Hi 682al,

A great recording, thanks. Not that one I’d heard before either.

Cheers
Dave

If you can’t be bothered to make a film that sticks to the facts why not just make fantasy anyhow–make a story up?

Well, I took a whole paper at university that dealt with that subject. The paper was called History In Film, and we studied many historical films and the contents in them to see how historic films are put together.

Funnily enough even the film makers who strive to make completely accurate historical documents still have problems when it comes to filming it, simply from the logistics of telling a story. You usually have just 3 hours max to tell a huge story, so often parts are omitted, other parts are merged and a few bridging parts are created to make the story flow and the audience get it, whilst still keeping them entertained.

Even some of the most lawded historic films, great historic pieces, have still had to make sacrifices. One that surprised me so much is Ghandi, which was a stunning film and from everything I’ve seen on the man is extremely accurate and probably one of the best portrayals ever of a well known man. But it too had bits made up in it to help the story flow. I didn’t previously know that. Also big areas of his life were left out. Hard to believe in a film almost as long as Attenborough’s Oscar speech!

Even when trying to keep it accurate, often fictitious characters are added into the story to keep it all together. Probably not a good example when I say ‘accurate’ but in Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK’, Kevin Bacon’s critical character was actually not based on any one man at all, but four different real people. It was decided that four similar and mediocre characters giving the same sort of evidence (and thus the same sort of contribution to the film) would have made it too confusing to the viewer so they merged them into one much stronger character.

Again, Morgan Freeman’s character in Spielberg’s ‘Amistad’ was totally fictitious just to give the viewer a notion that there were free well-to-do blacks in socety who were prospering. In fact Amistad was widely pre-publicised as going to be one of the most researched and accurate film ever made, but in truth when it came out they’d made several concessions like that. (It was, for me, one of the most boring film ever made, so the changes didn’t make it more entertaining I can tell you that.)

The other thing too is history is very, very subjective. History can really only be told from a narrow point of view in dramatic film. You might see all different angles of the story but it is usually one or two writers telling you those angles in the end.

The classic saying is ‘History is written by the victors’. In Pearl Harbor the Japanese were clearly the victors. Tora ToraTora is interesting in that it was written and produced by both the victors and the losers. Perhaps this is unique (maybe The Longest Day fits into this too but I’m unsure who wrote it).

No doubt many of the Japanese films about the attack showed it from their victorious angle. The Battle of Britain was made by the winning side. The Germans would probably never amke a film about that battle.

But good old modern Hollywood can’t help breaking the rules and rewriting history so that their side wins, because you cannot have the yanks losing these days, as it’s too much like reality biting I guess. So they rewrote history in PH to look like they were the victors. They also made it look like one of their’s was the saviour of the British in the Battle of Britain – probably the most foolish move in historical film making I’ve ever seen (“HAMMER DOWN!”)

I personally thought the flying scenes in PH were fairly impressive when I first saw it at the cinema – the sound system and big screen helped I guess.

I rmember in editing class the tutor asked what film we’d all seen last. I said PH and he laughed. He said what did you like about it most. I said I liked the flying, hated the script, but the thing that impressed me most was you saw the shells and cordite ejecting from the planes when they were in combat!

Thinking about it now, if that was the most impressive thing, I must have been fooled by the illusion of cinema really, because on reflection the film really was pants, and I should have demanded my 2 and 6 back!

I’ve tried to watch it again on DVD and TV and swithced off almost immediately. Good films aren’t be like that, so this ain’t a good film. I can watch Tora over and over even if it’s old, the first half is a little dull on storyline and the planes don’t eject cordite and shells. It is a million times more accurate and much better made.

As for The Patriot, I went to that at the cinema and thoroughly liked it as an action film. I liked it because I knew nothing about the US vs UK war. I simply liked the story, the acting was pretty good, the action was superb and it was a little different. It was only later I learned what the true story was, that the ‘evil’ British commander was in fact a nice bloke, and Mel’s character was fictitous. He was based on three different people, and the one most used to create him was in fact a murderous criminal, not a great hero.

U571 was also a good action flick if you think of it in the mould of like The Guns of Navarone. The Brits seem very testy about it over the Enigma machine thing, which is fair enough, but I’m sure the Poles have more to grumble about on that one. At least the film did acknowledge the real heroes at the end.

I have to add one last thing, the most brilliant, wonderful, fantastic historic film I have seen in many a year was ‘The Gathering Storm’ about Sir Winston Churchill. Albert Finney deserves a knighthood for that one!! I can’t wait for the sequel… mmm, Battle of Britain from Winnie’s angle…

Now, back to Pearl Har… oh, sorry, I meant Tora, Tora, Tora……

Andy, did you say they’re doing a Pearl Harbor re-enactment at next year’s Legends? 😀