most historically incorrect movie!

[Heffalump]

JFK -- which had half the nation in on the conspiracy.

 

[Parmenion]

What about Schindler's List?
Whilst it is an excellent and very graphic account of what happened to those people during the war, Spielberg neglects to mention all the other minorities that were persecuted in the Holocaust. I asked my younger brother what the Holocaust was and he said it was the killing of Jews by the Nazis (?)
What about the gypsies, homosexuals, communists, catholics etc... not to mention the Poles. The first people to be killed in an extermination camp were hundreds of Polish officers.
Yet Spielberg would have us believe that only Jewish people were targetted by this awful racism.

I'm well prepared to hear lots of people jump to Spielberg's defence here, but I think I'm well justified in my dislike of his work. Schindler's List isn't the only innacurate film either. Saving Private Ryan has already been mentioned, so I won't go on about that, except to say that the neglect of the other people who fought and died at the places depicted was shameless. (Cool film though when I can look past those faults).

 

[Parmenion]

Anyone know whether the film 'Spartacus' (Kirk Douglas) was historically accurate?
After browsing through all the literature I have on Ancient Rome I've found his name mentioned only twice. It says something along the lines of, "An escaped slave who won several battles in Italy but was defeated and crucified by the combined armies of Crassus and Pompey."
What about how many men he had, or how he trained them to be so disciplined and skilled?

On the same lines, what about 'I, Claudius' (both filmand book)? Claudius is represented as the unwitting hero, but history recollects him as being amongst the worst emporers.

 

[gr8ful wes]

Parm.
RE schindlers list
Probably because it was a movie about Jews. It wasnt intended to be about all those other groups you mentioned. Movies that try and include everything are often terrible(except for the very long ones like Gettysburg or Band of Brothers)

 

[Lord_Vetinari]

Originally posted by Parmenion
What about Schindler's List?
Whilst it is an excellent and very graphic account of what happened to those people during the war, Spielberg neglects to mention all the other minorities that were persecuted in the Holocaust. I asked my younger brother what the Holocaust was and he said it was the killing of Jews by the Nazis (?)
What about the gypsies, homosexuals, communists, catholics etc... not to mention the Poles. The first people to be killed in an extermination camp were hundreds of Polish officers.
Yet Spielberg would have us believe that only Jewish people were targetted by this awful racism.

I'm well prepared to hear lots of people jump to Spielberg's defence here, but I think I'm well justified in my dislike of his work. Schindler's List isn't the only innacurate film either. Saving Private Ryan has already been mentioned, so I won't go on about that, except to say that the neglect of the other people who fought and died at the places depicted was shameless. (Cool film though when I can look past those faults).

Not quite sure what you're getting at here. The movie is about Shcindler and the people he saved from the camps. Wouldn't it only be more innaccurate if Speilberg had Schindler save a bunch of people he didn't reall save?

 

[Parmenion]

The film was based on a 'Fictional novel' by Thomas Keneally. I say fictional because it is not a true representation of Oskar Schindler's life. The 2 camps he saved people from were Plaszow and Auschwitz, and they were not exclusively for the extermination of Jewish people. In fact, any resource regarding the people murdered at Auschwitz recognises the fact that it was initially set up for the extermination of Gypsies.
The thing that bugs me about Spielberg is that his film only acknowledges that the Holocaust affected one group of people (and the world will probably remember that only Jews were persecuted). Schindler saved Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Serbs and other persecuted minorities. Spielberg knows darn well that his film will have a massive impact and affect how people perceive the Holocaust, so why didn't he do a true representation of who it was that Schindler saved (and thus who were the victims of the Holocaust)?
Sorry if this is offensive to anybody. I mean no offence, I just think that the general perception of the Holocaust is incorrect and some acknowledgement should be shown to the other groups of people who were affected.
You may well argue that Spielberg simply made a film of the book. If that's the case then he shouldn't have done so. He knows he has clout as a big name director and so making an innacurate film about and innacurate book was irresponsible. Particularly one about such a sensitive topic.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Kryten
Any film where the car breaks have been cut, and it accelerates faster and faster down the mountain road, and the driver never thinks of putting it into a lower gear, whether it be a manual or an automatic....

Actually, I know several persons who would not think of low gear.

 

[napoleon526]

Originally posted by Parmenion
Anyone know whether the film 'Spartacus' (Kirk Douglas) was historically accurate?
After browsing through all the literature I have on Ancient Rome I've found his name mentioned only twice. It says something along the lines of, "An escaped slave who won several battles in Italy but was defeated and crucified by the combined armies of Crassus and Pompey."
What about how many men he had, or how he trained them to be so disciplined and skilled?...

