Entertaining movies with bad history

[BWV 1080]

probably too many to list, but here are a few

Bridge over the River Kwai (can you imagine this movie with Nazi slave laborers? its pretty much a whitewash of a horrific incident)

Last Samurai (the 19th century Samurai were lazy aristocrats living off the public purse, all that Bushido BS was stuff they made to glorify themselves up after the Tokugawa Shogonate ended their employment in actual warfare) I rooted for the Meji troops here.

Braveheart (somehow they missed the scene where Wallace flays alive some captured English troops, I am so sick of the Scots being portrayed as the most noble people on earth - they were just a bunch of violent hillbillies)

[Corlyss_D]

Westerns are mostly ahistorical. Some are less so than others. I think Tombstone is one of the most accurate portrayals of the ambiguous relationship between the Earps and "the law." I never thought of them as per se historical, but I was surprised to learn on looking at my encyclopedia of westerns that they grew out of Bill Hickock's wild west shows, rather than any historical impulse in particular. They were always designed as entertainments, which may or may not reflect accurately the way the turn of the century felt about the frontier, as opposed to how the frontier actually was.

[piston]

The Last of the Mohicans. Not that the movie is awfully inaccurate, the original novel on which it is based is. And isn't that the problem? Why base movies that pretend to be "historical" on fiction or on some American "legend"???

Hello. It was called the French and Indian War because the vast majority of Native Americans fought alongside French Canadians. What is especially inaccurate in that movie is the scene when Native warriors are hiding in the woods, on both sides of a path, and then savagely attack and kill all the brave British troops and civilians who have vacated Fort William Henry after their surrender and are heading for the safety of Fort Edward. That imagery is drawn directly from the strategy used to defeat Braddock's army much earlier in the war. Problem is, of course, that Braddock's soldiers far outnumbered the handful of Frenchmen and Indian allies who badly defeated him. Talk about twisting a glorious achievement into a despicable one!

True, the sixteen hundred warriors who were part of the siege of Fort William Henry followed their own concept of diplomatic protocol, such as first capturing Blacks and mulattos to later sell them on the slave market. They did attack the sick and the wounded who remained in the fort and they killed a number of retreating soldiers who ran away, in panic, when Natives sought to get as much loot as possible from the retreating soldiers. That is what was called "the massacre" at Fort William Henry in contemporary media. But the historical record has long distinguished between such looting and the brutal acquisition of war "trophies" from the kind of barbaric massacre described in that movie. Well before this movie was produced, Ian Kenneth Steele wrote a work which carefully separates the facts from the fiction in James Fennimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, titled "Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the "Massacre."

From the book:

What is clear from all the sources, and especially from [Father] Roubaud, is that the indiscriminate killing lasted for only a very short time. If all sixteen hundred warriors had attacked the column with hatchets for as little as sixty seconds, the result would have been very few survivors, since there was no indication of significant resistance by people who had been effectively disarmed. The change from slaughter to a gigantic scramble for prisoners was, according to Roubaud, due to the "patience" of the English.

[...] [The] panicked version of the Fort William Henry tragedy survived in American legend

What, then, could possibly be the benefit, for racial harmony in this country, of Hollywood re-igniting an old legend about the savage massacre of defenseless Anglo-Americans and Englishmen by bloody Indians? Sometimes the legend is more commercially profitable than the non-fiction.

[Brendan]

Off the top of my head:

Saving Private Ryan
Apocalypse Now
The Deerhunter

Platoon (funny, but not meant to be).

From there you get into bad movies with bad history ala Pearl Harbor. That list is endless.

[Ralph]

"12 O'Clock High" is "good" history in that it really shows what the men of the 8th Air Force went through. It's one of the finest American war films.

[IcedNote]

Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I.



-G

[piston]

"Monsieur Vatel," with Gerard Depardieu in the role of the famous Swiss chef (he was not French) and controlleur general de la Bouche for the prince of Conde, is another case of basing a movie on a historical fact (Vatel killed himself on the second day of organizing meals and festivities for 3000 members of the French court, including a young Louis XIV), but everything else is inaccurate, including the reason for his suicide.

The reason why Conde hosted the whole French court is because he had been in disgrace for twenty years, due to his involvement in La Fronde, and now ruined financially he wished to obtain the king's pardon to loan his army, the most powerful in France, and thus replenish his coffers. But in the movie, the script puts William of Orange in the position of threatening France with his army, which is absurdly too early in this character's rise to power, thus compelling Louis XIV to call on a very reluctant Conde to lead his army.

