Historical Movies etc.
I have always been shocked and surprised when Hollywood or TV changes
history for no apparent
reason. It does not help the movie or TV special, so why change the facts?
This is especially
surprising when the media makes a religious movie or TV special and there
was one not too long
ago that had the Old Testament inside out. I even have a dim memory of "The
Ten Commandments"
in which Moses bounces the holy tablets (first set) off of his brother
Aaron's head and the Golden
Calf and Aaron (Edgar G. Robinson) fall down a hole (into Hell?). It was a
great scene but I think
Aaron survived that incident in the original and went on to be important.
Truly religious people must go crazy over this sort of thing.
The Civil War. I remember several years back when one of the graduate
students here at Penn in
historical archaeology told Murray Murphey, the Chair of the Department of
American Civilization,
that he or she was under the impression that Thomas Jefferson was the
president of the United
States during the Civil War. Murray never recovered from that one. I did
point out to Murphey that
it could have gone the other way and the student might have been under the
impression that
FDR (one of Murray's heroes) was president during the Civil Wat. At least
they had the right
country.
Now what to do - go see "Gangs of New York" or read those seven
volumes on my
library shelf?
Bob Schuyler
At 10:18 AM 12/30/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>Yes, Hollywood is in the entertainment business, and some literary or
>artistic license one can live with. But that's no excuse for gross
>misrepresentations. So its a matter of what one can, or chooses to, accept
>in order to bring a story to a wide audience.
>
>There has been lots of discussion, over the years, of Hollywood and what it
>does or doesn't do in professional historical journals like the Journal of
>American History. If you're interested in that literature, its easy to
>find, so I don't want to go into that again here.
>
>I have always felt that the best that can be said for a lot of these
>"period" or "historcial" films is that they may awaken an interest in
>curious or thinking people who will then want to go out and learn more
>about whatever the subject is. (I'd suggest seeing the movie first and then
>going to the literature, rather than vice versa.) If the results of the
>testing programs that some of these educational groups are carrying out
>with students at some of our top colleges, who can't identify when the
>Civil War was fought, for example, are really accurate, then kindling that
>interest to want to go deeper may be worthy accomplishment enough.
>
>Carl Barna
>Regional Historian
>BLM Colorado State Office
>
>
>
> John White
> <[log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask]
> U.EDU> cc:
> Sent by: Subject: Re: historical movies
> HISTORICAL
> ARCHAEOLOGY
> <[log in to unmask]
> edu>
>
>
> 12/30/2002
> 09:54 AM
> Please respond
> to HISTORICAL
> ARCHAEOLOGY
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Carl Barna wrote:
> Hi Chris --
>
>
> I'm glad to see that at least one "historical" archaeologist bothered
> to
> study history in college! ;o) (another topic)
>
>
> The material culture aspects of the film (one can nitpick anything),
> and
> its GENERAL-OVERALL historical aspects are well done. There are,
> however,
> gross inaccuracies with many of the historical points, e.g. the naval
> bombardment, the excessive death tolls, etc. As far as the racial
> matters
> go, one has to realize that there was no love lost between the Irish
> and
> the Blacks, ( then or now) as both were oppressed and had to make due
> with,
> or compete with each other for, the most menial types of jobs that
> were
> available to them. The depiction of NY politics was good.
>
>
> Like "The Patriot" (in spite of the Smithsonian's silly efforts with
> that
> one), it does give one a reasonably good overview of a particular
> subject
> or time period, and, for us detail freaks, Hollywood is finally
> getting
> some of the nuances of period details correct (e.g. one doesn't see
> flashless muskets firing anymore). But Hollywood still seems to want
> to
> embellish or distort historical facts with box office-aimed fireworks.
>
>
> That's its job! It is called entertainment or diversion. It doesn't
> profess to be academic or archaeological. Its worth should be
> determined by artists and qualified movie critics not archaeologist
> who are more concerned with minutiae than flavor. Personally I loved
> "Raiders", though the entire thing was Saturday matinee in content.
>
>
> Anyway, enjoy the film for what it does do.
>
>
> Carl Barna
> Regional Historian
> BLM Colorado State Office
>
>
> chris rohe
> <crohe@HOTMAIL To: [log in to unmask]
> .COM> cc:
> Sent by: Subject: historical
> movies
> HISTORICAL
> ARCHAEOLOGY
> <[log in to unmask]
> edu>
>
>
> 12/28/2002
> 09:49 AM
> Please respond
> to HISTORICAL
> ARCHAEOLOGY
>
>
> Hello everyone, hope all had good holidays. I often hear of
> archaeology in
> fiction on here but not much on historical focused movies, so I would
> like
> to recommend GANGS OF NEW YORK. It's not one to take the kids too.
> It's
> full of violence and racial bigotry, but often today we're given
> watered
> down versions of history thanks to the pc world for fear of guilt or
> offending someone. Real life is often offensive.
> Anyway I would like to hear some opinions from people who have some
> experience of the area and what they thought of the accuracy of the
> film or
> how it was done. The only stuff I know of the area is from some
> History
> Channel episodes and a few history classes. The names of the gangs
> sounded
> right, the draft riots of 1863 as I understand were only quelled by
> sending
> in federal troops, and the portrayal of the fire and police
> departments
> being ran by different groups which often battled in the streets for
> control
> of areas all seemed pretty good.
> So, I recommend the movie even though it is DeCaprio it was an
> interesting
> film.
> Happy New Year,
> Chris Rohe
>
>
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Robert L. Schuyler
University of Pennsylvania Museum
33rd & Spruce Streets
Philadelphia, PA l9l04-6324
Tel: (215) 898-6965
Fax: (215) 898-0657
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