"Why it is impossible for Hollywood to get it right!" Topic

Why are there no good movies made about pre-modern (before WWI) eras? I'm framing the question that way, though one could as well do it for the more modern ages. I am a savage critic of Hollywood and it's ways and means, but it is not all Hollywood's fault. They are simply giving the public what the public wants and while that does not make them good historians it does make them good businessmen.

"The fault" if there is a fault to be found here is that the general public ( and guys face it- you are NOT the general public by a longshot) has virtually no interest in history, and the only time it does is when history is shown as presentist pablum, with the most grotesque solipsisms -- "Yeah, dem people in the Revolution were juz like me!"

The reason or THAT is the fault of the educational system in America which has turned the romance, glamor, excitement, and mystery of history into a disgusting tenth chewed piece of tasteless cud which would bore anyone to death and which has inculcated into the general public (again not you) a distaste for history as nothing but useless facts and dates.

But it's not the teacher's fault. They are presented textbooks and given goals that all too often serve narrow presentist political agendas and social engineering, of either side or both, and people aren't stupid. This now flows seamlessly from grade school to graduate school.

And so people come out of schools believing History is so much bunk, and it was boring, AND WORST OF ALL they see history as an "easy C" they can do with not much effort and so this devalues the course material as well. If you can get a C in it with a minimum of effort it can't be very important or very good.

When Hollywood MADE good historic movies (years ago) no one went to them or bothered with them, and Hollywood got the message.

Well, there it is.

This problem is probably not capable of resolution, and one has to ask if it should be solved! Public education is not there to create receptive audiences for historical films. It is there to teach people basic life skills. You can argue all you want for history being important to a liberal democratic society (and all are liberal democratic in the west to a greater or lesser extent) but if the people hate it, they won't credit it, know it, or like it, other than as a easy Disneyesque pablum that all of it unserious, irrelevant and just at best entertainment that relies on tarting up real historical personalities to look like you or the guy in the seat next to you, and motivated by the same compulsions and factors that motivate you today.

So.

There's no way out. Most of us here somehow escaped this, but we escaped it largely by our own efforts or from unusual or out of the ordinary circumstances. So forget about ever seeing a REAL movie about Napoleon, or Caesar or Wallenstein, or Leonardo.

That's why I don't get excited about these, and when any new historical movie comes out it usually takes just the trailer to turn me off. I don't even go.

So uh….was this written for your debate class or something?

Movies are about making money first, art second; truth when it meets the first two. They are made by story tellers that change the story to fit their conception of whatever event they are illustrating.

Yeah, I wish people told REALISTIC history stories the way they used to, like in the Iliad.

300 and Alexander were both excellent films. Gladiator was a pretty good movie too, come to think of it.

"But it's not the teacher's fault. They are presented textbooks and given goals that all too often serve narrow presentist political agendas and social engineering, of either side or both, and people aren't stupid. This now flows seamlessly from grade school to graduate school."

Actually it is just because history is ignored in favour of subjects that are going to be used in the standardized tests.

Otto,
I think Pictors hit it right on the nose. The focus in schools is for kids to pass standardized tests. It is awful how little history they are taught. That being said, I'm not sure what movies you mean. Westerns, especially those made in the last 25 years, are certainly getting the look right, and they are much more than good guys vs. bad guys. 300 and Alexander were both well do in their own way. 300 for all its skin, did show the Spartan spirit, and some semblance of phalanx warfare. Even Troy did a fair job with the combat.

I think one of the biggest problems with Hollywood and History is time.
I love the film The Battle of Britain but they are trying to squeeze several months of conflict into a two hour movie.

*cough* it is not standardized tests. History was usually taught by a teacher that was about to retire or a coach. A few knew enough to deviate from the text book and make it FUN, most were, read the book and answer the questions at the end of the chapter while I read the papar.

I think one of the biggest problems with Hollywood and History is time

I agree. Hollywood is VERY BAD at the concept of travel time. even a word or two of dialog and a change in costume would help. Too many times a flight from LA to India seems shorter than LA to SF.

