I’m going to do a different form of media for this week’s newsletter. Since I’ve talked a lot about the news media and social media, I thought why not dabble in what the entertainment media is up to in terms of informing and misinforming people? This idea comes as the Christopher Nolan film, Oppenheimer, continues to succeed at the box office, making $174 million total so far.
The film is receiving much praise in nearly all areas of filmmaking and many moviegoers are talking about it long after seeing it. There are talks about Oscar nominations for the lead actor, Cillian Murphy, and even Nolan himself. But there is one aspect of this movie that both moviegoers and movie critics are bringing up, and that is just how accurate is this movie.
Not that it should be surprising that people are asking themselves whether every moment in Oppenheimer actually happened. After all, many movies based on real people or real events throughout history have been panned by historians for being full of inaccuracies. These include 2000’s Gladiator which portrayed the emperor Commodus being killed in a sword fight in the Coliseum, when he was actually assassinated. It is also doubted that he killed his own father as depicted in the movie.
Early examples include the famous Elizabeth Taylor film, Cleopatra. The 1968 film, Anne of the Thousand Days, shows Henry VIII (Richard Burton) visiting Anne Boleyn (Genevieve Bujold) while imprisoned, days before her death, even though the real Henry VIII never paid his second wife such a visit.
Then there are famous examples such as 1991’s JFK, directed by Oliver Stone, that seemed to promote the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s assassination. Or 1998’s Shakespeare in Love or 2006’s Apocalypto. And of course, there’s 1995’s Braveheart, which seems to give historians, both professional and amateur, major headaches with its long list of inaccuracies.
Not to mention many of the TV series on television or streaming online are full of inaccuracies themselves. These include actual events or people, or the clothing they wore or at the wrong time period.
Also, don’t think it only happens with American entertainment. Other countries have their movies and TV filled with inaccuracies, even when it is their own history. France did so with Marie Antoinette in Adieu, Ma Reine (Farewell My Queen), and Russia did so with Tsar Nicholas II with the film Mathilde which saw protests and some members of the Duma calling it blasphemous. Also, Turkey’s widely popular serial, Magnificent Century tells about one of the Ottoman Empire’s longest-reigning rulers, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, has been criticized as being disrespectful and even Prime Minister Erdogan said it showed Turkey’s history in a negative light. So, even filmmakers and TV producers worldwide are not getting everything factually correct.
With so many movies and TV series rewriting history, should we ever get upset about the inaccuracies? Should we feel betrayed if we do?
Honestly, no…though sometimes yes, if you ask me (hey, I’m that kind of moviegoer mumbling about things that did not happen behind you at the theater). Because it’s important to remember that Hollywood is all about entertainment. It is a business built on entertaining people and telling stories about the human experience. It is not a major historical society nor is an unorthodox history department linked to all the world’s history professors and programs. Hollywood is in the business to entertain, not to educate.
And also, if Hollywood were to make a movie that was entirely accurate, that may prove to be difficult. For one, there’s the length the producers and directors have to keep in mind; if a movie was solidly accurate, will it be two hours long or four hours long? Again, Hollywood is not here to educate and certainly not to give you a backache.
And then there’s the drama aspect. Hollywood wants to tell stories and hey, history is full of fascinating stories and people. But in order for all of us to follow the storyline, the script has to move things along and not allow the script to get boring. So cut some things out, have a character with someone or somewhere when they shouldn’t be, or say or do something historians know they wouldn’t have.
And then comes the drama aspect that has us wondering what if? What if Henry VIII really did visit Anne Boleyn in The Tower and they had that big fight over Anne’s impending execution? You might remember the 2018 film, Mary, Queen of Scots, which shows Queen Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) and Mary, the titular character (Saoirse Ronan) meeting just before Mary is executed after years of letters between each other and much rivalry. Historians are quick to point out that the two queens never met in real life.
But why make it so in the movie? Let’s start with an interesting fact: there was a Broadway play called Mary of Scotland that ran from 1933 to 1934 with nearly 300 performances and also showed Elizabeth and Mary meeting. Sounds like having these two fascinating queens meeting face-to-face is a wishful fantasy that maybe historians wished had happened. So, maybe writing such scenes as this for movies and TV is not an attempt to rewrite history and misinform the audience, but to ask a big “what if?” Kind of like the Amazon Prime series, The Man in the High Castle, which explores what would the world be like if Nazi Germany and Japan won WWII.
So, should movies and TV serials be historically accurate? They probably should, especially if they’re going to categorize themselves as a historical film. Perhaps a disclaimer prior to the movie and TV episode may help, though it likely would not get far.
It depends, really. Some inaccuracies are necessary for drama reasons and others. But outrageous inaccuracies are unacceptable. Might as well label the production as historical fiction.
A lecturer of film studies at the University of Portsmouth, Patrick Masters, once said this about inaccurate films: “…despite film’s limitations in providing the required factual detail, the medium can provide an audience with an experience that provides the appearance of historical authenticity.”
Experience. Maybe that’s all we need. Experiencing what Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project was really like. What WWII was like. Or the Vietnam War. Or the Civil War. The Renaissance era, the Crusades, slavery, and life in the Forbidden City. We may not get our education from these movies and series, but we will experience it enough to maybe do our own (and hopefully accurate) research.
As Masters says, “A historical movie is not a history lesson, but historical fiction, which provides a level of authenticity that sets a story in a commonly perceived historical reality.”
Perhaps that’s all we need to remember.
Unless of course, another movie or TV show comes out that has historical facts so messed up. Then we’ll have to revisit this discussion.
What do you think? How do you feel about historically inaccurate productions? Is it mostly for entertainment or is there a point to draw a line in the sand?