I consider myself to be a man of fairly simple taste. I love video games. I love reading. I also love movies, but I also love history. Whether it’s military history, ancient world history, or US history, there is a lot to be learned from the past. It helps us(or at least is supposed to)learn from mistakes that were made, so that we don’t make them again. There is something really neat about opening up a history book from medieval Europe or ancient Greece, and imagining yourself in that time period. This is where historical movies come into the picture, at least for me. Historical films give us a window into a bygone era. When handled right, historical movies are not only entertaining, but they can be educational and inspire people to research that particular part of history. That being said, historians have a tendency to be pretty persnickety when it comes to these kinds of films. I can certainly understand where some of these folks are coming from, because some of these movies are horrifically inaccurate. Here’s the rub, film-making is obviously not an easy process, as I have explained so many times before. When it comes to historical pictures, film-makers have to pick and choose certain elements that could work in a movie. Not everything in history needs to be on screen, and I believe that a good number of historians get that. What they don’t understand is that the responsibility of a film-maker is to make the best movie possible, first and foremost. At the same time, the onus is on the film-makers to at least try and get some historical elements correct. An historical film doesn’t need to be a hundred percent accurate, it simply can’t be. There are too many holes and varying opinions throughout history to show us exactly how things used to be, so some liberties must be taken to try and craft a cohesive narrative. There are movies out there that are not only entertaining, but incredibly accurate as well. Apollo 13 and Hacksaw Ridge come to mind. It’s doable and I think film-makers should at least make an effort to shape their narrative according to an historical event. You don’t change history to fit your narrative. You change your narrative to fit history. The following movies are some examples of movies that historians absolutely hate. Some of them I agree with, others I don’t.
Braveheart
Here’s one that I absolutely understand. On one hand, Mel Gibson directed an incredibly engaging film about a man’s fight against tyranny. The battle sequences are epic and Mel Gibson is fantastic as William Wallace. All the elements are there for an excellent movie, and if you approach the film from an entertainment angle, it’s fantastic. However, if you have the slightest interest in Scotland’s history and do a little bit of research, the movie falls apart. This movie has been eviscerated by historians world-wide and there are reasons for that. It gets nothing right in terms of historical accuracy, and what’s worse, is that Randall Wallace, the film’s writer, admits this. Not only does he get the dates wrong, he gets Wallace’s motivations wrong. He even manages to get one of the biggest battles in William Wallace’s campaign wrong: The Battle of Sterling, which is actually The Battle of Sterling BRIDGE. The creepiest part of it all is that he hooks up with Princess Isabelle, who at the actual time of Wallace would have been only 8 or 9 years old. I could go on and on, but from an historian’s perspective, Braveheart is a mess.
Pearl Harbor
This one’s an obvious one, I grant you, but it still has to be mentioned. Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor is one of the worst war movies ever made. Even from a story-telling perspective, this movie is wrong on so many levels. It spends nearly two hours on a bloated and cheesy love story that NOBODY cared about. When the film gets to the actual attack on Pearl Harbor, that’s when it gets interesting, but after that, it goes back to the same sappy melodrama involving Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale’s characters. It was not necessary. From an historical perspective, this movie is riddled with issues. For one, an American pilot would not have been allowed to fly for a foreign government. Neither the American or British military would have allowed it. On top of all that, there is a lot of blatant and in-your-face flag-waving patriotism. Look, I’m usually a fan of Michael Bay’s work as a director, but Pearl Harbor is awful on nearly every level. If you want a good movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor, I recommend Tora! Tora! Tora!.
The Last Samurai
This one’s a bit of an odd-ball. The Last Samurai was fairly well-received in Japan, but not so much here in the United States. A lot of critics saw it as another Dances With Wolves film about a white man saving a foreign culture. A lot of historians have shredded the film to pieces because of its many inaccuracies. For one, the motivations for the samurai rebellion were completely glossed over in the film. In the midst of a Japan that was becoming modernized, the samurai were becoming more and more obsolete. In the film, the samurai were fighting to preserve their way of life and their traditions. The reality was that the samurai class had become corrupt and were losing their positions of power and wealth due to a modernizing Japan, which led to a rebellion during the Meiji Restoration. While historians certainly are right to have certain issues with the film, the movie itself does not claim to be based on a true story. In fact, the character of Nathan Algren, while based on a French soldier, was completely made-up. Katsumodo was loosely based on Saigo Takamori, who led the rebellion. The Last Samurai is one of my favorite movies because while it is a romanticized depiction of what happened during the Restoration, it still managed to show the world that Japan still had a place in a globalized economy. Not only that, the film the ideas and the way of life of the samurai and their code of conduct: Bushido. The film does get some stuff correct. The samurai armor is accurate and the final battle played out almost exactly the way it did in real life. For me, the fact that The Last Samurai actually made an effort to get some stuff right is admirable.