Monsieur Vatel managed well on the first day of these royal festivities, Thursday of the Holy Week, even though he ran out of "roast" on two tables. But on the next day, Holy Friday, a delivery of fish he expected from two hundred kilometers away (!) had not arrived on time. Confronted with what this great chef saw as a most dishonorable situation (Imagine, no fish on a Catholic Friday for three thousand members of the court!), he took his own life and, here, the scene of his suicide, plunging on several occasions into a sword stuck against a door, is accurate.

But, no, there was no love story with one of the king's favorite bed partners, no game card in which he would have been gambled by Conde and lost to serve the king at his court, no successful fireworks, no testament that he loved his "freedom" (anachronistic at this point in time) too much to be treated like a slave, etc. In fact, Louis XIV knew Monsieur Vatel from a much earlier time, when he was the chef of Fouquet, the king's Minister of Finance, and according to one version of history, a much younger Louis XIV grew terribly jealous of Fouquet when Vatel put together an earlier grand banquet in 1661 that could not have been rivalled even at the French court, so jealous that he finally got Fouquet arrested and thrown into jail.

Moreover, we have a contemporary statement of facts by Madame de Sevigne herself:

Paris, Sunday, April 26 (1671)

It is Sunday, April 26; this letter won't leave until Wednesday; but this isn't a letter, it's that which Moreuil has just told me so that I could repeat it to you, about what happened at Chantilly concerning Vatel. On Friday I wrote to you that he was stabbed: here are the details of the matter.

The King arrived Thursday evening; hunting, lanterns, moonlight, a promenade, the meal in a place carpeted with jonquils, everything that one could wish. Supper was served; there were some tables at which there was no roast, because there were several more guests than were expected. This affected Vatel; he said several times: "I have lost honor; this is a disgrace which I can't bear." He said to Gourville: "My head is spinning, I haven't slept for twelve nights; help me give orders." Gourville help him as best he could. The roast which had been lacking, not at the King's table, but at the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, kept coming back to his mind. The Prince went to his room and said to him, "Vatel, everything is going fine, nothing was ever as lovely as the King's supper." Vatel answered, "Sir, your goodness is too much for me; I know that there was no roast at two tables." "That's nothing at all," said the prince, "don't fret about it, everything is going fine."

Night falls. The fireworks fail, because of a fog over everything; they had cost sixteen thousand francs. At 4:00 AM Vatel was everywhere, but he found everyone asleep; he ran into a small purveyor who brought him only two loads of fish; Vatel asked him, "Is that all?" He answered, "Yes, sir." He didn't know that Vatel had sent to all the ports. Vatel waited a while; the other purveyors didn't come; his head felt hot, he thought that he would have no other fish; he found Gourville, and said to him: "Sir, I will not survive this disgrace; I have honor and a reputation to lose." Gourville laughed at him. Vatel went up to his room, stood his sword against the door, and passed it through his heart; but that was only at the third stab, for the first two weren't fatal: He fell dead. However, the fish started coming from all sides; they looked for Vatel to distribute it; they went to his room, they started banging, they broke down the door; they found him drowned in his blood; they ran to the Prince, who was in despair. The Duke cried; he had come from Burgundy only because of Vatel. The Prince said to the King with great sadness: "They say it was because of his pride"; people praised him greatly, they praised and blamed his courage. The King said that he hadn't been to Chantilly for five years because he knew how much strain his visits caused. He told the Prince that he should only have had two tables, and not pay any attention to the others. He swore that he would not put up with the Prince's doing things like that any more; but it was too late for poor Vatel.

Gourville tried to make up for the loss of Vatel; it worked: they dined very well, they had their light meals, they supped, the took their walks, they hunted. Everywhere the scent of jonquils, everything was enchanted. Yesterday, which was Saturday, they did the same again; and in the evening the King went to Liancourt, where he ordered a midnight meal like the ones after fasts; he has to stay there today.

That's what Moreuil told me, so that I should send it to you. I throw my bonnet above the mill, and that's all I know of the story. M. de Hacqueville, who was there, will no doubt write to you about it, but since my handwriting is more legible than his, I'm writing anyway. I've written a lot of details, but since I would want them in your place, I'm sending them to you.

[slofstra]

Hogan's Heroes.

Apparently it was first released in Germany just a few years ago. It is quite funny. I wonder how those who lived through the war reacted to it when produced in the Sixties. I know my Dad really enjoyed it back then.

[Corlyss_D]

Hogan's Heroes.

Apparently it was first released in Germany just a few years ago. It is quite funny. I wonder how those who lived through the war reacted to it when produced in the Sixties. I know my Dad really enjoyed it back then.

So did mine. He served with Patton, spent most of the war in Iceland or England until D-Day. Sgt. Schultz was his favorite character.

[anasazi]

Amadeus?