Historical accuracy in war movies

[Tuor of Gondolin]

In the U.S. there's a series on the History Channel "History or Hollywood?" where movies are studied for their relative accuracy. What about a discussion of some such movies, how they shape up, where they're at fault, how could they be improved, what if you did a remake, etc.?

How about two movies, one good and one not: The Great Escape and Mel Gibson's The Patriot. I think the concensus on the Great Escape is that a lot of care was put into it (even filming it in Bavaria) with the chief change being that the American flyers, while they were involved, were moved out before the actual breakout. But since they were involved, and box office appeal is a big consideration, that was tolerable for me. Besides, you want James Garner and Steve McQueen in the finale, right?
The Patriot, though, had just too many unneccessary flaws.
Some of them are:
1) From the movie it would appear that slavery didn't exist in the American Colonial South (when actually many slaves, understandably, fought for George III in the Revolution).
2) The foolishness with Col. Banastre Tarleton burning a church and civilians , in reality he got the moniker "Butcher Tarleton" from one or two incidents of not preventing his men (perhaps they were Loyalists and not British, I forget) from killing American soldiers trying to surrender.
3) A botched Battle of the Cowpens. Perhaps to give Mel more to do the actual battle is reversed. In reality Nathaniel Greene and Daniel Morgan "The Old Wagoner" used the militia to draw out Tartleton's cavalry strike force and then crushed them between Continentals and a relative of George Washington's Virginia horsemen. Of course, in the movie it's Mel's militia that saves the day (absurd!). A key point that George Washington stressed and worked to improve was the need for Continental Regulars as the core of the American Army to field an effective force against British and Hessian regulars.
And while I've managed to partially blot out the memory of some of the Battle, I believe that in the movie Tartleton is killed. Remarkable, since he served many years in Parliament after the war. It would have been more accurate, and much more interesting, to portray Tarleton as sort of, to the Americans in the South, as Rommel was to the British in North Africa, a brilliant commander who was irritating mostly because of his use of speed and the tactical offensive.

[Draken]

Don't get me started on this! As a general observation, if film makers think the reality of a historical story isn't "filmic" enough, why don't they just produce something totally fictional?

[The Gaffer]

Draken, I think the answer to your question is that they don't have the imagination to think up anything original so they take some real life adventure then adapt it to fit the standard Hollywood template.

This is an interesting question, though. How much artistic licence is acceptable? Are audiences really gullible enough to think that it happened like that? Does it really matter?

My answers would be:
- "some" (e.g. Braveheart: Wallace never even met the English queen let alone shagged her, but the basic message of the film, that he was betrayed by the Scots nobility, was correct)
- "probably" (people seldom let facts get in the way of reinforcing their preconceptions, and movies which make the audience feel good about themselves are more popular) and
- "yes" (our understanding of history affects how we view ourselves and other cultures)

[sun-star]

I have to admit I'm not an expert on war movies but here goes anyway.

IMO, it's a very bad idea for film-makers to change historical facts in this way. It's like when novels are adapted for the screen and come out unrecognisable, which is my pet hate - except it's far worse than that, because this is reality the film-makers are misrepresenting. In war films in particular they're playing around with real people's lives, and often deaths, for their own purposes. If that purpose is educative, fine - except you're not educating your audience by presenting them with a false picture of reality. If the purpose is mindless entertainment or the whipping-up of nationalist feeling, it's despicable.

And the audience goes away thinking that's how it was and possibly never finding out the truth for themselves. That's a crime against both history and art, IMO.

[The Gaffer]

I agree. It doesn't just apply to films, of course.

If a man wants to enslave you, he will never tell you the truth about your ancestors.

Fela Kuti

[brownjenkins]

a big part of the accuracy picture is the dark-side of war... even many movies which are accurate historically have a tendency to leave out the realities of war... the desire for self-preservation even in the most heroic, the death of innocents, the confusion of war, the injustices, and even just the the way serving must become more like a job than some grand cause over time

a few of the more recent vietnam movies have touched upon this... one of my favorite older movies in this respect is an early stanley kubrick movie - paths of glory - about soldiers in the french military during WWI who were unfairly executed for mutiny... there are no true "heros" in the story... which i'm sure is more often the case than not in war

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Originally posted by Brownjenkins
an early stanley kubrick movie - paths of glory - about soldiers in the french military during WWI who were unfairly executed for mutiny... there are no true "heros" in the story
__________________________

Except perhaps for Kirk Douglas, (although I think even he sort of gave up trying to help the three victims by the end?).

And a movie I thought was rather effective was a scene in Air America where Mel Gibson advises Morton Downey Jr. to get out before he becomes too addicted to the "action" in the CIA's private war in Laos.