Amph Historically Based Films and Dramatic License

(turning on the big searchlight to shine the FRAGWAGON signal into the night sky)

 

My compliments, Mr. Sarge. What a fellow you are, Ender_Sai! Of course it is as Sarge and Yankee have detailed. The real marvel, the incredulous miracle, is how much Mr. Peter Weir was able to completely capture the spirit of the books. All while mashing several of them together.

As for Aubrey being fat, I don't think the books bear it. His weight fluctuates, sure. But he is most of all a Big Man, tall and yes some extra weight. To my tinny modern ear, when I hear 'fat', I think of the (aptly named) comedian John Candy.

To sum, as the movie captured O'Brian, lovingly and carefully, so it captures the history in which these historical novels are the greatest. Errors in the film may be found, so i've read, but the procuration of powder for excellent gunnery is not one of them.

 

I'm always surprised there are fans of the books who complain about the movie, especially that it leaves out the wives. They weren't even in the first book. I thought it made perfect sense to focus on just the two of them and their relationship. Besides, the Stephen-Diane relationship is so complicated, you'd need a TV series, or at least miniseries, to come close to understanding it.

There were also rumors for a time that there would be a second movie, based on Revere of the Medal and Letter of the Marque. Crowe and Bettany indicated significant interest in reprising their roles, but Weir didn't would be awesome if the film got made, those two books would be perfect source material.

 

I recall in the first book, when Aubrey and Maturin meet at the Governor's Mansion and Aubrey is described as "plump" by Maturin.

Though the criticism of the shot/powder at sea was more that for the amount of time Surprise was at sea, and given the threat the Acheron posed to her, shot and powder would be conserved for engagements.

However, the film ranks in my top 5 of all time so I would not wish my comments to be seen as a complaint.

Aubrey's command in the novel - it's been a long while since I read it - was a brig, wasn't it? Sophia or Sophie or the like?

EDIT: Also, I forgot - Crowe wants to do a sequel and has tried to raise support for the project via Twitter.

 

Sequel? Man the capstan! There's not a moment to lose!

Aubrey's first command was the brig Sophie, and his capture of the xebec Cacafuego was inspired by (copied from?) a historical battle commanded by Cochrane, one of the great heroes of the RN. The name of Cochrane's brig escapes me, but will probably spring into my brain fullblown in the midst of the second dog watch (which is cur-tailed.) Aubrey's wife was named Sophia. Which is less confusing than it ought to be.

 

Lawless takes a fair amount of liberty about what actually happened; Charlie Rakes wasn't a sociopath, for one thing:

review from Franklin County newspaper

 

Twas the HMS Speedy (I cheated and wikied it). I long for a sequel, though I wonder if they could find anyone with a love for the source material like Peter Weir.

 

HMS Speedy! Gah! Thank you, Fragwagon, I feel like I just passed a brainstone.

What was Cochrane's first name?

 

Thomas.

 

This thread has become about two things, neither of which are the point.

1) Listing examples of historical inaccuracy in movies.
2) ****ing to the age of sail.

 

The age of sail was an amazing time in history, and just because America wasn't as good at is as Britain is no cause to have a monumental sulk.

 

No. 2 is straying a bit, true, but you need to read the thread title before taking a potshot at no.1. Historical inaccuracy in historical based movies is naturally going to crop up in discussions, so back off. I have no problem with discussing historical inaccuracies; if you notice my last post, I pointed out a few examples myself. So far, your two posts in this thread have done nothing to contibute to the discussion. Why not provide some insights of your own instead of sniping at others?

 

Yeah, you're right, anakinfansince1983. I just got irked at CT-867-5309 because s/he seems to want to rag others rather than discussing his/her own views on historical movies and I'm trying to spur some open discussion/debate here.

Going back to one of the questions I asked in the intial post, does anyone think that historical movies can be useful tools for teaching history to children or should this be avoided at all costs? Personally, I think watching these movies could be a good way to learn about history, say English history, with Elizabeth, The Golden Age, the various Robin Hood movies - but it shouldn't simply be left there; kids need to learn about the real history as well and not have their knowledge of the past come only through movies.

 

They might be a good way to get kids interested in history, but they're a horrible way to learn about it. Because invariably after showing Robin Hood, etc. you have to then turn around to your class and say "Well, now that you've seen that, here's the six hundred ways in which the film deviated from the actual history." The best tool for teaching history is an engaged and competent teacher. If you have no other conceivable way to get the kids interested in history, then grit your teeth and show 300 (er...yeah...) but it's a last resort.

I also have an objection to showing Hollywood as history to schoolkids because of Hollywood's biases around violence and war. Absent the rare and horrible gem like Saving Private Ryan -- or Schindler's List, for that matter -- Hollywood fosters a video-game mindset on death, war, and combat. I am not saying the delicate little snowflakes should not see any violence on screen in their lives. I'm saying they tend to see a stylised and misleading picture of war, which is as bad as not showing the violence at all. Like I said further up the page, Zero Dark Thirty is one such example. And if anyone was going to present a more realistic version of war, it should've been the writer and director of that movie, since they made The Hurt Locker. There have been many, many others, and in general Hollywood is not getting any better at representing the real psychological horrors of war or the real significance and ramifications of taking someone's life.

