war film that shows us the contribution of the 2.5 million Indian army that volunteered to fight for Britain. And add to that the approximately one million black African troops raised by Britain to fight, or the Caribbean men that fly and fought for us as well. (Apologies to any far-flung parts of the old British Empire that I haven't mentioned!) 

I suppose films will always be looking at what generates the dollars, or pounds, or euros....


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## Vertigo (Sep 5, 2014)

Venusian Broon said:


> I suppose films will always be looking at what generates the dollars, or pounds, or euros....


Ultimately that is, I think, the most powerful factor. The film moguls are not (for the most part) philanthropists; they are interested in making money.


BAYLOR said:


> *Braveheart* anyone?


It's not just Braveheart; it's just about any historical film made by Gibson: Braveheart, Patriot, Passion of Christ. All of them were gross distortions of history.

Personally I think it is worrying. It seems to me that history is given less and less influence in school these days which leaves people believing what they see in the cinema and on TV is valid and correct history. Whilst popular media has always distorted history (think Shakespeare and Richard III) I think the power of film to do so in the modern era is much stronger. And, of course, because it is 'fiction' it is allowed to get away with it. And maybe that's okay even if I happen to dislike it intensely.


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## AnyaKimlin (Sep 5, 2014)

BAYLOR said:


> *Braveheart* anyone?



Given there are areas of Scotland that are woeful at preserving their own history, I don't think we can blame Hollywood.  I live in one of the most important areas to Scottish History - the city has what was one of the biggest Cathedrals in Scotland. However most people outside of Scotland don't know it exists. We don't have a proper dedicated records office and the information is scattered. Things have improved and there are now excavations. Aberdeen University and UHI now have archaeology degrees (20 years ago they did not). However the High Street has one blue plaque that doesn't even mention the most famous inhabitant of the house and one inaccurate information board with a picture of Jeremy Irons in medieval clothes.

We don't know enough about William Wallace to make an accurate film about him.  I've heard more than one Scots history teacher call him the "Interfering Frenchman."


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## Foxbat (Sep 5, 2014)

I think the best description I've seen  for Braveheart is a 'Porridge Western'. Kind of sums it up nicely.


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## paranoid marvin (Sep 5, 2014)

Like the majority of WWII film, it's history as people would have liked it to have been. Interestingly, the only war films that tend to be harrowing rather than glorious (with the odd exception) are those from WWI. 

I'm sure that Wallace (and most Scotsmen) would love to think that he was just like the Gibson character in the movie; but reality I'm sure was very different.

If people watch the movies, then are interested enough to follow this up by reading about what happened on the internet, then that's great. And I would say that with the ease information can be accessed via the internet (rather than having to go to the library to find a book on the subject), people these days have never had it so easy.

In all honesty, it doesn't really matter whether Wallace was a Scottish Rambo, if the Yanks get the Enigma rather than the Brits or that humans weren't around when dinosaurs ruled the Earth; as far as tv and film is concerned the truth should never get in the way of a good story.


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## J-Sun (Sep 5, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> Like the majority of WWII film, it's history as people would have liked it to have been. Interestingly, the only war films that tend to be harrowing rather than glorious (with the odd exception) are those from WWI.



_Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill, The Deer Hunter_. I think Viet Nam qualifies. And the most godawful "I will never, ever watch it again and despise it as murder/gore porn and want to wash it out of my brain" movie, _Saving Private Ryan_, was WWII. Yes, most everybody was real heroic when they weren't shooting prisoners and so on, but I can't call it anything but harrowing and inglorious. And, contra WWI's negativity, there's _Sergeant York_, for instance. But, yeah, statistically, WWII does seem to be the most heroic war in film. Not sure about the most negatively portrayed war, though - that's probably Viet Nam rather than WWI.

Interestingly, in a macroscopic sense, that would mean cinema was historically accurate in that most societies see WWII as the necessary good fight and Viet Nam as a mess.


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## paranoid marvin (Sep 6, 2014)

Sorry, forgot about Vietnam.  I guess with WWII many of the battles were even contests which make for good action flicks. The same applies to the Napoleonic Wars, and Rome , Sparta etc. Vietnam and WWI were different in that much of the conflict was one-sided; either the US bombing huge swathes of 'Nam, Viet-Cong ambushing GIs then retreating to the jungle or in the case of WWI machine-gun nests mowing down hundreds of helpless troops. Because there is less action, more time is spent looking at the individuals involved and the futility of war.

Also I guess it helps that WWII was one of the few wars which really was about good vs evil, and not just two (or more) power-hungry nations battling it out for the same territory; and just as importantly we won! Which gives more of a feel-good factor about the battles.


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## Flyerman11 (Sep 6, 2014)

One example of terribly wrong "historical" films is  "The Sound Barrier" (1952) it does not even try to get things right and a lot of people who saw it believed for years that the British were the first to fly supersonic. Even today, the film description from IMDB says :"_Fictionalized_ story of British aerospace engineers solving the problem of supersonic flight."  It should say: "Fictional story - or even Science Fiction story" as I feel the term fictionalized implies that some historical aspects are real. 

Not only that, but the technical elements are so flawed it's laughable (reversing controls near supersonic speed will most likely kill you).


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## BAYLOR (Sep 7, 2014)

J-Sun said:


> _Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill, The Deer Hunter_. I think Viet Nam qualifies. And the most godawful "I will never, ever watch it again and despise it as murder/gore porn and want to wash it out of my brain" movie, _Saving Private Ryan_, was WWII. Yes, most everybody was real heroic when they weren't shooting prisoners and so on, but I can't call it anything but harrowing and inglorious. And, contra WWI's negativity, there's _Sergeant York_, for instance. But, yeah, statistically, WWII does seem to be the most heroic war in film. Not sure about the most negatively portrayed war, though - that's probably Viet Nam rather than WWI.
> 
> Interestingly, in a macroscopic sense, that would mean cinema was historically accurate in that most societies see WWII as the necessary good fight and Viet Nam as a mess.



Kubrick's  *Paths to Glory *. I was stuck by how the film portrayed the callousness  of the generals and commanding officers towards the soldiers under their command .  The film wasn't wrong on that score   In  WW I. 

In battles like the Somme and Verdun, they just ket sending men into those cauldrons.  They're still finding bodies from those two battles to this day.


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## Michael Colton (Sep 7, 2014)

If you would like to be annoyed by virtually every historical film ever made, study the history of typography and typefaces. Filmmakers almost never, ever go to that level of detail in the films.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 8, 2014)

The 1981 film* Excalibur*. I absolutely love this film.  The big issue with it is that it it around the 6th  century roughly?  The suits of armor that all the knights wore is all from middle to high middle ages .


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## AnyaKimlin (Sep 8, 2014)

World War II also suffered from the documents being restricted.  It is only recently a lot of them have been released.

The Dam Busters had to rely on Guy Gibson's autobiography and guess work.  With an awful lot of history there just isn't enough information to construct a whole movie.


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 8, 2014)

BAYLOR said:


> The 1981 film* Excalibur*. I absolutely love this film.  The big issue with it is that it it around the 6th  century roughly?  The suits of armor that all the knights wore is all from middle to high middle ages .





Perhaps its set some time in the age of deepest myth, just before the age of fables and just after the age of BBC dinosaur documentaries. 

Actually people complained officially (in jest I hope) to the BBC that the recent TV programme _Merlin_ wasn't 'accurate' to the myths of King Arthur. Which of course depends on which mythic Arthur or story your basing it on. There are plenty of time periods to steal from when constructing your new Arthur...


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## BAYLOR (Oct 5, 2014)

Venusian Broon said:


> Perhaps its set some time in the age of deepest myth, just before the age of fables and just after the age of BBC dinosaur documentaries.
> 
> Actually people complained officially (in jest I hope) to the BBC that the recent TV programme _Merlin_ wasn't 'accurate' to the myths of King Arthur. Which of course depends on which mythic Arthur or story your basing it on. There are plenty of time periods to steal from when constructing your new Arthur...



Hm ,  Im thinking  that Hollywood likes a good historically inaccurate epic that sells popcorn .


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## BAYLOR (Oct 20, 2014)

Foxbat said:


> U571 - on the other hand - is just an insult to the real men who obtained the Enigma code machine.
> 
> I think, ultimately, writers and directors simply need to know just how far they can go and when the audience will just simply say no.




I saw U571in the theaters ,thought it an okay action flick, but that about all.


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## The Ace (Oct 20, 2014)

"Downfall," was based on the memoirs of Traudl Junge, Hitler's youngest secretary, bridesmaid to Eva Braun, witness at their wedding, and the Bunker scenes are based on her eyewitness account (the ending is fiction, because the real story's a bit boring).  She was in hospital dying of terminal cancer when the film was made, and it's reputed that when the rushes were shown to an invited audience, one of the crew visited her when it was over and told her of the audience reaction.

She reportedly said, 'My story has been told, I can let go now." She died hours later.

