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
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Sent by: Subject: Re: historical movies
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
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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
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Sent by: Subject: historical
movies
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
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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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