His army was made up of escaped slaves, many of whom, like Spartacus himself, were gladiators who were skilled in combat. As his revolt grew across southern Italy, his force reached several tens of thousands. They defeated every army sent against them, but Spartacus knew that their luck wouldn't hold. His soldiers had aquired the 'habit of victory' and were screaming for more.

Rome finally formed a competent force to send against the slave army and defeated Spartacus. When it was clear the battle was lost, Spartacus charged into the Roman lines and was killed. This is different than in the movie where he is forced to fight his best friend to death. Thousands of the revolting slaves were crucified along the sides of roads as a warning to others who went against Rome.

 

[Parmenion]

Cheers Napoleon,
I guess real life ain't as romantic as Hollywood allows us to believe.
Bad, bad Spartacus, killing those innocent Romans who were just trying to make a better world.....

 

[stalin006]

well i woudl do the same if i was on his shoes

 

[Lord_Vetinari]

Originally posted by Parmenion
The film was based on a 'Fictional novel' by Thomas Keneally. I say fictional because it is not a true representation of Oskar Schindler's life. The 2 camps he saved people from were Plaszow and Auschwitz, and they were not exclusively for the extermination of Jewish people. In fact, any resource regarding the people murdered at Auschwitz recognises the fact that it was initially set up for the extermination of Gypsies.
The thing that bugs me about Spielberg is that his film only acknowledges that the Holocaust affected one group of people (and the world will probably remember that only Jews were persecuted). Schindler saved Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Serbs and other persecuted minorities. Spielberg knows darn well that his film will have a massive impact and affect how people perceive the Holocaust, so why didn't he do a true representation of who it was that Schindler saved (and thus who were the victims of the Holocaust)?
Sorry if this is offensive to anybody. I mean no offence, I just think that the general perception of the Holocaust is incorrect and some acknowledgement should be shown to the other groups of people who were affected.
You may well argue that Spielberg simply made a film of the book. If that's the case then he shouldn't have done so. He knows he has clout as a big name director and so making an innacurate film about and innacurate book was irresponsible. Particularly one about such a sensitive topic.

Oh. Okay, then I guess I agree with you. He shouldn't have made the movie dealing exclusivelly with Shcindler's rescuing of Jews if he also rescued lots of other people. Why did he do this? Seems kinda strange.

 

[Cloudyvortex]

History isn't entertaining (although it can be very amusing, read anything on the Battle of Tsushima). I can understand why people keep making movies about real instances and taking artistic liscense. I don't like it, but I can understand it. What I can't understand is that people think that this is how it happened. History can only be understood by book, web page, or documentary, not in entertainment. Most people should stay away from history anyway; it's over their heads.

But for those who insist, check the archives at:
www.historyhouse.com

It's worth the time, and I feel many of you will enjoy yourselves immensely.

 

[knowltok2]

Originally posted by Parmenion
Saving Private Ryan has already been mentioned, so I won't go on about that, except to say that the neglect of the other people who fought and died at the places depicted was shameless. (Cool film though when I can look past those faults).

Which people at which places?

 

[gr8ful wes]

Any thought on the accuracy of Thin Red Line? An interesting view of war in general, Guadalcanal in particular. I loved the artistic parrallells between beauty and horror in this film. Was the story based on a book, or was it an actual account of this battle? It came out about the same time as Private Ryan, but doesnt get talked about as much.

and what about the Big Red One(similar title, thats the only reason I mentioned it.)

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by gr8ful wes
Any thought on the accuracy of Thin Red Line? An interesting view of war in general, Guadalcanal in particular. I loved the artistic parrallells between beauty and horror in this film. Was the story based on a book, or was it an actual account of this battle? It came out about the same time as Private Ryan, but doesnt get talked about as much.

As I mentioned in a thread last fall, The Thin Red Line was awfully disappointing to some, particularly those who had read the book as I had a few weeks before it opened. While it had great potential, and was "40% a great movie," Terrence Malick - the hippie Vietnam-Era guy who directed it - went all pot-head in his direction and added a lot of meandering conversations that got real boring. He also shot way too much because he's such an auteur , and when ordered to cut about 2 hours from his monster epic, he promptly cut all the important, profound stuff in the plot and left in all the shots of multicolored South Pacific parrots and ferns.

Nevertheless, the movie itself is not particularly inaccurate; the author of the book fought in Guadalcanal and won the pulitzer for other work on the pacific war. In Guadalcanal, most of the fighting was confined to a jungled stretch near Henderson Field, and the movie accurately depicts the infantry-heavy battles of maneuver and position that took place on dozens of hills in the area.