While Scottish history wasn't taught in Scottish schools for a long time, stories of Wallace abound - it's just unfortunate that the real story is rarely told. "Braveheart," is junk, but that's nothing new.

After all, some English scribbler once wrote a play that turned traitor and double regicide Malcolm III Canmore into a hero, just because his patron was descended from the ******* of Forteviot  (Malcolm's youngest son, David I, was the fourth great-grandfather of Robert I (the Bruce) - grandfather of Robert II - founder of the Stewart/Stuart Dynasty).


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## BigBadBob141 (Nov 4, 2014)

History and Cinema ?
I think the fact that Morgan Freeman's character in Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves had both gun powder and a telescope says it all!


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## paranoid marvin (Nov 4, 2014)

It always amuses me how people seem to put Richard I on a pedestal as the epitome of English bravery, when in fact he was a Frenchman who only used England to fund his wars; and to at the same time denigrate John who spent most of his life actually ruling England. It's amazing how people's perceptions can be moulded by the media, regardless of any actual facts.


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## thaddeus6th (Nov 4, 2014)

I think we still had a fair share of France back then, so what is today considered French was back then part of the Angevin realm (so it's not really fair to call him French). It's like Greeks today claiming Alexander was Greek (he certainly was not, half-Epirot, half-Macedonian. Demosthenes wrote that the Macedonians were so barbaric they didn't even make good slaves) because part of his ancient kingdom was in modern day Greece.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 4, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> It always amuses me how people seem to put Richard I on a pedestal as the epitome of English bravery, when in fact he was a Frenchman who only used England to fund his wars; and to at the same time denigrate John who spent most of his life actually ruling England. It's amazing how people's perceptions can be moulded by the media, regardless of any actual facts.



Ruled 11 years spent only about 6 of them in England.


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## paranoid marvin (Nov 4, 2014)

6 months that is! And the language he spoke was French. Yet every time I've seem him portrayed in film and tv he's had a very British accent.


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## Ray McCarthy (Nov 4, 2014)

Das Boot seems very good.

Select German audio and English Subtitles.


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 4, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> 6 months that is! And the language he spoke was French. Yet every time I've seem him portrayed in film and tv he's had a very British accent.



Best Richard the first must shurely be the nuanced Edinburgh-French of Sean Connery's portrayal in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.


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## paranoid marvin (Nov 4, 2014)

Venusian Broon said:


> Best Richard the first must shurely be the nuanced Edinburgh-French of Sean Connery's portrayal in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.



Coincidentally he's played both sides - he was Robin in Robin & Marian.

My favourite Connery is the Scottish captain of the Red October - he never even tries to hide his accent!


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## thaddeus6th (Nov 4, 2014)

I do wonder, though, at the director insisting everyone affects a Russian accent. Except the captain. It's like wearing a tuxedo and clown shoes.


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 4, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> Coincidentally he's played both sides - he was Robin in Robin & Marian.
> 
> My favourite Connery is the Scottish captain of the Red October - he never even tries to hide his accent!



I think this is proof that we Scots in fact colonised the whole world, before it was all stolen from us. Who could forget as well the refined Spanish accent displayed in _Highlander?  _


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## thaddeus6th (Nov 4, 2014)

Venusian, that was augmented by the Frenchman pretending to be Scottish.


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 4, 2014)

thaddeus6th said:


> Venusian, that was augmented by the Frenchman pretending to be Scottish.





If they world was to go up in a nuclear conflagration and every scrap of information was destroyed apart from a DVD library of a couple hundred movies like that, just think of the mental gymnastics archaeologists might go through trying to make sense of our history and world from them... 

Actually I think that's the basis of an Alfred Bester short story


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## AnyaKimlin (Nov 4, 2014)

I'm not sure it'd be all that much harder than the work archaeologists do using historical documents.


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## paranoid marvin (Nov 4, 2014)

Venusian Broon said:


> If they world was to go up in a nuclear conflagration and every scrap of information was destroyed apart from a DVD library of a couple hundred movies like that, just think of the mental gymnastics archaeologists might go through trying to make sense of our history and world from them...
> 
> Actually I think that's the basis of an Alfred Bester short story




One thing would be for sure, Morgan Freeman was definately President of the US - and at the same time God!


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 4, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> One thing would be for sure, Morgan Freeman was definately President of the US - and at the same time God!


 
Well the US motto is: In God we trust.

There would be a big debate though on whether he became president after being in Shawshank State prison or before...


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## paranoid marvin (Nov 4, 2014)

Venusian Broon said:


> Well the US motto is: In God we trust.
> 
> There would be a big debate though on whether he became president after being in Shawshank State prison or before...



The President of the United States a crook? Surely not!


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## BAYLOR (Nov 6, 2014)

*Edison The Man*   1940  staring Spenser Tracy. His portray is at odds with the real Edison who was really not a very pleasant man.


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## Ray McCarthy (Nov 6, 2014)

Edison was indeed very unpleasant and caused Holywood due to his vindictive enforcement of his eventually proved to be invalid Cinema patents. Nor did he invent the light bulb. His phonograph (cylinder with a clicky seam)  was before Berliner's gramophone (pressed disk) but became obsolete overnight. His row with Telsa was crazy.
He did admire Marconi, but only because Edison had no radio interests. Marconi was a similar (Irish - Italian) entrepreneur rather than true inventor who was much more modest and friendly. Marconi was upset about getting nominated (several times) and eventually getting a Nobel Prize as he publicly admitted he was no Scientist but saw the Commercial opportunities. He admitted to William Preece of UK P.O. that his apparatus wasn't a new invention, but he had realised by experiment that a big aerial wire and good earth instead of the loops used in lab demos would make the difference for range. Edison never admitted he was only an entrepreneur and no scientist or engineer at all.


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## BigBadBob141 (Nov 6, 2014)

REF: Venusian Broon.
I think there is a story by Arthur C Clarke in which Venusians explore an Earth destroyed by nuclear war.
Every thing is gone except a reel of film found in the ruins, when they work out how to play it they see what they think are Humans for the first time.
But unknown to them it's a Donald Duck movie!


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## Boaz (Nov 6, 2014)

I'm not an historian, a sociologist, nor a movie critic.  But I'd like to give me two cents...

How long has mankind been telling stories?  We've been recording stories for at least four thousand years... maybe more like five or six... and if you include cave art, well, we don't know.

Why do we tell stories? I think people tell stories for prestige, for wealth, for enjoyment, and to preserve the memory of an event, person, or a societal standard.

In 1974 just after my eighth birthday, we moved to Nashville.  A classmate told me his father was Richard Petty.  At that time, Petty was the Martin Luther, Elvis, Michael Jordan, or Joan of Arc of NASCAR.  He told me this story for prestige, but since the boy's last name was not Petty I discounted it.

I'm sure the tradition of bards/troubadours/minstrels singing for their supper goes waaaay back.  If you can do what you love and get paid, what the heck.  Hollywood is big business.  The studios aren't supported to just give something to do for artists.  The way they make money is by entertaining us...

Which leads me to the next reason for storytelling... enjoyment.  Drama, Comedy, Tragedy, Fantasy, Escapism, Action, Adventure, and all points in between are the reasons we watch movies and television... and youtube. 

But I think the real enduring purpose of storytelling is to preserve our memories and promote values.  Aesop's fables are perhaps the most recognizable form of reinforcing the practical wisdom of the Ancient Greeks.  _The Iliad, The Ramayana, The Aeneid, Beowulf, Prose Edda, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Les Miserable, The Lord of the Rings_, and _Star Wars_ all hammer home cultural values.  Sacrifice. Wisdom. Fidelity. Bravery. Redemption. Forgiveness. Honesty. Strength.  I guess I'd call these universal values...

Then there is also the telling of tales to remember an important event or person.  David and Goliath.  Horatio at the Bridge.  "England expects that every man will do his duty."  Thermopylae. "Win one for the Gipper." Boudicca.  Every culture celebrates heroes who layed it all on the line at certain place and time.

In older times, the minutiae of the story did not matter.  For example, every time Homer speaks of the Achaeans attacking Troy he could go through and list them by nation, but he does not.  He does it a few times, but not every time.  Argives, Danaans, Mycenaens, Myrmidons, Boetians, Arcadians, Ithacans, etc.  My belief is that it was understood by every listener that their city was aligned with Achaea and thus Greek.  One of the purposes of _The Iliad_ was to foster pan-Hellenic culture, commerce, and ideals.  I can see how Agamemnon's allies would be understandably upset if Homer never mentioned their contributions and were as one sided as some US/UK retellings of D-Day.

You've seen Frank Miller's _300_? Obviously the real Leonidas wore much more armor than Gerard Butler.  I'm sure the actual men were not as perfectly muscled as the Greeks in the movie.  We know for a fact that the Immortals were nothing like Ninjas nor used medieval Japanese weaponry.  The movie also omits any mention of Themistocles.  It is plain as the nose on my face that _300_ is not supposed to be a historical retelling... but a commemoration of Sparta's highest values... and by extenion those of Western Civilization.  Courage. Strength. Teamwork. Patriotism.  Duty.  Liberty.  Thus, _300_ totally worked for me because it was not in any way intended to be an accurate depiction of the men and the moment, but an affirmation of character qualities to which we aspire.

