Here is a new, uber-nerdy thread for general history film/TV discussion.

To get the ball rolling, a few of the worst historical films I've seen:
- Braveheart
- Pearl Harbor
- Alexander
- We Were Soldiers.

Mind you, some of these are good films to watch, despite being fast and loose with the truth. So is a good period film one that's accurate? One that gets the 'feeling' right rather than the facts? Or one that's just pure popcorn? Thoughts please!

According to one high school history teacher, that princess William Wallace had an affair with in 'Braveheart' was pure Hollywood ignorance. In history, she was only 8 at the time of Wallace's death and in France!

'Elizabeth' was another piece of crap criticized, after some boys got pwned for writing their essay believing the film to be factual and mentioned that she had an affair with the spy master Francis Walsingham.

Around the world there's always been the wrong costumes used for in a period. To the untrained eye, 200 years or so of fashion difference aren't that noticeable.

Braveheart is riddled with those kind of errors. However it was all intentionally done to meet a classic Hollywood plotline, so it succeeded at the box office anyway. People got quite interested in Scottish history as a result. Is it a bad thing then, all up?

The major flaw with historical film is that they always need to spice it up for the box office and some ignorant members of the audience think its real.

I remember reading a survey that showed large amounts of high school students in the UK (about 30%) thought that Hitler was actually just a character in movies and not a real person.

Gladiator seemed like a good historical movie to me, as did Full Metal Jacket.

I think in the same survey, despite later recalling watching 'Saving Private Ryan', a lot of them aren't sure what D-Day was initially. When asked about when it happened, one mistook it for Britian's Decimal Day in 1967.

Some older WWII films tend to be inaccurate in terms of weaponry. The directors thought SMGs (Thompsons and MP-40s) were cools, so they made every infantryman carry one. WWII films with proper historical advice follow the standards of the time where, ther should always be an abundance of bolt action rifles (or M1 Garands for Americans), and SMGs or the StG. 44 issued to squad leaders.

What's the best Late Imperial China history film? I'm thinking giant, impressive armies and lots of political intrigue here.

I think I've got bored of watching those since '90s TV were flooded with those. When I was a kid, the Mainland, HK and Taiwan all competed to produce their series of 'Bao Qing Tian'. The cases for China's most famous judge were dramatized, but it gave people hope in a time of rising corruption.

Any production involving the Three Kingdoms period is going to be huge in terms of magnitude, budget and celebrity appearances. Those series are likely to last for monthes due to the length of the period.

More recent Chinese historical films try to sprinkle subliminal messages and praise the current order, and these get picked out easily. Like how 'Hero' was suspected of praising Jiang Zemin. Don't watch 'Towards the Republic', that one is historically shite! It even got banned.

There's one recent one made about Qing's Kangxi Emperor and that's been criticized for trying to stir up nationalism, while suppressing the darker truths about his reign.

Enigma. A movie based on the cracking of the German Enigma code during WW2.

As you can probably guess this movie held great appeal to me. What is relevant to this discussion however is that the protagonist, based on Alan Turing, becomes involved in some kind of romantic subplot with a repressed female scientist. To be honest this makes a valid point about the position of women involved in mathematical science, however the truth is that Turing was a raving homosexual who commited suicide after the war when his 'deviancy' was discovered and he was given hormone treatment as an alternative to jail - a tradgedy equal to the persecution of Galileo in the 17th century.

There are other smaller inaccurricies in the film as well.

Hollywood also made some crap movie called u-boat something or other about a group of Americans capturing a working Enigma machine. I never actually saw it because it was obviously garbage. It was, of course, the British that heroically rescued the machine from the sinking u-boat, but alas, that wouldn't have done so well at the American box office. Much like a film about a genius homosexual, I suspect

Troy.

King Arthur.

Big Trouble in Little China Town

Those movies were entirely fictitious.

Oi! That movie was horse shit!

Fuck up.

Just because things may have existed before you and your ass, doesn't mean they didn't happen.

King Arthur was fictional (it stemmed from Medieval interests in a Dark Ages warlord who fought the Romans), and as for Troy, historians are unsure whether such epic campaigns actually happened, but the place is there.

