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[fhqwhgads]

I agree that Downfall didn't seem like it made hitler sympathetic, it just made him human. There's a big difference and besides, it's not like they didn't show hitler at his worst, ranting like a lunatic.

 

[LionPride]

The Hurricane

 

[CloudWolf]

Well, he screams and rants all the time and has at some point a meltdown, for me he came of more as a lunatic as anything else. After that meltdown he is really broken down, but I really had no sympathies at any point.

But give it a watch. Its really worth it for Bruno Ganz and the woman who played Goebels wife. Even when it may lose a bit from its charm when you watch it with subtitles or dubs.

Yes, that's my takeaway of Gantz' portrayal of Hitler as well, so that's why I was vry confused when I saw people critizise the film for 'humanizing' Hitler. To me it did a great job in showing just how utterly insane this guy was.

Anyway, I love the film. It's probably my third favorite WW2 film, right behind La Vita è Bella and Schindler's List.

 

[mclem]

Strictly speaking (and I appreciate that 'actual people' is a somewhat iffy statement in this regard, but a number of them do involve known historical figures): 99% of biblical epics fit these bills just by virtue of, well, race.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

I agree that Downfall didn't seem like it made hitler sympathetic, it just made him human. There's a big difference and besides, it's not like they didn't show hitler at his worst, ranting like a lunatic.

And one major narrative here is that we should never forget that many of our so to say 'normal' ancestors joined in on the atrocities and if we were to just distance us from these people by calling them monsters or inhuman then we're more likely to repeat our mistakes by virtue of ignorance.

 

[Big Wazu]

I remember there was a controversy over one of the characters in Zulu being portrayed as a lazy drunk, when in reality he was a straight-edge, model soldier who was constantly awarded good conduct pay.

Came to post this. While the character was interesting and he redeemed himself in the end, the real Henry Hook wasn't a drunk who didn't want to fight.

 

[Kinyou]

Here's why.

Awful, awful film.

The popularity of Downfall capitalises on the success of recent publications about the bombing of German cities and the dreadful experience of civilians overrun by the Red Army. These horrors are undeniable, but the use of memoirs intended to distance their authors from Nazism by depicting Hitler's clique as contemptible reinforces the sense of Germans as guileless victims. Is the belligerent self-pity fostered by Downfall becoming a new form of German nationalism?

Isn't this contradicting itself? If Germans would see themselves as victims of Nazis it would hardly lead to nationalism, after all is nationalism what the Nazis embodied.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

Isn't this contradicting itself? If Germans would see themselves as victims of Nazis it would hardly lead to nationalism, after all is nationalism what the Nazis embodied.

Its a bit hard to explain, but since we consider us all as the perpetrator of the Nazi time, we dont do nationalism. If the majortity of the germans would act as victims of the actual perpretrators, we would indeed start to be more nationalistic again. I agree with him on this, this is something I hear more often when I hear or see work revolving that kind of revisionism.

Still, its overall a really baseless interpretation of that movie.

 

[Skinpop]

That's quite the reading of the film. Though I shouldn't be surprised, I've heard people claim that Der Untergang somehow tries to make Hitler into a tragic, sympathetic character.

That's a good thing though and doesn't have to diminish the terrible nature of the atrocities he committed. If we just firewall his existence as "evil" we won't learn anything.

It's been a while since I saw the movie so I won't comment how good or bad it is but it didn't exactly blow me away.

 

[Mr. Sam]

I agree that Downfall didn't seem like it made hitler sympathetic, it just made him human. There's a big difference and besides, it's not like they didn't show hitler at his worst, ranting like a lunatic.

That's not what the article is saying. It's saying that it depicts the German people, even those who belonged to Nazi organisations, as Hitler's unwitting victims rather than willing collaborators.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Came to post this. While the character was interesting and he redeemed himself in the end, the real Henry Hook wasn't a drunk who didn't want to fight.

Unrelated, but I appreciate your Flashman avatar.

 

[MontyBrown]

That's not what the article is saying. It's saying that it depicts the German people, even those who belonged to Nazi organisations, as Hitler's unwitting victims rather than willing collaborators.

Exactly.

 

[DukeLongfellow]

Surprised this piece of historical twisting wasn't mentioned in this thread.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I thought the added invented drama seriously messed up the movie.

Me too. My sentence was ambiguous there but I was really bothered by the imitation game.

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Yea I'd be really offended by 300 if I was Iranian.