Hollywood cranked out a lot of relatively accurate historical "sword and sandal" movies up into the 1960s, from the mega hits like Cleopatra and Ben Hur to the original 300 Spartans movie. Rod Steiger's Waterloo has never been matched, and the mega movie War and Peace (1956), other movies like the Charge of the Light Brigade touch on other periods, and the 1964 "Zulu" is an enduring classic. Starting in the 1970s though, looks like Hollywood shifted away from historical pics to disaster and adventure movies. Any more recent historical pics that are worth watching that are non-WW2?

Didnt you like Barry Lyndon?

You can be an obedient consumer drone without knowing anything about history, hence history is not a priority in school.

As far as Hollywood goes?

People don't care. If the story is fun or blows up good, they'll watch it.
Whether it's historically accurate isn't anywhere on that list.
That's leaving out that there's plenty of stories that you cannot tell because the backlash would bury you.

Yes, societies with free speech have censorship. It's just applied differently ;)

Zulu is British I think.
Waterloo was Soviet

There were good movies on FiW too.

Good movie? Tastes and colours… And. Huge historical movies even now with computerized stiff cost a lot.

When the movie "The Knight's Tale" came out, the director defended all the anachronisms in the movie by saying "the kids, you know, won't get the history" and alas, I know people who absolutely love the movie and all the Nike stripes on the armour, and flared corduroy trousers, and a wooden London Eye and all the rest.

So what was the last historically accurate pre-WW1 military history movie to come out of Hollywood? Probably Master and Commander; a movie that has heaps of critical acclaim but which did poorly at the US and Asian box offices because neither market could care enough for a movie about the Royal Navy vs the French in the Napoleonic Wars.

Before that, "Glory" was a very good ACW movie, as was "Cold Mountain" but unless the history is a heavily tweaked sword and armour story, the big box office markets aren't interested. Men bashing each other with swords and yelling "URAGH!" seems to be more appealing than massed ranks of infantry gunning each other down from 200 yards. Hollywood doesn't make movies primarily for 30-60 year old military history buffs…they make movies for 12-25 year old guys. Especially American and Chinese ones.

What I was speaking about started LONG before standardized tests. These only came around in the last decade.

When I was a reporter for a then major New Jersey Newspaper, reporters HATED to go to School Board Meetings. They were boring. Nothing happened. A few hours of reading and the school budget was passed without comment. The Schools could ask for whatever they want and Americans, great believers in the value of education, gave it to them. Then, we found out that "Johnny is a senior in High School" and Johnny can't read!"

The plea of the teachers was "GIVE US MORE MONEY FOR OUR PENSIONS! AND SALARY." And they were given it, and Johnny still couldn't read.

The standardized tests aren't about education. They are holding teachers feet tot he fire and threatening their jobs and paychecks if Johnny Can's read.

They are the mark of desperation on an education system that has simply fallen apart.

Now EVERYONE in the newroom LOVES to go to school board meetings where there's sure to be a front page, above the fold with a huge by-line donnybrook.

Dear Ravenscraft Cybernetics.

Loved Barry Lyndon. I see you must have been the other guy in the theater when I saw it. It tanked big time. So did a lot of the ones named here. Great critical acclaim, box office failures. This is NOT new. Many of the great movies we know and love were Box office flops.

Why are no more good movies being made? $$$$$

History is not treated as some sacred revealed truth.
History is nothing but a source for a script, and one that is in the public domain. You don't have to pay the author of a best seller a dime, nor do you have to pay Marvel royalties.
And you of all people should know, Otto, that there are many sides to a story.

Movies serve only one purpose, and that is to put butts in the seats. There the public will also pay $6.95 USD for a Big Gulp, of which 99% is water and the rest one cent of chemicals.
Popcorn is also cheap.
Movies are a manufactured commodity, whose only purpose is to make a profit. Deal with it.

"Properties" are bought these days, not by movie studios, but by "Production companies" owned by movie stars. Not actors, but movie stars. The purpose of this property os to make the actor look good. Period. Oh, yes. And also to make the actor money,

"Real" tanks are expensive, and there are used tank lots in the Czech Republic that will sell you T34-85s in running order. Put some plywood around the turrets, and no one will care.

Correct uniforms are expensive. It's much easier to rent them from a company that bought up all the uniforms from the last movie that was foolish to make their own.
Want Romans? You know what you will get.