The further we go back in history, the fewer extant sources we have.  We know have video and photos to assist us.  Fox Sports has integrated video of multiple shots proving that the third base coach's decision to not sent Alex Gordon home, down one in the bottom of the ninth of World Series Game Seven on October 29th, was a bad one.   On the other hand, Babe Ruth's called shot, in Game Three of the 1932 series, is surrounded in controversy.  Trailing by one run in the fifth and with the Chicago Cubs bend riding him, Ruth made a gesture. Ruth and many others claimed he pointed at the centerfield wall, others say he pointed back at the pitcher, while still others insist he was pointing towards the Chicago dugout.  Irregardless of what his actual gesture was, Ruth crushed the next pitch high over the centerfield wall... and went down in history as the only player to call a game winning home run in the World Series.  Two home videos emerged during the nineties and they pretty much show Ruth pointing at the pitcher... but the legendary tale of bravery and strength has already been established.

As for _The Patriot_... I liked it.  Mel Gibson's character, Benjamin Martin, was not a historical figure, but rather a fictional man loosely based upon real men.  Daniel Morgan (The  Old Wagoner, one of my heroes), Francis Marion (The Swamp Fox), and Thomas Sumpter (The Gamecock) are each at times direct inspiration for Martin.  If you take _The Patriot_ as history, then it is pretty cheesy.  But if you perceive it as a cultural tale of the rejection of oppression, then you'll probably like it.

Now.... _Braveheart_.  As far as I know, _Braveheart_ is at least as unconcerned with getting the events and timeline correct as _The Patriot_, if not more.  But whereas _The Patriot_ uses a fictional hero, _Braveheart_ uses an historical one... and so our minds then demand a certain level of historical accuracy.  It has action, romance, adventure, and heroism, but so does _The Matrix_... and the Wahchowskis never purported it to be historical.  One thing _Bravheart_ did was to remind me of the old Robert Burns poem... _Scots Wha Hae_... which is itself a dramatic imagining of a speech that may or may not have ever been spoken. And yet Burns poem was not meant to be accurate, but a confimation of the centuries old Scottish love of liberty.

We don't have a plethora of information about Wallace, but what we do know was strongly altered. Then you start classifying _Braveheart_ with historical movies like _Saving General Yang, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Eagle, Year One, _and_ Noah_. 

For me, another unhistorical that really worked was _A Knight's Tale_.  From the very beginning, the film makers let me know they were not going to be accurate as Queen's _We Will Rock You_ was stomped, clapped, and shouted by the crowd.  In effect, the director was screaming, "_I'm not going to give you historical accuracy, but I will try to give you genuine human emotion_."  We don't know what the spectators at the ancient Olympic Games shouted.  We don't know any cheers from the ancient Colisseum.  We do know that the Byzantines screamed "Nike!" (Victory) during their chariot races.  But we do know that every U.S. high school and university have their own cheers [University of Kansas' _Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk_], we know that every British football club has it's own chants... so why not the spectators of jousting?   Did young men and women groove to David Bowie's _Golden Years_?  No, but I'm sure they liked to dance... and some were prolly emo.  And was there something called the Jousting World Championships? Heck no.  But that does not mean people did not compete intensely.  Yes, I know Geoffrey Chaucer and the Black Prince appear, but by that time it has been established that _A Knight's Tale_ is fantasy... pure fantasy.

I don't know all the ways that movies can show they are not to be taken as history, but rather as a cultural truth.  Yet it is plain to me that movies like _300, Three Kings, The Patriot, The Messenger, A Knight's Tale, Ben-hur, Apocalypse Now,_ and _Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves_ are meant to entertain, make money, and reinforce societal values.... while _Apollo 13_ stands out to me as the most historically accurate film.  (Though I'm sure there are still mistakes and/or changes.)


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## BAYLOR (Feb 15, 2020)

paranoid marvin said:


> 6 months that is! And the language he spoke was French. Yet every time I've seem him portrayed in film and tv he's had a very British accent.



And was anything but a romantic figure in real life.


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## tegeus-Cromis (Feb 15, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> If they world was to go up in a nuclear conflagration and every scrap of information was destroyed apart from a DVD library of a couple hundred movies like that, just think of the mental gymnastics archaeologists might go through trying to make sense of our history and world from them...
> 
> Actually I think that's the basis of an Alfred Bester short story


John Updike wrote an essay once in the form of a dialogue in which he tries to explain to an (ant-shaped) alien the concept of fiction.


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## Narkalui (Feb 16, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> And was anything but a romantic figure in real life.


Well, I'm led to believe that Richard I was engaged in a love affair with King Phillip of France, so...


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## Star-child (Feb 16, 2020)

This thread confuses historical fiction with history. Something like "The Sound Barrier" was 100% fictional, set in a realistic place in history. Similar to Michener's Space or Eaters of the Dead.

Hollywood has certainly made well researched, reasonably accurate and compelling true history films. It has also made ridiculous "inspired by real events" films like Sole Survivor that bear only passing resemblance to known history.

Regardless, anyone these days can figure out the difference between reality and fiction by spending two minutes on Wikipedia, so it really doesn't matter if the films we entertain ourselves with 'get it right' or not. Braveheart is an invitation to learn some real history while being entertained, and that is much better than just forgetting about Scottish history altogether.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 16, 2020)

Star-child said:


> This thread confuses historical fiction with history. Something like "The Sound Barrier" was 100% fictional, set in a realistic place in history. Similar to Michener's Space or Eaters of the Dead.
> 
> Hollywood has certainly made well researched, reasonably accurate and compelling true history films. It has also made ridiculous "inspired by real events" films like Sole Survivor that bear only passing resemblance to known history.
> 
> Regardless, anyone these days can figure out the difference between reality and fiction by spending two minutes on Wikipedia, so it really doesn't matter if the films we entertain ourselves with 'get it right' or not. Braveheart is an invitation to learn some real history while being entertained, and that is much better than just forgetting about Scottish history altogether.



In the case of *Braveheart* three  are some rather sizable  errors and distortions that are difficult to ignore.


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## Star-child (Feb 17, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> In the case of *Braveheart* three  are some rather sizable  errors and distortions that are difficult to ignore.


Ignore? People went to see it in droves, and then read about real history so they can discuss those sizable errors. What's the downside? Who is being harmed?


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

I think the world that Braveheart was made is pretty different than the world today, even the one a decade ago.

Today, after every movie is out even without any mention of fiction and nonfiction on it; you can instantly search if it is based on a true story or a historical event and even if it is not covered by the traditional sources in search engines, there will be a story about it sooner or later. About the angle taken or possible bias even if it is based on real events.

In 1995, it is not just that Google and Youtube didn't exist, the understanding/perception of what was reliable in movies or in media wasn't a huge discussion because social media didn't exist; the internet was not a serious threat to real-life or an instantly handy the major source of 'knowledge'. It wasn't even a dangerous place, it was just some 'virtual' space. Think about how often and different we used the word 'virtual' then. How many people do you know who goes into the libraries after a movie and check if the events were real or not?

Apart from all that, in my opinion, the main reason Braveheart has been so successful has little to do with people watching it as a series of real historical events around some hero or thinking this is history. It's about exploiting a very primitive part of human culture. It doesn't matter what happened in history or who was William Wallace, or what he did. It's more about 'the oldest story' being put in a certain background which everyone has an idea about to evoke historical sense in people. It's a sophisticated, good example of what is being discussed in the Causing emotional pain to readers thread. Emotional manipulation supported by a grand scale. (*Spoilers ahead*.)

William Wallace in the movie is designed as some sort of a Spartacus figure I think. He is a simple man who doesn't want to get into the common conflict of the land but just to work a piece of land, marry and have children. He doesn't care about power. But then we witness his wife, an innocent sweet young woman being executed in a brutal way who he married in secret to not to share with a land-lord on his wedding night as an invented right of that Lord. We are crushed. But then we were already angry and agitated because we witnessed another wedding in the open which the bride was taken from his husband before that.

This part of the plot is crucial and naturally enough to elicit a strong emotional reaction from everyone in every culture. It doesn't matter how developed or underdeveloped. And it suddenly makes so much sense that this, of course, must have happened all the time because there was nothing to stop those Lords to do this. Everyone is on his side now. It's not Ancient Rome, it is Scotland and England which still exist. The relation is still a hot subject.

I know you will find it trivialised but I believe the biggest catharsis in that movie for most of the people in the world was the scene when the character, Morrison whose wife was taken from him at his wedding took his revenge. The Lord says something like 'I came to claim my right of Prima Nocta' during the wedding feast. It's a very dramatic scene, the bride whispers 'It's OK' to his ear in slow motion. We are all gutted, angry. And worse things happen in the plot, we are full of rage and then when Morrison finds him:

"Morrison: Do you remember me?