Maybe you should stop watching all those damn movies and learn some real history.

Fuck you. It's outstanding. How dare you go against the word of maddox.

That movie gives a stereotypical, perverted view of Chinatowns.

This is a thread about historical films, not Hollywood garbage!

Maybe if you'd seen the latest King Arthur you'd know what I'm talking about. It was based on historical evidence/remains. Dipshit.

Most of today's "historical films" are Hollywood garbage.

Prime example: Pearl Harbour.

I rule in favour of Yeliah.

I thought the german film about the last days of the Third Reich, Downfall, was a good one. I'm not sure about its 'historical accuracy' (I'm not really sure if 'accuracy' is either desirable or attainable within the context of a movie), but it was a visceral account of what it is like for a nation to lose a war.

And, for all its crapness as an actual movie, I thought The Last Samurai did a really good job of portraying the clash of tradition and modernity, and the trauma of radical reform in Meiji Japan.

I'm surprised noones mentioned Titanic yet. That is the worst and full of factual errors, like when he says "i'm the king of the world" - actually, he isn't the king, which is misleading - I am.

I just rule. :D

I'd count all of the stuff you've mentioned as historical film, after a fashion - it's a pretty broad church, in which I would count almost anything that's set at a particular point in the past.

I reviewed Downfall for Craccum a while back. It's based on contemporary accounts, as well as a massive and well-respected book by Antony Beevor called Berlin: The Downfall 1945. It's one of the few movies I've seen that is both good to watch, and almost completely accurate historically.

As for King Arthur, I think they used some historical information and data to add extra value to the story, but that story itself is still shrouded in myth. We have basically no idea who Arthur was or what he did. It's a very fun movie though!

Definitely agreed with you Sam and Maus about Downfall. Whether one disputes it's historical accuracy or not, it's a bloody moving movie.

Hahaha, I acted in a Chinese play about Bao Qing Tian over a year ago, though not about him getting trialled himself, but some other mystery that he was investigating.

The story of the 'Downfall' was based on the historic facts presented by Traudl Junge (Hitler's last secretary) and Joachim Fest (one of the foremost experts on Hitler biography).

I sometimes get stirred up by watching historical docu-dramas, like the recently boradcasted Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', the details they showed was simply incredible. I also like the current 'Frontier of Dreams', I'm beginning to have interest in the early colonial infantry that engaged the Maoris.

I spent a big lot of last night trawling Wikipedia. Ended up reading all about Chinese folklore and mythology... I'd love to see some of the jiangshi - ie, 'hopping corpse' or Chinese vampire - horror films that have been made recently.

Perhaps they should make an action/horror cross over Jiangshi film where the hero is some active/retired PLA man who is a vigiliante that hunts down Jiangshi in some modern city and uses a wide range of NORINCO* small arms.


*China North Industrial Company- Primary contractor of the PLA. Manufactures precision strike systems, amphibious assault weapons and equipment, long-range suppression weapon systems, anti-aircraft & anti-missile systems, information & night vision products, high-effect destruction systems, fuel air bombs, anti-terrorism & anti-riot equipment and small arms, plus a very large civilian sector.

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Due to my interests of viewing what goes on in another time period, I'm not surprised that my favorite films are 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Schindler's List'. I haven't seen 'Der Untergang', but that's one DVD I'm defenitely planning to rent!

Can you PM me some jiangshi film titles Adolf?

aparently Lord of the Rings is pretty close to histry. but i heard there were a few factual changes made and sum things werent covered by the film but ive seen in and its really good.

Apart from it (allegedly) being influenced by the coming Second World War, I'm not entirely sure what you mean... nice attempt to drag us off-topic though. :P

the star warz is another good one, it was set "a long time ago..." so they cant carbon date it, but im sure the truth is still there in the general message.

VVV(samf is to respond asking if I'm making an obscure reference to the way in which the phenonemon of the 1977 Star Wars can be viewed as a reaction to the post-Vietnaam war malaise throughout the US)VVV

^^ is clearly trolling, but his comment about Star Wars and post-Vietnam malaise just might have something in it...

Sorry, mate. I don't know or can't remember any. I think they're just lame.