TMP is full of twits who would like Hollywood to make a movie about the Gadsden Purchase, or the Pragmatic Sanction. I saw audiences for movies like that. "Gods and Generals" had maybe 3 other people in the theatre. And it wasn't all that good a movie anyway.

Hollywood is just as capable as making a decent movie as a piece of garbage.
We are being flooded with TV "historical" movies now that are garbage, and with … ahem… loose fidelity to "truth".
If they succeed, it means that people will watch anything. If they fail, it means that nobody wants to see historical movies.

Remember:
History is nothing but another source for a story. Often, it does not turn out right for a movie,, so the facts must be made to fit what the director wants to show.
Authenticity is expensive, and only 0.05% of the audience cares.

the last time we had a glut of "good" historical movies was after World War Two, when veterans came back from winning a popular war and were in charge in Hollywood and Pinewood. Now they are all old or dead.

Some of my favorite films, John Wayne's Alamo, Glory, are very entertaining, but are simply BASED on historical events. Not sure which has the most inaccuracies. I liked Tryy also, but they turned a 10+ year siege into a couple weeks at most. I do not think such story telling will ever change in lieu of actual events and such. I am just greatful any movie based on historical events sees the light of day. I am really enjoying "Vikings" right now and I am looking forward to "Texas Rising".

Barry Lyndon had a budget of $11 USDM. Its US box office was $20 USDM, with a worldwide box office of $31.5 USDM. Hardly tanking big time. It also won four Oscars.

Glory and Master and Commander also made money at the box office. Add in the broadcast and VHS/DVD revenues and they are extremely profitable.

Otto.
What is the projected audience for a movie about Wallenstein? Besides yourself, of course.
How many teenage boys would want to take their dates to see it so they could get laid that night? They are the prime audience. And twenty year olds.
If you can make a biopic on Wallenstein into a romantic comedy, that might work, but somehow I do not see him as prime material for a romcom.

And how much revenue would it generate?

I think it's more who is making the movie. If the director wants to make it as historical as possible he can. If they don't care and just wants a shoot em up he does.

Dear John the OFM

I read all you are saying, but you aren't arguing with me, you're simply adding wood to the fire. You will recall that I said in the original post that I despair of them EVER getting it and therefore just don't go or even look twice any more.

Of course I was semi-joking about Wallenstein. The intrigue would be wonderful but there is no love-story there.

Dear enfant perdus

Ummm. That's tanking in Hollywood terms. On an $11 USD million budget a success would be in the $70 USD million.

If you added Napoleon's "conquests" in the bedroom to those on the battlefield, you might be able to green light such a project.

$50 USD million earned by Barry Lyndon in 1975 would equate to $219 USD million in 2015 dollars, according to an on-line inflation calculator. That would be a respectable box office today.

Dear List

Let me suggest another hypothesis.

What if it's biological. What if it has nothing to do with the institutions or culture or teachers or studies around u nor does it have anything to do with the makeup or balance sheets of corporations, institutions or political movement.

What if there's a "likes history gene" or an "enzyme" or "hormone" that just predisposes us to history, but this is not in everyone else so they don't.

It's like a "breast man" or a "leg man" or if you like blonde's or brunettes, or redheads Coke or Pepsi,

What even if it's a "malady" like autism, or depression, or some other hereditary disease. Not in history's case a disease, but a condition or the way the brain is wired that predisposes one to history.

What if the love of history is not inspired or resident in everyone, but just in a few. Some love it and the rest are un phased by it. If so then there's really no point in even teaching those who do not have the gene.

MAYBE films are doing a Good Job, by suggesting History could be Interesting. MAYBE there's an hierarchy of films, delve into them as deeply as you choose! In an ideal world perhaps Das Boot and Downfall would be the Only Films, but who would watch them without the inductions of Zulu and A Bridge Too Far?

Actual history is confusing.

While not Hollywood, the makers of the TV series Vikings made the Wessex Saxons wear bizarre looking helmets and armour because if they made it historically accurate the average viewer would not be able to tell who was a Viking and who was a Saxon. Despite doing a reasonable job on the Vikings themselves.

Story telling has always been about the audience, and only the audience.