Lord: I never did her any harm. *It was my right.*

Morrison: *Your right?* Well, I'm here to claim *the right as a husband*.

William: I am William Wallace, and the rest of you will be spared. *Go back
to England, and tell them there that Scotland's daughters and her sons are
yours no more. Tell them Scotland is free. Burn it.*"

This. He kills him with a mace (that's called mace isn't?). The rest of the men are spared, this is important. Morrison crushes his head through his face if memory serves right. There are many violent scenes in the movie but this scene is specific, it is a huge impact apart from that and everybody is so happy, people in the theatre are swearing to, talking to themselves. The rest is this fight going into a war and the revenge on past crimes of the sort. Which crime? A crime that didn't exist. It's not tax or land. It's prima nocta. It's that simple and that primitive in my opinion. I'm not discussing lords and princes raping women, children, and men or committing the crimes of the sort. But if you look at the movie, this is it. Ask people, you'll see almost everyone will remember that scene alone vividly. After the other, the first one; "Freeeedoom!" death scene at the end. (Like 'To the Kiiing!' in LotR.)

Today this wouldn't work the way it did in 1995. But it worked the same in different ways with Gladiator five years later. This mediocre movie swept the Oscars. It's completely based on the same idea. It elicits the same set of emotions. but people watched it as history. But then that thing... called _300_ has 'history' tag in countless sites.

Well, hopefully, the spirit of Spartacus will never die. But unfortunately, interestingly enough, exactly like Sherlock Holmes derived characters, the reason people drawn to these figures have nothing to do with any historical events or real-life although the latter is pure fiction. It calls to something very primitive in the audience in my opinion. Or from a completely different perspective and example, why _The Walking Dead_ is a very successful reflection of reality; the delusion we call civilisation and its value with just one sci-fi/fantasy element.


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## Toby Frost (Feb 17, 2020)

I was talking to a friend about films at the weekend, and in passing he described _300_ as a film where you could feel your brain actually getting smaller as you watched it.


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

Another thing. In movies or tv shows, millions or hundreds of thousands of years time span(s) are deliberately expressed as _hundreds_ or just _thousands_ of years. Think about that as a historical perspective.

The very example at the top of my head is the very beloved, old tv show Bones with a huge audience around the world. She is a genius with 'pure' logic, cold scientist; an anthropologist no less and she defines human evolution with thousands of years while arguing against plastic surgery. I think she says something like 'What makes you think you can do better than thousands of years of evolution?' to a plastic surgeon. That's how you shrink brains.

*E:* OK. I checked she says 'millennia' there but the character also talks about 40 000 years old human remains in China in another episode. Probably, that bothered me and so it stayed in my mind.


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## Venusian Broon (Feb 17, 2020)

Toby Frost said:


> I was talking to a friend about films at the weekend, and in passing he described _300_ as a film where you could feel your brain actually getting smaller as you watched it.



The one theory that might grant _300_ some 'historical plausibility' is that most of the movie is the one-eyed soldier's tale to his colleagues on the eve of the battle of Plataea and that it comes across as a mess of a fever dream because he is deliberately embellishing it with all sorts of grandiose ideas and demons to make his story exciting.

On the other hand the actual one-eyed soldier (who was ordered back by King Leonidas to report on what happened to the people of Sparta) was apparently ostricised/shunned/banished by his own people for not dying at the battle, so there is that!

@olive  - I definitely didn't see this Bones program and therefore don't really get what she was talking about in reference to the comment she made, but...thousands of years, actually could work in evolutionary terms - 15,000 thousand years ago (thousands, right?) there were no blonde haired, blue-eyed nor people who were lactose tolerant. At least we think all of these mutations came about only thousands of years ago. Evolution can be that fast. On top of that Homo Sapians are 'only' 200,000 years old as a species, which isn't millions of years, which is, of course, a fluid date but according to genetic studies (of mitochondrial Eve or the various few Adams we are all related to) this is about right as a ball park. In that time there has been a great deal of evolution just involving we humans.


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## Star-child (Feb 17, 2020)

I still don't see the danger in presenting fictionalized accounts of largely unimportant historical figures or events. Scotland didn't secede after Braveheart and Greeks didn't declare war on Iran after 300. The important lessons in history aren't which general sacked Rome or slept with Cleopatra.


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> @olive  - I definitely didn't see this Bones program and therefore don't really get what she was talking about in reference to the comment she made, but...thousands of years, actually could work in evolutionary terms - 15,000 thousand years ago (thousands, right?) there were no blonde haired, blue-eyed nor people who were lactose tolerant. At least we think all of these mutations came about only thousands of years ago. Evolution can be that fast. On top of that Homo Sapians are 'only' 200,000 years old as a species, which isn't millions of years, which is, of course, a fluid date but according to genetic studies (of mitochondrial Eve or the various few Adams we are all related to) this is about right as a ball park. In that time there has been a great deal of evolution just involving we humans.



Oh, I'm aware of that, actually what I was thinking. But if it makes sense to you, then it is the language barrier for me because when somebody says 'thousands of years' I don't get a time span of 15000 years or more from that. I get at most a few thousands of years. 15000 years mark is more than just thousands of years because for example 2000 is just around the corner and it is thousands of years too. The recorded history is roughly accepted as 5000 years. 15000 years ago is something completely different. *E:* So at least you should say more than 10 000 years ago.


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

Star-child said:


> I still don't see the danger in presenting fictionalized accounts of largely unimportant historical figures or events. Scotland didn't secede after Braveheart and Greeks didn't declare war on Iran after 300. The important lessons in history aren't which general sacked Rome or slept with Cleopatra.



That's a myopic way to look at this. Historical perspective and historical consciousness are very important concepts in my opinion and it affects culture and daily life far more than people think. Because it is very easy to shape human minds, not to mention identity and attitudes. There are serious consequences to pay back. Anyway not suitable for the forum.

But the best example is Orientalism. While it's ridiculous from head to toe, it is the basic understanding of the East and its sub-cultures.


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## Venusian Broon (Feb 17, 2020)

olive said:


> Oh, I'm aware of that, actually what I was thinking. But if it makes sense to you, then it is the language barrier for me because when somebody says 'thousands of years' I don't get a time span of 15000 years or from that. I get at most a few thousands of years. 15000 years mark is more than just thousands of years because for example 2000 is just around the corner and it is thousands of years too. The recorded history is roughly accepted as 5000 years. 15000 years ago is something completely different.


 

When I was writing my last post I actually thought about this as I was about to write 'a few thousand'. So purely personally:

When someone says 'a few thousand' I think more than two and perhaps as much as five. 

When someon says 'thousands' it's more than a 'few' but less then 'tens of thousands', the latter would start for me at ~20-30,000. 

But that's just me. It depends of course on how accurate you want/need to make such statement. Sometimes it's fine to just give a general concept that ain't too precise. And that's fine too. 

(Or if you are a physcist just rely on four 'numbers': 0, 1, the concept of infinity and every other number just rounded down to its nearest order of magnitude. )


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

Ah, OK.  Well, just an art historian here. That line is like calling Göbeklitepe or Stonehenge historical monuments to me,lol.


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## Star-child (Feb 17, 2020)

olive said:


> That's a myopic way to look at this. Historical perspective and historical consciousness are very important concepts in my opinion and it affects culture and daily life far more than people think. Because it is very easy to shape human minds, not to mention identity and attitudes. There are serious consequences to pay back. Anyway not suitable for the forum.
> 
> But the best example is Orientalism. While it's ridiculous from head to toe, it is the basic understanding of the East and its sub-cultures.


Historical awareness comes from having entertaining historical media. More people read about real Scottish history because of Braveheart than would have otherwise.

Orientalism happened for reasons that have nothing to do with fiction.


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## CupofJoe (Feb 17, 2020)

Star-child said:


> I still don't see the danger in presenting fictionalized accounts of largely unimportant historical figures or events. Scotland didn't secede after Braveheart and Greeks didn't declare war on Iran after 300. The important lessons in history aren't which general sacked Rome or slept with Cleopatra.


Maybe not a single film or book but if it fits with already accepted attitudes then any media can have a great effect. Sir Walter Scott has been credited with creating the modern Scottish identity with his writings in the 19C.
You can look to more modern films that have come out of Russia [but I have not seen - so I am relying on hearsay and others reports] that treat fictional events as real so much so that the events have appeared in school text books.
My personal bugbear is *JFK*. At the time Oliver Stone made a big thing about being accurate and then he recreated the Zaprurder film to show what he wanted it to show. Last time I looked it was easier to find the Stone "Zapruder" footage than the real thing...


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

Star-child said:


> Historical awareness comes from having entertaining historical media. More people read about real Scottish history because of Braveheart than would have otherwise.
> 
> Orientalism happened for reasons that have nothing to do with fiction.



Historical media? The point of criticism here is that the examples discussed here do not present historical media while pretending to do so. 