Where the movie is different, as I'd said, is that it corrupts the brilliantly told point of the book. In the book, through the assault on the hill, the Colonel is not a villain but a hero for his gung-ho stupidity, since the book is really about the transition from terror to success on the battlefield. That point is entirely lost when Mallick adds the political correctness crap into the mix with the Colonel being such a madman (although the performance by Nolte was A1 and deserved an oscar IMHO).

Re: Saving Private Ryan, I repeat myself by wondering aloud what, if anything, could Spielberg have done to tell the story with some modicum of accuracy and yet added in other nationalities? This was not the Longest Day; it was a movie about a squad. Movies about Tobruk do not have Canadians in them because there weren't any there (that love story flick with Ray Fiennes excepted). There were no brits at Omaha beach or in the 101st's area - a vast expanse of land, incidentally. What do you want Spielberg to do - add another beach to the story as a form of affirmative action?

R.III

 

[klazlo]

I guess the more time you go back in time the more mistakes are made by Hollywood by the historical accuracy. There is little information about famous guys living in the ancient era and nor there is relevant info about the settings, costumes etc. Movies from the Bible genre or about persons like Spartacus etc. focus on more of the moral issues then the historic ones. How about Ben Hur for example? And what about the Gladiator (I guess M. Aurelius did not die that way...)?
Most of the middle ages movies biased also. Movies like Robin Hood with Costner or the Last Knight with R. Gere are just sucks - anyway they are based on fiction. There was a good movie about Napoleon, he was played by the director Sergei Bondarchuk.
It was funny to see that in the last one or two decades film makers try to reconstruct the middle-age feeling of dirty and teethles guys, mud etc... Braveheart was 100 pct mud, but there were other problems as some of you pointed out.
As for WWII you should have seen some Soviet movies about the heroic fight against the Nazis (as a kid we had to see some at elementary school in Hungary), man, they were biased as hell. The Western counterparts were also not the best, but some movies like Das Boot or the Bridge Too Far were really good because they tried to show both sides outside of the moral superhero / evil bastard dichotomy. (It is really interesting that it was Cornelius Ryan who made a huge job do reconstruct both D-Day and the Market Garden, and the respective films were different: The Longest Day was more of a propaganda, while the Bridge Too Far was way better.) What do you think of Tora, tora, tora? Once someone argued that it is accurate since there was a Japanese staff also...
Apocalypse Now was mentioned earlier, it was written from Joseph Conrad's book about the slave trade in Africa (Heart of Darkness), it is fiction 100 pct, but it was good, if you have the chance see the original Conrad movie with Malkovich, do it, b/c it rocks.
I wonder what is your opinion about Nixon (with Hopkins)?
And if you live in the US look the History Channel, there is a series called "History vs. Hollywood".

 

[Switch625]

Originally posted by Richard III


Mine was a SM with 14th Army's artillery for the duration, 42-45. Please allow me to pause CFC for a moment so I can thank your grandfather for keeping mine fed and stocked with ammo at Imphal.

Ehhh... I'm almost three weeks late to this thread.

But with all the discussions of what grandpa did in the war, I just had to toss out my grandfather's contribution to the war effort. He worked in a munitions factory in Decatur, Illinois during the war. He was one of the people who kept the "arsenal of democracy" rolling.

I'm rather proud of that.

Somewhat on topic:

They Were Expendable was a surprisingly good movie, considering that it was directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne. Rather than the usual jingoistic crapola that pairing produced, this was a pretty darned good film. The limitations of both Ford and Wayne are apparent (some of the dialoge is almost painful), but this is one movie that rose above the limitations of those who made it.

 

[Novaya Havoc]

I'll have to second Anastasia and Pocahontas -- of course, Anastasia was a far more entertaining film.

C'est la vie. You go, Anya. Steamroll over Communism. ;D

-Ben

 

[Hjortþór]

what about we were soldiers with mel gibson I don´t know if its history incorrect but he and the dude with the hand pistol were to calm doing the battle (why choice hand gun when you can have m16) and mel gibson shoot some guy in the head from behinde as he was giving order in the phone. is it´t hard to do that with m16 rifel. ps sorry for bad english

 

[joespaniel]

Originally posted by Hjortþór
what about we were soldiers with mel gibson I don´t know if its history incorrect

The movie is mostly Hollywood, and it is loosely based on the book "We were soldiers once, and young", which is an acurate portayal of the battle in the Ia Drang valley.

I recommend it (the book).