Cheers,
JohnG

To look at the small screen, the current reaction to BBC's new series of "Poldark" illustrates this. There is far more discussion of the leading mans torso than any discussion of the historicity involved.

History is simply a seam to be mined for ideas and those ideas will generally get tailored to suit the most profitable audience. Frankly I'm happy to watch a rip roaring swashbuckling tale (Eg Alamo or Last of the Mohicans) or a brooding tale of brooding in tricornes (Poldark) just as long as they get the basics right such as armies looking more or less right (ie Mexicans looking like Napoleonic French not peons) or avoid overtly historical nonsense (U571).

But the simple truth is that anyone who cares even a little bit about history is in a minority.

History was usually taught by a teacher that was about to retire or a coach.

My excellent AP US History class in High School was taught by a teacher who was also a football coach. He was brilliant. I do not, however, suggest that this is the norm.

Master and Commander didn't make enough money for the studio to produce another of O'Brian's novels. It underperformed in the US market, but made money in overseas box office receipts. Its overall performance did not garner it a sequel.

History is written by the winners.

Hollywood scripts are written by people who want to sell scripts.

Movie makers make movies to make money.

Next question?

Do they have made good historical movies ever? Good historical movies just don't sell. Simple as that.

I find there's a difference between passable history in movies, and gawd-awful history in movies. If the former, then the movie stands on the plot and acting as to whether I'll enjoy it; if the latter, I'm probably bugged enough that unless there's a lot of naked women running around, I won't enjoy it.

So Saving Private Ryan, Bridge Too Far, Battle of Britain, even things war propaganda like Sahara are all passable to me. Richard Burton's Alexander was a mess to me on all counts; I just watched Fury on the weekend and even a tactical like me could see the problems. So I don't need perfect historical movies, just ones that don't grate.

Textbooks are written by college professors who are suppose to be teachers!

Textbooks are purchased by School Boards based on the recommendations of their teaching community!

Schools are run by Administrators who have no teaching experience!

All too often teachers can't even identify the errors in the textbooks they are teaching from in their classrooms!

Yet we are constantly told if we just spend more money on a failing system it will get better!

Sounds like a good history movie to me!!

Hey, I have a great idea:

Why not take this as an opportunity to have a political debate about the education system?

Textbooks? What are those? I am a history teacher who hasn't seen a new textbook in our school in 12 years. Of course, we could go the eBook route for texts with the students' tablets. Oh wait…we don't have those either.

Better yet go read a few books about what history actually might be about!

Get back to me when you have read (as an example list)
The Practice of History by GR Elton
What Is History by EH Carr
The Pursuit of History by John Tosh
Developments in Modern Historiography by Henry Kozicki
Re-Thinking History by Keith Jenkins
(Careful with the last 2 in particular – your heads may explode)

When you've done that try going back to Ranke and experiment with a bit of Foucault balanced up with Marwick and give yourself a laugh with a non-historians male chicken up on the role of history (Fukuyama).

Then we can have a go at whether 'Military History' is actually history.
See ya!

(Sorry DeHewes – our posts crossed – not aimed at you!)

Otto.
Arguing for a genetic predisposition to liking history is like arguing for the same in whether one likes the NFL or the NBA.

You may be flirting with Lysenkoism too. Stay on Comrade Stalin's good side if that's your angle.

Nature vs Nurture?

What about the 2004 version of "The Alamo"?

I have heard that one of the reasons it did so badly in the United States was that it was a little too historically accurate and not quite glorious enough. What'd you guys think to it?

"I'm a screamer."

Mainstream cinema/TV targeted at the mass market will always disappoint where historical accuracy is concerned because it's a low priority for its producers. Where you're much more likely to see historical fidelity is in arthouse cinema, whose producers operate on the assumption that their audience is intelligent, educated, and discerning. The drawback is that they don't generally have the budget to incorporate extended epic battle sequences.

In Barry Lyndon Stanley Kubrick managed to brilliantly evoke the military and social elite experience in the Age of Reason, but his battle scenes, although historically faithful and relatively large, occupied only a tiny fraction of the movie's running time.