And no. An overwhelming majority of the people in the world are only interested in reading about 'Marcus Antonious having sex with Cleopatra' they just want more of it from different angles. (No pun intended.) I don't think you got what I meant by Orientalism example. 

Anyway, this is too long and as I'm right now -coincidentally- on the subject, I don't want to get carried away and write something against the rules. Let's just disagree.


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## Star-child (Feb 17, 2020)

CupofJoe said:


> Maybe not a single film or book but if it fits with already accepted attitudes then any media can have a great effect.


Sure, it can have a variety of effects, but the implied effect is teaching history. And there is no reason to believe that anyone who needs to know history (in the West, where history is not just whatever the state says it is) is learning that history from watching Hollywood films. Everyone automatically understands embellishment and fiction posing as fact because we all learned the truth about Santa Claus.

Conversely, all fiction is derived from fact. Literature is full bricks and weather and dialogue from the real world. We accept that reality is the jumping off point for all fiction.


Even the most accurate recreation of an historical event relies on personal scenes and dialogue that was never recorded in history - every historical film contains a large portion of fiction to make it even remotely watchable. Regular people simply can't spend their time worrying that other people are so foolish that they believe EVERYTHING they see in a movie. We can't all be our brothers' keepers.


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## Star-child (Feb 17, 2020)

olive said:


> Historical media? The point of criticism here is that the examples discussed here do not present historical media while pretending to do so.


They don't pretend to do so. They say quite clearly "based on true events" right at the beginning of the film. This discussion is a red herring. No Hollywood producer claims anything is 100% accurate and no sensible viewer has cause to think it may be. We can't construct a society around the insensible members.


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## olive (Feb 17, 2020)

Star-child said:


> They don't pretend to do so. They say quite clearly "based on true events" right at the beginning of the film. This discussion is a red herring. No Hollywood producer claims anything is 100% accurate and no sensible viewer has cause to think it may be. We can't construct a society around the insensible members.



Yes, they do. If you take a historical figure that actually exists and write a made up story with it on an existing conflict, you are exactly pretending to do that. There is no need for a claim. Especially, in an era when people cannot reach information with a few buttons, actually even better manipulated then but is not our subject. Do you understand the difference between 1995 and 2010 in this context?

This is not a discussion. It's not even clear what are you defending. Your reaction to the general criticism in the thread is 'these movies do not pose a threat or danger because nobody attacks each other as a result in real life' ? So this thread is confusing historical fiction with history'. ? 'Lessons in history' ? 'Wikipedia to understand the difference between fiction and reality' ???!!! What are you talking about?

"...no sensible viewer has cause to think it may be. We can't construct a society around the insensible members."

This is wishful thinking, a prayer... whatever you call it. Societies or people do not work that way. Sensible people?


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## Star-child (Feb 18, 2020)

olive said:


> Yes, they do. If you take a historical figure that actually exists and write a made up story with it on an existing conflict, you are exactly pretending to do that. There is no need for a claim. Especially, in an era when people cannot reach information with a few buttons, actually even better manipulated then but is not our subject. Do you understand the difference between 1995 and 2010 in this context?
> 
> This is not a discussion. It's not even clear what are you defending. Your reaction to the general criticism in the thread is 'these movies do not pose a threat or danger because nobody attacks each other as a result in real life' ? So this thread is confusing historical fiction with history'. ? 'Lessons in history' ? 'Wikipedia to understand the difference between fiction and reality' ???!!! What are you talking about?
> 
> ...


I just don't follow what you think the dangers are, here.

Does Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchausen cause audiences to have beliefs that are damaging to society?


According to a lot of people (but almost no scientists) exposure to porn, firearms and heavy metal music will make people rapists, murderers or devil worshipers. What happens to people when they see a false affair William Wallace had with the Queen of England?


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## BAYLOR (Feb 18, 2020)

Star-child said:


> I just don't follow what you think the dangers are, here.
> 
> Does Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchausen cause audiences to have beliefs that are damaging to society?
> 
> ...



In the case of Baron Munchausen , he was known to be teller of tall tales.


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## Foxbat (Feb 18, 2020)

A few years ago a new statue of William Wallace was erected in Scotland and it was the spitting image of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. If that's not distorting history, I don't know what is.


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## CupofJoe (Feb 18, 2020)

That is one ugly statue...


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## Star-child (Feb 18, 2020)

Foxbat said:


> A few years ago a new statue of William Wallace was erected in Scotland and it was the spitting image of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. If that's not distorting history, I don't know what is.
> View attachment 60542


The artist did that on purpose (Wallace's spirit coming through Mel), and it was rejected from it's planned Wallace Monument because of that.

But there are plenty of other Wallace depictions to choose from:


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## Vladd67 (Feb 18, 2020)

Star-child said:


> The artist did that on purpose (Wallace's spirit coming through Mel), and it was rejected from it's planned Wallace Monument because of that.
> 
> But there are plenty of other Wallace depictions to choose from:


Maybe James Cosmo should have played Wallace.


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## Foxbat (Feb 18, 2020)

Star-child said:


> The artist did that on purpose (Wallace's spirit coming through Mel), and it was rejected from it's planned Wallace Monument because of that.
> 
> But there are plenty of other Wallace depictions to choose from:


Maybe so, but it doesn't change the fact that it was influenced detrimentally because of a cinematic depiction.


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## svalbard (Feb 18, 2020)

I would advise avoiding both Hollywood and Wikipedia for historical accuracy. The former is great if you want entertainment and the latter can be useful in directing you in the right direction.

Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus,300 etc, whilst entertaining are full of holes. Oddly enough Stone's Alexander the Great(the Directors Cut) had a more firm grounding in historical accuracy although still well off. BTW I know it is a polarising movie but The Directors Cut is the only version of Alexander worth watching.

Going back further to the 50s and 60s Hollywood historical adaptions also had higher level of  accuracy than the current offerings.


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## CupofJoe (Feb 18, 2020)

svalbard said:


> I would advise avoiding both Hollywood and Wikipedia for historical accuracy. The former is great if you want entertainment and the latter can be useful in directing you in the right direction.
> Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus,300 etc, whilst entertaining are full of holes. Oddly enough Stone's Alexander the Great(the Directors Cut) had a more firm grounding in historical accuracy although still well off. BTW I know it is a polarising movie but The Directors Cut is the only version of Alexander worth watching.


I agree.



svalbard said:


> Going back further to the 50s and 60s Hollywood historical adaptions also had higher level of  accuracy than the current offerings.


Oh... I'd like proof of that 
The Conqueror? The Vikings? Jason and the Argonauts? [any film with] Robin Hood...
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with these as films.
There might have been accurate historical films, but I feel that was the era of never let the facts get in the way of a good story.


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## svalbard (Feb 18, 2020)

Let us take the example of The Fall of the Roman Empire and Gladiator. Both dealing with the same period in history, roughly the same characters however one is closer to history whilst the other(Gladiator) is most definitely not.


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## svalbard (Feb 18, 2020)

CupofJoe said:


> I agree.
> 
> 
> Oh... I'd like proof of that
> ...



Are you questioning John Wayne's casting as Genghis Khan...surely not


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## Venusian Broon (Feb 18, 2020)

svalbard said:


> I would advise avoiding both Hollywood and Wikipedia for historical accuracy. The former is great if you want entertainment and the latter can be useful in directing you in the right direction.
> 
> Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus,300 etc, whilst entertaining are full of holes. Oddly enough Stone's Alexander the Great(the Directors Cut) had a more firm grounding in historical accuracy although still well off. BTW I know it is a polarising movie but The Directors Cut is the only version of Alexander worth watching.


I think I prefer the 'Ultimate Directors Cut' but it might be the cut you are talking about. The official (1st) directors cut is somewhat shorter than the original, the ultimate, later re-cut, is much longer (I'm sure I have all three versions in my DVD collection.)

From my understanding it is pretty much based on Robin Lane Fox's book on Alexander the Great. (He was a consultant on the film and did take part in one of the battle scenes as one of Alexander's companions.) That's a good read too and he's not afraid of laying out the fact that there is a lot we just don't know, and of the stuff we do have a great deal is hagiography and uncertain.

Hence the issue with films that try to be true to history - there is a great deal of holes that have to be guessed at to fill in.


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## Foxbat (Feb 18, 2020)

John Wayne: Truly he was the son of God...in full American accent. Hilarious and unforgettable.


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## svalbard (Feb 18, 2020)

Yes. It is the Ultimate Director's cut I am talking about. Fox's book is superb and unflinching in it's view of Alexander.


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## Toby Frost (Feb 18, 2020)

So John Wayne is on set and has to deliver his line. He sees the crucifixion and says "Truly, he was the son of God."

The director calls him over. "Your delivery's a bit flat, John," he says. "Do it again, but with more awe."

They roll the cameras again. John Wayne sees the crucifixion, takes a deep breath and says "Awwwww, truly he was the son of God."

Sorry.