Even worse, I remember at uni we watched an old tv series on Alexander. It begins showing some dirt and the narrator says something like "Persia, an eastern wasteland" then if switches to an Aryan Alexander on horseback and he says "But from the West, from Greece, comes civilisation".

I was quite offended by 300 but often got told " it's just a movie" or "it doesn't claim to be historical so suck it up", sometimes even on GAF. Argo had some bullshit too.

Middle Eastern people really get screwed over in Western media.

 

[MontyBrown]

I was quite offended by 300 but often got told " it's just a movie" or "it doesn't claim to be historical so suck it up", sometimes even on GAF. Argo had some bullshit too.

Middle Eastern people really get screwed over in Western media.

Other than the cleaner, every Iranian in Argo is a barbarian out for blood. It did annoy me.

 

[Akuun]

That card counting movie

Spoiler

with a white guy

Spoiler

Passion of the something

I don't know the other movie you're talking about, but 21 is a good example of this.

In reality, a bunch of Asian students who come up with and carry out a scheme to mathematically break blackjack and make tons of money.

The movie is about a bunch of white people who come up with and carry out a scheme to mathematically break blackjack and make tons of money, with one token Asian guy in the group who happens to be a kleptomaniac.

Though this is more whitewashing than anything, since it's not a terribly historic event.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Has the History Buffs youtube channel been posted yet? One of my favorites. Goes into the historical accuracy of movies. The one major inaccuracy in Band of Brothers was hilarious haha.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCggHoXaj8BQHIiPmOxezeWA/featured

 

[bonesmccoy]

Gladiator, Braveheart, Cobb.

Kingdom of Heaven.

+1

edit: I guess Gladiator is a bit inaccurate; I don't think it had an actual historical character.

 

[KernelPanic]

Enemy at the Gates is the worst "historical" film I've seen, although it's based on Soviet propaganda of events as I recall.

 

[SaviorX]

I know from personal experience that Rudy's brother is an insufferable prick, so him being one is honestly something I'd expect.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the "Rudy" guy himself, and how he campaigned to make his own movie about...himself

 

[Sephzilla]

This is minor, but Shoeless Joe Jackson actually batted left handed and threw right handed. Field of Dreams completely reverses it.

 

[Spuck-uk]

Literally everything about all the Americans in the film U-571. Grotesque distortion of history to make American audiences feel special.

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

Hitler in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

 

[blackflag]

Pablo Escobar was a pedophile, though I guess that would have been a too damning quality for a protagonist in Narcos.

Damn never knew this but he was a mass murderer so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

 

[The Albatross]

Lawrence of Arabia is one of the greatest films of all time, and as historical fiction it's still very, very good, but historians have argued for years about whether the portray of T.E. Lawrence was accurate or not, and many other side characters (like Gen. Allenby, Sherif Ali) were blatantly fictional to create drama or motivations between the main characters. There's also the depiction of Lawrence's personal proclivities, which you could say are fictionalized, but there's been a lot of debate throughout history especially Lawrence's depiction as a homosexual or sexually non-normative, which has been debated by biographers and the movie sort of took a centrist line.

Also, prominent historical events depicted in the movie (Aqaba) weren't as prominent as the movie would make it seem, and the timeline is all sorts of messed up. The movie doesn't really firmly nail down a timeline in most scenes, but the dialog contradicts timeline indicators.

Still, it's a great movie.

 

[FreeMufasa]

Here's why.

Awful, awful film.

I don't know about this movie but what this article says is like every single Japanese WW2 movie. They try to focus on an innocent soldier and their take is always "war is bad! We were victims too"

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

The Social Network and Steve Jobs

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I don't know the other movie you're talking about, but 21 is a good example of this.

In reality, a bunch of Asian students who come up with and carry out a scheme to mathematically break blackjack and make tons of money.

The movie is about a bunch of white people who come up with and carry out a scheme to mathematically break blackjack and make tons of money, with one token Asian guy in the group who happens to be a kleptomaniac.

Though this is more whitewashing than anything, since it's not a terribly historic event.

It wasn't really a team of Asians. Here's a couple of the members:

Granted, there were several Asian members, so it's still off in that regard.

ANYWAYS. 21 doesn't belong on here, it's a loose adaptation of a made-up story that claimed to be non-fiction because one of the characters was vaguely-kind-sorta inspired by a real guy. Saying it's "history-based" is like saying the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is history-based.