A very interesting thread this!
Hmm, Hollywood movies do not present history accurately? The same might be said of the great adventure books of the 19th and 20th centuries. Does that make Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe any less a classic? Is Cervantes Don Quixote a miserable piece of pulp fiction? Were Joseph Conrad's stories undermining historical orthodoxy and putting his young readers at risk of historical misconception? Should H. Ryder Haggard be declaimed for counterfeiting history and pre-history with fanciful falsehoods? No, these fabulous adventure novels fired interest in matters historical or archeological and propelled generations of young men and women to pursue interests and vocations focused on the past!
Likewise the modern "historical" military movie need not deliver the facts to be valid so long as it approximates the flavour and fires interest in the audience. If a movie like Glory or The Patriot fosters an appetite in young viewers to become interested in History, then it has performed a noble service.
As Star Trek inspired three generations of physicists and engineers to change our world, perhaps the pseudo-historical movies inspire viewers to wonder, question and pursue history. How many young men have been inspired to join the military by war movies over the last century?
Did the movies, TV programmes and books read by a young OSchmidt all get it right or did they inspire him to delve deeper into the past and find answers for himself? Who here was not inspired by something you read or watched or heard in your youth, only to revisit it in your later years and see all the glaring faults and omission you never noticed upon first exposure. The movies, historical TV series, novels and even some video games are an invitation to begin a journey and not a summary of a journey completed. History is not a stock, an image frozen in time. History is not immutable. History is a process of learning and understanding the individual and collective human experience and condition that has preceded us. And because it is we who make history through our own unique perceptions and perspectives, there is no "true history", only consensus.
The journey of history first requires us to learn what has happened, then to analyze what has been learned. Then we apply that corpus of knowledge and analysis to wider and wider circles of the human condition, but those circles are always concentric circles with us and our unique points of view at the centre. We all see and understand history differently. So the next and most difficult leg of the journey of history is to recognize our own and others' biases and blind-spots so that we can be as objective as possible. Absolute objectivity is never attained so history becomes like the ripples on a pond when we all throw pebbles into the water. In some areas of the ponds the waves cancel out each other (no consensus reached) and in other parts the waves amplify each other (strong consensus achieved). These nodes of consensus become our historical truths but they are not really the truth, they are only manifestations of the truth. For history is the explanations (and sometimes myths) we all agree to believe rather than some absolute corpus of truths.
Thus it does not matter if OSchmidt is unimpressed or jaded about the movies these days. The older movies seem more 'valid' because they had a bigger role in shaping his unique perceptions and perspectives on history. More recent offerings may be less able to harmonize and amplify those unique perception and perspectives and therefore seem less satisfying. However to a younger viewer such films are shaping new and different perceptions and perspectives which will create historical appetites which will in turn send new youngsters down different pathways on the journey through history. It is the journey of history that matters and not where you are at any point in the journey.
History is as much the product of the observer's perspective as the events being observed. Relativity a la Einstein and observational uncertainty a la Heisenberg apply to the Social Sciences as much as they do to the Physical Sciences. It's all just photons and air vibrations and scribblings in books because we make the history in our heads- it never really existed "out there".
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Everyday, there is more history to learn.

Also, let's face it….history means jack in our day-to-day life.

At best we can hit the high points and that's it.

Also, why are old conflicts interesting? I can look at the ARW and relate that it has an impact on me because I live in the US. However, having served in the Army, I find the brightly colored uniforms and marching rank and file into battle to be extremely stupid.

Did no one suggest to Washington to hide in the trees and ambush the Brits? What about a night raid?

So, who the hell is Napoleon and why should I care?

Name me one profession where there aren't both good and bad practitioners. Teachers are no different. They are just being forced by politicians (who know best how to educate our youth) to teach to standardized tests so that they can make campaign claims of how they reformed education in their state, district, etc. In my high school I teach and coach – two sports (used to do three when I was younger). I teach AP European History and have read LOTS of History books and have a masters degree in History – not education. I only have a textbook for ONE of my three classes and that is for the AP European History course. Students who pass the AP test at the end of the year earn college credit while still in High School. I also wargame in my "spare time". Many of the movies mentioned above are very useful in the classroom. Glory is very good. Gladiator gets kids attention in my Ancient and Medieval History class. I have even shown The Thirteenth Warrior a few times. Maybe not accurate but they get kids who know very little about history interested. My school district is looking at eliminating its World History course which is required right now for all sophomores and replacing it with a current events class. The rationale being that the "kids can't relate to history". I am fighting hard to keep ONE WORLD HISTORY class in our entire school district. If we lose it kids would only take a semester of U.S. History and could take two history "electives" during their four years. Science, Math, and Reading are the subjects on all standardized tests in our state.