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## svalbard (Feb 18, 2020)

Apparently one of the great Movie Urban Legends.


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## Star-child (Feb 18, 2020)

Foxbat said:


> Maybe so, but it doesn't change the fact that it was influenced detrimentally because of a cinematic depiction.


Detrimental to whom? What is the detriment?


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## svalbard (Feb 18, 2020)

Star-child said:


> Detrimental to whom? What is the detriment?



I suppose if you are Scottish you might have an issue with your National Hero being modelled on the likeness of someone who expressed questionable views on a number of subjects.


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## sknox (Feb 18, 2020)

If any art form has any sort of effect at all, it's going to have some beneficial and some harmful. There's no way art is utterly objective or that it's completely wholesome.

As for historical accuracy, that's a chimera that refuses to sit still. For some, Braveheart is so bad it's banned from discussion (e.g. on the MEDIEV-L discussion list, which is made up of medieval professionals). In other areas, the inaccuracies are trivial--I may have mentioned before someone who objects to an ahistorical font choice on a movie marquee. In yet another direction, the objection might be to whether some historical figure is presented in a favorable or unfavorable light, and the historians themselves are not of one opinion. Where's the accuracy there?

At still another extreme, if someone claimed historical accuracy and put American Indians in the Third Crusade, probably all would agree that was not correct. But if someone put Assassins in the First Crusade, I bet many in a general audience wouldn't blink and would wonder why that one fellow stood up, screamed insults at the screen and stalked out.

For myself, it wasn't the historical inaccuracies that bothered me about Braveheart. I just thought it was hamhanded story telling. That's the criterion I bring to books or movies. Tell me a good story and tell it well, and I'll forgive a fair amount of historical manhandling.


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## Star-child (Feb 18, 2020)

svalbard said:


> I suppose if you are Scottish you might have an issue with your National Hero being modelled on the likeness of someone who expressed questionable views on a number of subjects.


Is that anyone's fault but the sculptors? 

I wonder how much of an increase in tourism pounds Scotland and the Wallace monument got from a single inaccurate film?


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## BAYLOR (Feb 18, 2020)

svalbard said:


> Are you questioning John Wayne's casting as Genghis Khan...surely not



Seeing John Wayne  as Genghis Khan make me wish could have been in the the Police Squad films with Leslie Neilson


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## BigBadBob141 (Feb 24, 2020)

"The Imitation Game", a film about Turing and Bletchley Park, what put me off this film and made me turn it off was someone stating that they had cracked an Enigma message by using frequency analysis, which given how the Enigma machine worked is total b******t!!!
PS. The way frequency analysis works is you take a very large encrypted message ( the bigger the better ) and count up all the letters, if this is a letter substitute cipher then the letter most used corresponds to the most used letter in that language, ei if it was English then the letter is E, when you use an Enigma machine you can press the same key over and over and never get the same letter twice, thus rendering frequency analysis impossible, the one flaw the machine had ( apart from its human operators ) was that it never encrypted a letter as it's self, ei no matter how many times you pressed E it would never come up as E, how the boffins used this weakness against it am afraid I don't know???


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## thaddeus6th (Feb 24, 2020)

I think my late uncle was less than taken with the Imitation Game (assuming that's the one with Cumberbatch in it) because apparently Bletchley Park was portrayed as a tiny operation, and other historical inaccuracies were rife.

My great aunt worked there, incidentally.


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## hitmouse (Feb 24, 2020)

svalbard said:


> Going back further to the 50s and 60s Hollywood historical adaptions also had higher level of  accuracy than the current offerings.


So true. John Wayne as Genghis Khan.


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## Narkalui (Feb 24, 2020)

So spake Tony Curtis:
"Yoanda lois da castle of moi fwaddah"

Truly immortal words....


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## hitmouse (Feb 25, 2020)

Prince Valiant is my idea of a good historical movie.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 13, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> Prince Valiant is my idea of a good historical movie.



Yes, but he wasn't a real historical figure.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 13, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> So true. John Wayne as Genghis Khan.



His worst acting performance and one the world films of all time.  More unfortunate was that the movie filmed in place contaminated by nuclear fallout from a a nearby atom bomb test site.  Many of those invpolved   in film died cancer of one sort or anther including Wayne.


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## hitmouse (Sep 13, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> Yes, but he wasn't a real historical figure.


Whaddya mean?


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## hitmouse (Sep 13, 2020)

thaddeus6th said:


> I think my late uncle was less than taken with the Imitation Game (assuming that's the one with Cumberbatch in it) because apparently Bletchley Park was portrayed as a tiny operation, and other historical inaccuracies were rife.
> 
> My great aunt worked there, incidentally.



My great aunt, who worked there ( and didn’t tell anyone until she got a medal a few years ago) has just turned 100.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 13, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> Whaddya mean?



The Price Valiant that im familiar  with is a comic strip character,  a 1954 film with Robert Wagner in the lead role and, an animated series  produced about 30 years back.  It's  set in the the fantasy world of King Arthur. I  seriously doubt Prince Valiant is a an  historical  figure at all.


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## hitmouse (Sep 13, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> The Price Valiant that im familiar  with is a comic strip character,  a 1954 film with Robert Wagner in the lead role and, an animated series  produced about 30 years back.  It's  set in the the fantasy world of King Arthur. I  seriously doubt Prince Valiant is a an  historical  figure at all.



Next thing you will tell me Lord of the Rings is made up. 

He defeated the Vikings with a magic sword and then peace and chivalry reigned over the land.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 13, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> Next thing you will tell me Lord of the Rings is made up.
> 
> He defeated the Vikings with a magic sword and then peace and chivalry reigned over the land.



Well , yes LOTR is made up 

But King Arthur is a work fiction and so is Camelot and yet , the dreamer in me wishes that they were real.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 11, 2020)

Foxbat said:


> A few years ago a new statue of William Wallace was erected in Scotland and it was the spitting image of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. If that's not distorting history, I don't know what is.
> View attachment 60542



I think it likely that  William Wallace would not be amused by this. He would take issue with this statue,  Mel Gibson and his movie.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 11, 2020)

*The Bridge on the River Kwai* 1957


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## Vladd67 (Oct 11, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> I think it likely that  William Wallace would not be amused by this. He would take issue with this statue,  Mel Gibson and his movie.


Wasn’t that statue decapitated?


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## BAYLOR (Oct 11, 2020)

Vladd67 said:


> Wasn’t that statue decapitated?



Was it ?


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## Vladd67 (Oct 11, 2020)

After a quick google it seems it had paint thrown on it and had its face gouged. So no not decapitated.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 12, 2020)

Vladd67 said:


> After a quick google it seems it had paint thrown on it and had its face gouged. So no not decapitated.



I think it would be safe to say that there is disapproval of the statue.


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 17, 2020)

If watching a historical movie gets the viewer to pick up a history book or historical novel - or even Wikipedia - to learn more about it then that is all good. Movies first and foremost are there to make money. I have spoken to people before who very much dislike Braveheart for the fact that it is historical nonsense, but that is kind of missing the point. It's a captivating, action-packed movie which has great baddies and charismatic good guys. And the battle scenes are uncompromisingly brutal, and few films to that point had shown a battle how it actually probably was.

It was only after watching the movie that I took more interest in Edward I and have visited many of his Welsh castles as well as Stirling Castle and the magnificent Wallace monument. I know now that the film is jam-packed with inaccuracies, but I don't find it less enjoyable to watch.


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 31, 2020)

Having just watched 'Rise of the Clans' it is somewhat ironic that Rob Roy - released around the same time as Braveheart, and based on another Scottish hero - gets none of the same criticism for authenticity that Mel Gibson's does, but is in fact far more inaccurate . Another great film with a marvellous English villain (why does England always seem to be best for bad guys?), but historically complete nonsense.


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## svalbard (Oct 31, 2020)

Is Rise of the Clans worth a watch? I am a bit meh about Neil Oliver.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 31, 2020)

paranoid marvin said:


> Having just watched 'Rise of the Clans' it is somewhat ironic that Rob Roy - released around the same time as Braveheart, and based on another Scottish hero - gets none of the same criticism for authenticity that Mel Gibson's does, but is in fact far more inaccurate . Another great film with a marvellous English villain (why does England always seem to be best for bad guys?), but historically complete nonsense.



I haven't seen the film (or at the very least can't remember it) and I have read Walter Scott's novel of the same name (but really can't recall much of it! It was 30 years ago ) , but if the film was based on the novel, then we know that the book was 'largely fictitious' and made-up by Scott anyway, using a few bits of Rob Roy's mythology that were true.


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## svalbard (Oct 31, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> I haven't seen the film (or at the very least can't remember it) and I have read Walter Scott's novel of the same name (but really can't recall much of it! It was 30 years ago ) , but if the film was based on the novel, then we know that the book was 'largely fictitious' and made-up by Scott anyway, using a few bits of Rob Roy's mythology that were true.