Hollywood also practices propaganda, albeit in the present day it tends to be against the government rather than for it. That leads to weird-ass philosophies and viewpoints being imposed on historical characters that really they would never have dreamed of, simply because the writers or directors don't think audiences can handle a viewpoint markedly different to their own. In medieval films it usually manifests as a desire for "democracy" against the crown, which was an alien idea in feudal society until much, much later down the track. Not to mention that the "Age of Dark and Dirty" that Hollywood likes to say was the medieval period is also highly misleading; books like Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel demonstrate the surprising sophistication that the so-called "Dark Ages" had. It's worse when films are made and marketed with a quasi-religious grandeur, like Lincoln, because all kinds of inaccuracies can be slipped in leaving the historian committing the crime of lese majesty as well as nitpicking.

 

Uh, did you see the same Zero Dark Thirty that I did? Government officials (particularly the Department of Defense) loooovvvve cooperating with Hollywood productions in exchange for favorable portrayals. Not that I would've expected Michael Bay to be critical of the military in Transformers anyway, but still.

 

We actually watched Saving Private Ryan in class, I think in 8th grade. Strangely enough, the guys in class thought it was totally awesome and cool and stuff. They had the same video game reaction that you mentioned, as if they had just watched one of their friends rack up a killing spree in Call of Duty. Saving Private Ryan is probably a major factor in the success of the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor video game franchises. They apparently missed the part where guys are lying in a jumbled mess of their own guts crying for their mothers. My history teacher was not amused.

So even something like Saving Private Ryan may not be a good way for kids to learn history. Well, either that or my classmates (and perhaps a major fraction of my generation) are just dunces who can't be helped.

Is it what the teacher teaches or what the student learns?

If Saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole god awful, ****** mess can get video game kids to at least take an interest in history, even on the most superficial level, has it proved itself valuable as a history lesson? Perhaps those kids won't learn anything from the movie, but maybe it will spark an interest that leads to later learning.

 

Master and Commander. If there's a more accurate bigscreen view of life at sea in Nelson's Navy, I've never heard of it. A lot of viewers seem to find it boring, but I was fascinated.

 

I said Zero Dark Thirty was an example of a video game approach to war and combat above; see my earlier comments in the thread about that. And that's why I expected the people who made The Hurt Locker to do better.

EDIT: Not to mention that while the military is hyped up in Michael Bay films, the government is invariably lampooned at the same time. Revenge of the Fallen has a DoD official no less who is portrayed as Bureaucrat Incompetent; Dark of the Moon has the governments of Earth itself ordering the Autobots to leave Earth, which is portrayed as a foolish decision and opposed by the military. There are rather unfortunate implications to the suggestion that the military always knows better than a democratically elected government what to do on matters of national security.

 

I haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty. I spent most of The Hurt Locker shaking my head and thinking, "Wrong, that's not how it happens, that could never happen, real soldiers who act that dumb need to get transferred out for the safety of the unit, and what was the military advisor paid for?" I spent more than a few months in Iraq. I didn't buy into that movie at all.

 

anakinfansince1983 - it's not Australian, but it does have an Australian lead; an Australian director, and a score composed by an Australian. As Sarge said, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Amazing movie; one of my top 5 of all time.

"This is a ship of war, and I will grind whatever grist the mill requires to do my duty."
"Whatever the cost?"
"Whatever the cost."

 

That was another thing the movie adopted really well from the books -- great score, including using a number of classical pieces (Mozart, Bach, Boccherini), and having the two play a number of times, including at the end, one of my favorite movie scenes ever.



EDIT: Also, that twitter campaign was 2010 or 2011, doesn't seem much came of it. Definitely a shame.

Cochrane was mentioned as the inspiration for the Sophie-Cacafuego battle in the first book. He was actually the real life inspiration for a number of Aubrey's stories in the books, like the Mauritius Command, his disgrace, dismissal and reinstatement in the RN, and his assistance to the revolution in Chile.

 

I know teaching history in schools is kind of difficult these days. As to what you said, it wouldn't (shouldn't) be necessary for teachers to have to say anything like what you said, or pick apart a film in class to show students how it takes license with history. All a history teacher should have to say is something like this: "Robin Hood (or The Patriot, or Schindler's List, ect.) is merely one intepretation of the history surrounding the time period. I encourage you to look up the true facts online and we'll discuss it in the next class." I agree that an engaged and competent teacher is a big plus in history class, but if you have such a teacher who encourages students to find out the truth, as I said above, then it could be a big factor in how kids come to view history; they could start learning about history on their own initiative, rather than simply learning in the classroom.

I understand your reservations about violence in films, but that's not likely to ever change anytime soon. I think that kid's perceptions of history and war could, perhaps, be influenced by their upbringing. If they constantly play violent video games, they may become immune to violent scenes in movies and not care about how it really was in history. Again, too, I think that having a good teacher who understands history is a bonus. In my opinion, though, watching history films in class should be used only in middle and high school; I can't think of any films that would be considered "safe enough" for elementary school students to watch without potentially upsetting them..

There's another movie (miniseries, really) that I would add as a good one that does not take much license with the historical happenings and pulls no punches - Winds of War/War and Remembrance. WOW is not that violent (at least in my view). I would have no problems with showing it to middle or high school students. W&R, however, is completely different. The concentration camp scenes, especially after Natalie and her uncle end up in Theresienstadt and then in Auschwitz, make the war scenes look tame by comparison and quite effectively drive home the point about how life was for the Jews under Hitler's domination. I think that W&R might be better off watched at home rather than at school and should probably wait until parents think the kids are mature enough to handle it, but that's just my opinion. I'm 23, almost 24, yet I just watched W&R in its entirety only two weeks ago. Watched WOW plenty of times in the past, but didn't feel ready to watch W&R until now.

But I'm rambling, so I'll shut up now.

 

"This. Ship. Is. ENGLAND."

Awesome film.