My point as some seem to have missed, was not to start a political debate on education policy or to place blame. In the final conclusion the desire for history, or study in any field, for that matter resides in the individual. Thus there is no fault to pass around except at the very start, but even the whole thread rests on a question "Is history worthwhile?"

One point to remember that MOST of the classic historical movies aside from "Ten Commandments" or "Cleopatra" were in fact purposely made "B" movies. That is, pot-boilers created simply to space out an evenings time at the movie theaters, and were shown after the main film. Thus you might see "Grand Hotel" as the "A" movie and "Seven Against Thebes" as the "B" movie.

But that is really besides the point. The point is that it is pointless to deny that which is demonstrated, and what is demonstrated is that clearly the vast majority of the public is not concerned about history, and in fact does not like it.

If this is the case, then why have it?

Why try and tell people about government and how we got here? If you want to make them better informed citizens, simply teach a "Civics" class and teach them how the government works, how laws works, who their representatives in Congress are and so forth and drop the whole thing about history, or make it purely elective like any advanced lit or humanities class.

That's the problem. Why are we trying to educate people in history who don't want it.

It has nothing to do with Hollywood, or Politics, or Education policy. It's what the public wants.

Like the movie theaters, I say give it to them.

Dear Rod I. Richardson

It is amazing that you know my mind better than I do.

Otto

Hollywood can make reasonably accurate period pieces when it wants to, and many films have been successful, but unlike the OFM postulate which says that historical accuracy is like a Japanese Carrier fleet to a box office's Pearl Harbor, I maintain that it is simply a non-factor. Movies can be successful with or without it. Master and Commander vs say 300 is a good example. The first does quite well in the historical recreation department, while the second doesn't even try.

In recent years art directors and production designers have become more bold in asserting their desire to stand out, and feel shafted when somebody asks them to make an accurate historical recreation, they don't get a chance to show off their awesome creativity.

A while ago they announced a series based on the court of Louis XIV, and again the creative types would rather smash their heads to pieces against the nearest wall rather than boringly recreate history so they announced that the styles would be a mix of 80's punk/New Wave crossed with ethnic styles from the Pacific, Africa, Precolumbian Meso-America etc … Seems that this abortion has been put on the back burner for the moment.

And it's a whole host of tiny details, like hats or helmets. I've seen WWII movies where nobody even wore a helmet, sidecap or any form of headgear whatsoever. Simply because they were afraid that the audience would be confused by the headgear … We've had millions of Cowboy films and historical flicks with people wearing hats and nobody seemed to have a problem back then, but poor precious contemporary audiences seem to be flabbergasted by the concept of a hat … Maybe I should rob a bank and then put on a hat, perfect crime. "Can't be him, the other guy wore a hat !!!"

Historical accuracy is not a requirement nor an impediment to box office success, it's all up to the makers to decide if they are willing to be accurate within limits or do some hipster art design class experiment.

> One point to remember that MOST of the classic historical movies aside from "Ten Commandments" or "Cleopatra" were in fact purposely made "B" movies.

Starting in the seventies, with Star Wars and JAWS specifically, the "B" movies ended up getting the larger budgets and the switch to wide distribution no longer allowed most films to gather viewers by word of mouth. So what used to be the big budget historical epic is now the low budget historical epic – when it gets made at all.

Historical war films are worst of all in the shift, it is very hard to get funding for something reasonably accurate though it has been done. Glory, Gettysburg, Gods and Generals (though flawed it is a decent attempt), Lincoln. Granted – not many examples for a few decades of time but if you go back before 1970 there are not that many more to cover 40 or so years of talking pictures.

Re the just finished Poldark series on BBC, I read a complaint in a newspaper that the leading character was -- using a scythe the wrong way--- Perhaps we should all just see films and TV as entertainment, and ignore all the wrong tanks, weapons, clothes, etc.