I think this is a Neil Oliver documentary for the BBC.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 31, 2020)

svalbard said:


> I think this is a Neil Oliver documentary for the BBC.


I read Paranoid Marvins post that it's '...Rob Roy - released around the same time as Braveheart...Another great film with a marvellous English villain...' was _Rob Roy (_1995) because 'Rise of the Clans' is TV series


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## svalbard (Oct 31, 2020)

Now I am confused


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 31, 2020)

_Rise of the Clans_ is an excellent documentary, _Rob Roy_ was a movie that came out around the same time as Braveheart and ended up lost in it's shadow. I think the movie was perhaps more based on the book than on the actual person himself, which portrays him as a Scottish Robin Hood rather than the man that he actually was. Prior to Walter Scott's romanticised novel, there was a fictionalised account written about him during his lifetime called 'The Highland Rogue' and (according to the tv series) people would travel to Scotland just to see the living legend himself.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 31, 2020)

On a different topic about historical inaccuracies, when I was a young lad I knew my Tanks. I mean big metal vehicle with gun is a proper boy hobby  .

So there were a number of 1960s War films on the second world war that always irritated me because they had the Germans clearly using post-war US tanks. _Patton _and _The Battle of the Bulge _using M48 Patton (ironically!) and M47 Patton tanks respectively for the Nazis. Okay, I know that there were virtually no Panzer Mark fours running in the world (although I believe there were some still in operation in Syria at the time) so it would have been very expensive to dress up other tanks to look like Pz III's and IV's.

However, _Kelly's Heroes _a few years later, managed to actually get Shermans and they made a reasonable effort to get a tank that looked like a Tiger. (It's actually, again a little ironically, a modified T34)


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## BigBadBob141 (Oct 31, 2020)

Not a Panther, Tiger or King Tiger in sight, I know just what you mean, like the WW1 films that always use a disguised Tiger Moth instead of a Sopwith Camel or SE5a!
P.S. T34 instead of a Tiger, now that is the height of irony.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 31, 2020)

BigBadBob141 said:


> Not a Panther, Tiger or King Tiger in sight, I know just what you mean, like the WW1 films that always use a disguised Tiger Moth instead of a Sopwith Camel or SE5a!
> P.S. T34 instead of a Tiger, now that is the height of irony.


On a more positive note for accuracy in such films, in the_ Battle of Britain _they had access to Spanish built aircraft that were essentially Heinkel 111's and Bf 109's.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 31, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> On a different topic about historical inaccuracies, when I was a young lad I knew my Tanks. I mean big metal vehicle with gun is a proper boy hobby  .
> 
> So there were a number of 1960s War films on the second world war that always irritated me because they had the Germans clearly using post-war US tanks. _Patton _and _The Battle of the Bulge _using M48 Patton (ironically!) and M47 Patton tanks respectively for the Nazis. Okay, I know that there were virtually no Panzer Mark fours running in the world (although I believe there were some still in operation in Syria at the time) so it would have been very expensive to dress up other tanks to look like Pz III's and IV's.
> 
> However, _Kelly's Heroes _a few years later, managed to actually get Shermans and they made a reasonable effort to get a tank that looked like a Tiger. (It's actually, again a little ironically, a modified T34)



In the Movie* Battle of the Budge * , they were using Chaffees M24 Tanks instead of Shermans   Chaffees did see action in WW II there were none at that battle.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 31, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> On a more positive note for accuracy in such films, in the_ Battle of Britain _they had access to Spanish built aircraft that were essentially Heinkel 111's and Bf 109's.



Spitfire vs ME 109 .   The Spitfire was the better of the two planes.  Well armed and had better Turning radius than then 109.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 31, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> Spitfire vs ME 109 .   The Spitfire was the better of the two planes.  Well armed and had better Turning radius than then 109.


To be fair (and I'm British) the Spitfire _became _bettter. It was onwards from the Spitfire Mark 9 (1942-ish?) that I believe that started to compete, then later on outperform all German interceptors, especially the FW 190. At first during the battle of Britain I do think if the Messerschmitt/Bf 109s had been allowed to hunt down the mark 1 and 2 Spitfires they would have been much more successful. However, even with a superior plane in 1941, as I think they had, the Germans had limited fuel capacity over Britain which severely limited their potential _and _they had been ordered to proect the bombers.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 1, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> To be fair (and I'm British) the Spitfire _became _bettter. It was onwards from the Spitfire Mark 9 (1942-ish?) that I believe that started to compete, then later on outperform all German interceptors, especially the FW 190. At first during the battle of Britain I do think if the Messerschmitt/Bf 109s had been allowed to hunt down the mark 1 and 2 Spitfires they would have been much more successful. However, even with a superior plane in 1941, as I think they had, the Germans had limited fuel capacity over Britain which severely limited their potential _and _they had been ordered to proect the bombers.



 Interesting that German fighter planes carried no drop tanks which ,  would've  have extended their ability to fight in the air over Britain. Its huge strategic blunder on the part of the Luftwaffe.


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 1, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> Interesting that German fighter planes carried no drop tanks which ,  would've  have extended their ability to fight in the air over Britain. Its huge strategic blunder on the part of the Luftwaffe.


From a quick google, it appears that the Luftwaffe were just experimenting with Drop tanks during the Battle of Britain and they only became a standard fitting on 109E's from October 1940. As for why they didn't design aircraft with longer ranges before that, I'd argue

1) They were constantly improving aircraft tech all the time - the Spitfire Mark 1 for example only had a range of ~400 km - later variants pushing this to ~800km which is sort of similar to the sort of ranges the 109 variants were getting. 
2) The Luftwaffe was organised to be effective as air support for the army. They did not really build the arm with strategic bombing in mind, so having interceptors with long range capability was probably not high on the list of desired characteristics.


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## Foxbat (Nov 1, 2020)

Talking of Spitfires. There's one in a nearby air museum (East Fortune...it's brilliant..it's even got a Concorde and a Vulcan among many others). I was confused looking at it and wondered if it was actually some kind of Hurricane. It didn't have the classic Spitfire eliptical wing shape and instead, a flat edge. Reading the bumf, it turns out that a lot of Spitfires (especially those used for recce) had their wings clipped. This apparently improved their turning circle. 

And still on the subject of Spitfires, one recce pilot had _Vini, Vidi, Evasi_ written on his, which apparently translates to I came, I saw, I ran away.


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## Vladd67 (Nov 1, 2020)

Foxbat said:


> Talking of Spitfires. There's one in a nearby air museum (East Fortune...it's brilliant..it's even got a Concorde and a Vulcan among many others). I was confused looking at it and wondered if it was actually some kind of Hurricane. It didn't have the classic Spitfire eliptical wing shape and instead, a flat edge. Reading the bumf, it turns out that a lot of Spitfires (especially those used for recce) had their wings clipped. This apparently improved their turning circle.
> 
> And still on the subject of Spitfires, one recce pilot had _Vini, Vidi, Evasi_ written on his, which apparently translates to I came, I saw, I ran away.


That sums up Recon I guess, they aren’t paid to get too involved. I remember passing an airfield and seeing The Vulcan take off, it was amazing to see an aircraft that big gain height that quickly.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 1, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> From a quick google, it appears that the Luftwaffe were just experimenting with Drop tanks during the Battle of Britain and they only became a standard fitting on 109E's from October 1940. As for why they didn't design aircraft with longer ranges before that, I'd argue
> 
> 1) They were constantly improving aircraft tech all the time - the Spitfire Mark 1 for example only had a range of ~400 km - later variants pushing this to ~800km which is sort of similar to the sort of ranges the 109 variants were getting.
> 2) The Luftwaffe was organised to be effective as air support for the army. They did not really build the arm with strategic bombing in mind, so having interceptors with long range capability was probably not high on the list of desired characteristics.



So Germany did in fact have  have drop tanks, I stand corrected.

When the Battle of Britain started, The Luftwaffe was the beginning of  that battle , the  best and most most powerful air force  in the world. After the battle , though still powerful , it was significantly weaker because they lost so man of their best pilots and aircrews and,  the battle exposed all their weakness including the range issues of their planes.  One glaring weakness that was very evident before   is that   Germans didn't; have really good Four Engine  long  range Bomber.  That came back to haunt them in Russia because the Russian had moved all their factories  out range of the Germany's  Bombers .  German General Walter Weaver who was the head  of the Luftwaffe in the 193o's  was a strong proponent o the Four engine bomber.  When he died in 1936 ,  his  four engine  bomber program was  scrapped in favor tow  engine bombers which were cheaper to build.  For the Luftwaffe and their other armed series, the German  leadership and bureaucracy and was very very inefficient, shortsighted   and bizarre in some its though processes .  They had jet technology and failed to see and  take advantage  of it's potential early on, which was very fortunate for the allies.   When the ME 262  did  online later on ,  Hitler wanted to use them as dive bombers rather than interceptors.  There were so many competing weapons programs going on at the same time that this further wasted Germany limited recourses. It surprises me that Germany lasted as long as they did in the war.