 

[HStallion]

The Land Before Time was certainly not an accurate depiction of actual Dinosaur life. Why would a Triceratops hand out with a Brontosaurus?

 

[NealMcCauley]

Roland Emmerich's The Patriot has too many to list.

 

[SpartanN92]

Roland Emmerich's The Patriot has too many to list.

Freaking awesome movie though!
It's a childhood favorite of mine.

 

[Fancyarcher]

It'd be easier to make a list of movies that were acutually accurate. Filmmakers prefer changing things up & doing something different with the facts, because they find it more interesting.

I think you'd have a much shorter list of movies that actually portrayed history accurately.

Almost none of them even try to. Directors and writers want to tell their own story which gets in the way of history.

And if you do, you run the risk of being a flop. Tora Tora Tora was a fairly accurate movie about Pearl Harbor, done as a collaboration between Japanese and American filmmakers, but it flopped at the box office because it's kinda boring (and long). And even that condenses stuff.

Tora Tora Tora actually made a fairly good amount of cash back in 1970, it just had a huge production budget for obvious reasons. Akira Kurosawa was actually attached to the film at one point, but dropped out when they couldn't get John Ford to co-direct to it. I've never seen, but I've heard good things about it mostly.

 

[Kain]

Gladiator, Braveheart, Cobb.



+1

edit: I guess Gladiator is a bit inaccurate; I don't think it had an actual historical character.

Commodus and Marcus Aurelius were indeed real emperors and the first actually took part in some Gladiator mock combats because he was insane or a clown or both, but they were not related. That's about it.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Enemy at the Gates is the worst "historical" film I've seen, although it's based on Soviet propaganda of events as I recall.

The sniper duel is propaganda. The romance part actually happened (love triangle aside, since the propaganda guy didn't exist). It ended on a more depressing note IRL, with Zaytsev and Tania breaking up after she blows a mission. Then they both almost get killed on two separate assassination missions, both get reported dead, and never see each other again (Tania never heard Zaytsev survived until she was interviewed for the book). That would have been a more interesting movie, but what do I know.

The book of the same name, by the way, is very good and highly recommended to anyone interested in Stalingrad. The movie doesn't really have anything to do with it.

 

[Daedardus]

Here's why.

Awful, awful film.

What? I never got this from the film. I always took it as the Nazi regime at the end of its days, fearing what they will get if their last stronghold falls. The killing of the children show the desperation they all felt. Never had I the feeling that I should be sympathetic or that it negates all the bad stuff they have done in the years before.

 

[BiGBoSSMk23]

American Sniper

aka a modern state propaganda film

edit: yes i actually watched it. in a theater. it's a crap movie.

edit: main character was of course able to fix everything through sheer will, kept spouting off pentagon approved phrasing instead of what soldiers would actually say, for some reason they added a scene where he shoots a kid even though by all accounts he never claimed to, the antagonist sniper was poorly written, he of course John Cena'd into every MOS on the battlefield, was able to overcome PTSD by basically going "nah, I don't have PTSD", and of course everyone around him is broken,but not him.

A bit off topic:

This movie was pretty gross. The glorification of the righteous killing for country coupled with the constant hero speak, as you mentioned.

It was a love letter to the good God fearin' republicans of the US of A.

I lost a lot of respect for Bradley and just shook my head at Eastwood.

 

[LakeEarth]

I can't seem to find it, but there was some 70s movie where a famous bank robber got killed due to a betraying comrade (which wasn't true, just added for dramatic effect). But that "betrayer" was a real person in a real prison, and people would attack him because of the movie. I just can't remember what movie it was, and my google-fu is weak this morning.

 

[FyreWulff]

A bit off topic:

This movie was pretty gross. The glorification of the righteous killing for country coupled with the constant hero speak, as you mentioned.

It was a love letter to the good God fearin' republicans of the US of A.

I lost a lot of respect for Bradley and just shook my head at Eastwood.

don't you know that deployed soldiers on the battlefield just casually rattle off "military aged males" every time they mention the insurgents they're about to fight?

even the fucking military newspapers don't stay that close to the pentagon script

 

[Psychoward]

The opposite would be more surprising.

Yeah I'm thinking the same thing.

 

[Timeaisis]

Jurassic Park wasn't entirely accurate in how it portrayed the Trex.

Yeah, Spielberg really bungled the historical adaptation of Jurassic Park.