Kingdom of Heaven
Here’s another film that a large number of historians take issue with, especially those whose specialize in the Crusades and that time period. As with all things dealing with the ancient world, things are going to get missed in an historical film. It’s the nature of the beast. While a lot of reviews and some historians have praised the film’s look and battle sequences, a lot of historians take a lot of issues with the Heaven’s apparent political correctness when it comes to portraying Christians and Muslims during the Crusades. Others have pointed to certain characters that behave NOTHING like the figures that they portray. I happen to like the film, because it IS epic and the battles are amazing. The performances are also mostly fantastic. To be fair to some of those historians, there are things here that don’t make a lot of sense. The Knights Templar, for example, are portrayed as a group of thugs, when the reality was that they really weren’t. They were sworn to serve the Pope at the time. It does get a number of elements right, and it’s a more honest attempt at making an historical picture than Braveheart. Besides, everybody knows that the director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven is the better version.
47 Ronin
Can somebody explain something to me? What is it with Hollywood and the whole “white-savior” trope that seems to permeate every historical and science fiction film? I don’t get it. 47 Ronin tells the story of 47 master-less samurai who seek to avenge the death of their lord in the early 18th century. On it’s own, the premise of the Ako Incident of 1702 should make for a fantastic samurai film. Leave it to Hollywood to take such an incredible story and muck it up with cheesy fantasy elements and lousy CGI monsters. While The Last Samurai may not have been the most historically accurate film, it did have an element of realism to it and it respected the Japanese culture. 47 Ronin doesn’t even do that. You don’t have to be an historian to know that this movie isn’t accurate at all. They don’t even get the mythology right. Dragons in Japan and China were considered to be lucky and wise. Here, a witch changes into a fire-breathing dragon. Any historian would tell you that this film is dogshit. Even if you managed to ignore the historical inaccuracies, the film fails even on a fantasy level. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film so disrespectful of the story that it was trying to tell. Carl Rinsch, who directed this film, really hasn’t done anything since. I wonder why. A fantasy film set in feudal Japan could be really good, considering the rich mythology of the Far East, but this film isn’t it.
King Arthur(2004)
I’ve a confession to make(among many thus far): I love Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur. I really do. It’s epic and it’s got some incredible landscapes with some really fantastic battle sequences. The musical score by Hans Zimmer is absolutely powerful. However, the film’s claim of historical truth is nothing more than hogwash. The historians have it right on this one. While some of the characters like Artorius Castus may have existed, it wasn’t in the time-line that the film claimed they did. Artorius 100-200 years before when the film is set, presumably. There are elements of truth here, but they’re taken from different periods in history and thrown together into one. If Arthur existed at this point in history, Lancelot sure as hell didn’t as he was a fictional character invented in the 12th century. Honestly, it just boggles my mind that film-makers were trying to craft a King Arthur film based on some historical fact, when the historical fact really didn’t exist. You know what that’s called? False advertising. Again, I really enjoy the film. It’s a grittier form of fantasy, but it is STILL fantasy at the core.
It needs to be said that some of the complaints that historians have with some of these movies are legitimate gripes. I certainly wouldn’t call an historian some kind elitist libtard, even though some do act that way. It’s also important that sometimes Hollywood gets it right with movies like Apollo 13, but for the most part, Hollywood is Hollywood, and they’re going to do what they’re going to do. For me, I think it’s important that a film-maker tries to put some effort into making a historical film accurate as possible, but without sacrificing the greater narrative. You’re not going to please everybody, especially not some die-hard historians that demand 100% accuracy. I think if you can use an historical film to inspire an audience to research that particular subject, then you’ve succeeded to a certain degree. Obviously, not everybody’s going to agree on whether a movie’s good or not. I certainly have my opinions, but an historian may have a differing opinion, especially if they have expertise in that particular subject matter. These are some films that were known to be hated by historians.