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 1, 2020)

IIRC, in Speer's autobiography, he basically lambasts Goering as having no real plan for the Luftwaffe and allowing it to become increasingly undeveloped and therefore ineffective as the war progressed.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 1, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> IIRC, in Speer's autobiography, he basically lambasts Goering as having no real plan for the Luftwaffe and allowing it to become increasingly undeveloped and therefore ineffective as the war progressed.



During the first world war , Goering was ace second only  to  the Red Baron  Manfred von Richthofen .  He may have been a war hero in WW I   but, that did not mean he have the  leadership skills to run an organization like the Luftwaffe.  He wasn't a particular good or effective leader nor was he  competent military  strategist.   Also,  he had morphine  addiction and other health issues  which probably  further eroded  what meager skills and effectiveness that  he did possess  .  In effect , he was the  worst possible choice to run  the Luftwaffe .  Germany was never winning the Battle  of Britain with him in charge.


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## BigBadBob141 (Nov 2, 2020)

Lets face it most of the top Nazis were idiots, thank goodness, there was an allied plot to kill Hitler, but he was doing so much harm to the German war effort with his stupid orders and ideas ( he thought he was a military genius, he wasn't ) that they finally decided to let him live as he was doing far more harm alive than would possible be inflicted if he was killed.
A lot of Goering's judgement was probably effected by his morphine habit which he picked up I think after being injured in a car accident in the 1920s.
The Spitfire was a great plane and constantly evolving, there were over twenty-four marks, I think the clipped wing version was for ground attack, there was also an extended wing version with a pressurised cabin for high altitude work and in some the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was replaced by the more powerful Rolls-Royce Griffin engine, these were used to chase down V1 pulse  jet powered flying bombs, and don't forget the lady engineer who solved the Merlins problem of cutting out during negative gee maneuvers because it had a float carburetor instead of direct fuel injection which the Me109s had.
As planes go it was excellent for photo reconnaissance ( one photo recon pilot based in Malta flew so low over an enemy harbour that when he got back the ground crew found a ships ariel wire wrapped around his tail wheel ) plus don't forget the Seafire, a carrier based version the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm used with great success, but to be honest the bulk of the work carried out in the Battle of Britain was by the Hurricane,  three out of five enemy planes shot down were by Hurricanes if I remember rightly, who had the very important job of going after the bombers ( Do17s, He111s and Ju88s ) while the Spitfires engaged the escort fighters ( Me109s and Me110s ), if we could have won without the Spitfire is very debatable but it sure as hell helped having it at the time, and don't forget Spitfire snobbery, a lot of german pilots swore blind that they were shot down by a Spitfire when there weren't any about for miles.
Goering once asked german ace Adolf Galland if there was anything he wanted, to which he very cheekily replied that he would like to have a squadron of Spitfires please.
The Battle of Britain is really a vast subject with many, many aspects ( radar, observer corps, Bletchly Park, our command and control systems compared to the German night fighter command system ect) but I find it plus the rest of WW2 ariel and navel warfare endlessly fascinating, especially lately the Pacific theater with such great planes as the Hellcat, Corsair and Lightning, must have something to do with all those Airfix kits of WW1 and WW2 planes I used to build as a boy.
P.S. Near the end of the war two Spitfires landed on an airstrip just outside of Brussels, the two pilots got out and shock horror they kissed and held hands as they walked away, one was an RAF fighter pilot and the other was his wife who was in the ATA, Air Transport Auxiliary and had just delivered a photo recon Spitfire, I think they then went on and had a much delayed honeymoon!


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## Foxbat (Nov 2, 2020)

Another fine yet little known plane is the Hawker Sea Fury. I think this story sums it up as a worthy successor to the Seafire. 








						Sea Fury vs MiG-15 - the true story - Royal Aeronautical Society
					

Paul Beaver FRAeS sheds new light on a classic air combat encounter from the Korean War in 1952 - where Royal Navy Sea Fury piston-engine fighters, shot down a North Korean MiG-15 jet. But was the correct pilot credited for the kill?




					www.aerosociety.com


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## paeng (Nov 5, 2020)

Films are art forms, and thus unlike documentaries and re-creations are not meant to give accurate portrayals of historical events. That said, their success lies in their ability to accomplish their producers' intended goals.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 5, 2020)

I have no problem with Art getting involved in history. I like JFK as a film, but I don't think it accurate or reliable...
As for documentaries, I'd argue that documentaries might try to be objective and even believe they are but almost certainly they are not. They are a tales told from and for a point of view. Recreations even more so, as they usually have to be visually entertaining as well. 
The best I hope for is that they don't get the basic facts wrong [and even then, they may be debated and contested]. 
No-one source should be used for anything like history. The more the better, especially if you can get the "other-side" of the argument. 
But then you have to check where the multiple sources got their information. Too often on the internet, it is almost a circular chase with source A, citing source B citing source C.... citing source A.


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## BigBadBob141 (Nov 6, 2020)

I don't mind Hollywood writers stretching things a bit, and I don't mind slight changes from book to film as some books could never be filmed as they were written.
But I hate it when they go over the top and add really stupid things, giant mountain sized stone humanoids having a fight ( The Hobbit, part one ), really is this the best you can come up with when you have a perfectly good book to adapt in front of you!
But when it comes to history they really should make at least some sort of effort to be as  accurate as they can, within limits and budget am not expecting perfection here, but really telescopes and gun powder in the time of King John ( Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves ) come on pull the other one, what was the moron who wrote this c**p thinking at the time and what the hell was he smoking!
But the really sad thing about all this is that people who don't know any better absorb it all like a sponge and believe every bit of it, if it's on the big screen then it must be true!
P.S. I knew someone who swore blind it was all true and would not believe for one moment when I told them it was based on a fictional book, and started to get upset when I persisted so I had to give up, that a version of "The 39 Steps" they had just watched was all completely true and based on solid facts, I think because some idiot had stated so at the start of the film, the 1978 Robert Powell version!


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## Foxbat (Nov 7, 2020)

BigBadBob141 said:


> But the really sad thing about all this is that people who don't know any better absorb it all like a sponge and believe every bit of it, if it's on the big screen then it must be true!


This, for me, is the biggest issue. There’s artistic interpretation and there’s complete nonsense, often with very little to separate the two.

It reminds me if the story of the producers of Das Boot looking for money to make a movie on Stalingrad from the German perspective. Yes, they were told in Hollywood, they could have the cash,  but only if they gave Stalingrad a happy ending. Needless to say, they went elsewhere for investment.  

Of course, I don’t know if this story is actually true, but why worry about this particular piece of history when few others in the movie industry seems to?


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## BigBadBob141 (Nov 8, 2020)

I don't imagine any film about Stalingrad from the German point of view could ever possibly have what could be described in any way as a happy ending, and don't forget it wasn't only Germans fighting in Russia, there were some poor Italian soldiers stuck there as well!
P.S. What ever those planes were that attacked the sub right at the end of Das Boot they sure weren't allied bombers, other then that it was a very good film, the closest I've seen that gives you an idea of what it was like onboard a war time u-boat!
As modern film and TV goes I think both "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band Of Brothers" get the closest to actually seeing what combat is like from the soldiers point of view!
I don't know how accurate it is but as WW2 war films go I really enjoyed "Monument Men", I recommend it.


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## Hyba (Nov 8, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> How well does Cinema do in portraying history, Famous historical figures , Peoples , places and events major and minor ? Which films do a good job with  this regard and which film do a poor job .  What factors come into play in how these things are portrayed?



Recently watched _Allied _and found the historical setting of it - at least visually - very hard to believe.  In fact, it became evident that none of the Casablanca scenes were filmed in Morocco at all, which is understandable, but also a shame since that left the movie open to lots of errors, like getting the clothing wrong, or getting the architecture wrong. In any case, I understand the movie was meant to pay homage to Hollywood's golden days and films like _Casablanca_, _Notorious_, and the like, so I suppose some glamour and not-so-accurate smoothing-over was part of the plan all along. I also noticed costume design was mostly focused on our two main stars, which could explain the lack of attention to detail elsewhere. I believe in the background of one particular cafe scene, you could see a man wearing what looked like Egyptian traditional clothing. Unfortunately, most articles on the historical accuracy of the movie (unsurprisingly) focus on the couple themselves, or wartime England. But the movie was okay despite all of its errors. Can't say I was a big fan of the ending, though! 

I think when it comes to cinema, there's a certain mix of entertainment, audience, and propaganda that has traditionally been poured into the final product. Hollywood right now seems to create movies mainly for American/Western audiences, which makes it important to ensure that they're telling stories that these audiences would approve of, enjoy, and see truth in, at least to some extent (of course, keeping in mind that truth is subjective). It's also political, in many ways, and reflects the current socio-economic & political environment in at least the US, if not much of the Western world.


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## Narkalui (Nov 9, 2020)

I confused when I started reading your post @Hyba because for a moment I thought you were talking about _Alien*_

*It's still early


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