 

[Slackbladder]

What? I never got this from the film. I always took it as the Nazi regime at the end of its days, fearing what they will get if their last stronghold falls. The killing of the children show the desperation they all felt. Never had I the feeling that I should be sympathetic or that it negates all the bad stuff they have done in the years before.

Reading the article suggests the authors of it simply had an axe to grind. It's also pretty disparaging of German people.

 

[Maledict]

Reading the article suggests the authors of it simply had an axe to grind. It's also pretty disparaging of German people.

It also seems the authors didn't actually watch the film. The end monologue as the credits roll in particular is extremely powerful, and literally the opposite of what they describe in their article. Literally - it's the secretary in real life talking about how Germans had tried to deny that they participated, tried to pretend it was done to them, and that how in later life she realised how guilty she was and that there was no excuse.

 

[Cocaloch]

And even that condenses stuff.

Every attempt to deal with history ever will condense stuff, otherwise you'd be left with a list of pretty much everything that ever happened and that wouldn't be too analytically useful.

The idea that there is a history that is accurate, instead of histories that are more accurate or less accurate or approaches that are more dedicated to accuracy or less dedicated to accuracy, is the problematic one.

"There is a popular belief that where history is concerned, Hollywood always gets it wrong - and sometimes it does. What is overlooked is the astonishing amount of history Hollywood has got right, and the immense, unacknowledged debt we owe to the commercial cinema as an illuminator of the story of mankind."
~ George MacDonald Frasier, The Hollywood History of the World

Granted, later in his career he began criticising movies for appealing to ignorance more so than they used to, especially Braveheart, so . . .

That guy isn't a historian.

Movies are generally bad with historical accuracy because they aren't generally trying to be particularly accurate in any way beyond using a place and time as an asthetic theme. In many ways this is fine, movies don't have to instruct people on the bleeding edge of modern historiography. But in the broader context it's somewhat problematic because it, along with pop history and high-school textbooks, determine how people in general see history. It's a problem because anti-intellectualism has made the historian into the antiquarian in most people's eyes.

Lawrence of Arabia is one of the greatest films of all time, and as historical fiction it's still very, very good, but historians have argued for years about whether the portray of T.E. Lawrence was accurate or not, and many other side characters (like Gen. Allenby, Sherif Ali) were blatantly fictional to create drama or motivations between the main characters. There's also the depiction of Lawrence's personal proclivities, which you could say are fictionalized, but there's been a lot of debate throughout history especially Lawrence's depiction as a homosexual or sexually non-normative, which has been debated by biographers and the movie sort of took a centrist line.

Also, prominent historical events depicted in the movie (Aqaba) weren't as prominent as the movie would make it seem, and the timeline is all sorts of messed up. The movie doesn't really firmly nail down a timeline in most scenes, but the dialog contradicts timeline indicators.

Still, it's a great movie.

Is Lawrence of Arabia actually trying to be accurate, or is it trying to be a movie version of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom that removes the hundreds of pages worth of narrative about camel rides?

 

[Xero]

On mobile so can't go into too much detail but I remember reading about Cinderella man and the guy he had to fight at the end was far more demonized in the movie. Yes the real guy did kill a man in the ring, but he felt awful about it and used his own money to take care of the guys wife and kid after his death. Whereas in the movie he relishes it and threatens James with the same in the ring and is basically personified as pure evil.

 

[mckmas8808]

Also Tesla in The Prestige

What was wrong about Tesla in The Prestige?

 

[mckmas8808]

I didn't know until I read about it afterwards that Washington DC during the time of the Lincoln movie was literally surrounded by camps of African-American abolitionist protestors, which is why DC is still so heavily African-American today.

In fact, both of the African-American servants we see in Lincoln's household were, in reality, outspoken abolitionists. But that would take away from Lincoln's victory!

Hold on.......WHAT?! I never heard or read about 1% of this!

 

[The Albatross]

Is Lawrence of Arabia actually trying to be accurate, or is it trying to be a movie version of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom that removes the hundreds of pages worth of narrative about camel rides?

I'd say it's a history-based fiction movie that portrayed an actual person falsely, much like the thread was asking about.

 

[L Thammy]

Having not watched Downfall and just read that article now - is the article correct in that it presents the viewpoint character as apolitical while they have strong Nazi connections?

 

[radios shipping overview]

The Imitation Game basically makes Turing into Sheldon Cooper.

So you're saying Cumberbatch was cast as an eccentric, socially awkward, abrasive genius? What a stretch!