Historical Films And Accuracy...The Best And The Worst (1980's, origin, army)

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by Chango

Yes. Anyone who is expecting to learn about history from Hollywood movies is deluding themselves. Just enjoy the movie as cheap (ish) entertainment.

You are correct that at bottom, movies are entertainment, but there are also degrees within that definition, manifest by intent. A fimmaker may approach the same historical event and A) Decide that this historical event was of importance or contains a valuable lesson, and thus should be brought to the screen with accuracy, subject to slight modifications to meet the demands of entertainment. or B) Decide that a specific historical event will serve as the general backdrop for an entertaining movie and at all times accuracy is secondary to the needs of entertainment.

As an example of the above phenomenas, we have the two filmed versions of "The Charge of The Light Brigade." The 1971 effort starring David Hemmings was "A"....a generally accurate telling of the story, modified somewhat by the filmmaker's viewpoints and the demands of enetertainment. The 1938 Errol Flynn vehicle was utter nonsense, pure invention which ignored the facts in favor of the demands of story telling.

In the case of the former, viewers might watch it and then argue over the director/screenwriter's spin....they put too much blame on Soandso and failed to give enough credit to Notsosandso...that sort of thing. In the case of the latter, it is fiction apart from the broad setting. Yes there was a Crimean War, and yes there was a charge by Britain's light cavalry, but Soandso didn't command them, the purpose of the attack was something else, the outcome of the attack was something else, they may as well have introduced alien intervention or claimed that George Washington was there.

So, if I was making "Pearl Harbor" and depicted some aircraft involved in the attack which wasn't manufactured until a year later, but was faithful to the events as they actually unfolded, that would be one class of historical movie. If I decided that FDR happened to be in Hawaii on December 7th, had himself rolled out to a P-40 and hoisted into the cockpit, and then he took off, shot down the entire attacking force, and then flew out and sunk all of the Japanese carriers..."Use the force, Franklin"....that would be a different class of filmmaking.

[dadeguy]

Originally Posted by odanny

Yup, both great films. Really loved "Winter War", a Finnish film based on the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939. Also recommend the great German film "Sophie Scholl", based on the White Rose resistance group.

Another historically accurate film from 1962 is "The Longest Day", with an all star cast, based on the book by Cornelius Ryan.

One of the absolute worst films was "Enemy at the Gates" which tried to turn the most bitter battle of WWII into a love story. The premise of the movie, a duel between two snipers (Koenigs and Zaitsev) was probably fictional, as while Zaitsev was indeed the best sniper of WWII, Koenigs probably never existed.

there was probably a konig but who's to definitely say

Erwin König - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Rhett_Butler]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

C,mon man. P-40s and Zeros playing chicken and zooming around in between warehouses and offices? Shooting Zeros down with BARs and shotguns? As much flak over Japan in 1942 as over Berlin in 1945?

It was a technical tour de force but not at all realistic.

Methinks you underestimate Ben Affleck...

Had he been around at the time, the war would have been over in four months....

[Grandstander]

That's correct. If the Japanese hadn't had to divert 200 aircraft from their attacking force just to deal with Ben and Josh, they might have had the resources to also bomb the oil farm and dry dock facilities.

[Rhett_Butler]

Exactly, and the real reason why Yamamoto called off the third wave?

They were scared of Ben...

[LLN]

I did a search and did not find it, though I did not read all pages. If this is redundant, I apologize.

"COME AND SEE" is unquestionably the best, most precise WWII film I have ever seen. By far the most disturbing as well. It is a Russian film about partisan activity and SS village burning. It will haunt you. I think it was produced in the early 1980's.

From what I have heard, the film, for some reason, was virtually snubbed in the US. You can find it, segmented on YOUTUBE or get it through NETFLIX, I think.

Anyone with ANY interest in WWII films will NEED to see COME AND SEE. After viewing, you will then, in all likelihood, amend your "best" list.

lln

[thelogannator123]

i have a question, although this might have been mentioned before,was Valkyrie an accurate movie? from what i know about the plot it seems accurate to a basic degree.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by thelogannator123

i have a question, although this might have been mentioned before,was Valkyrie an accurate movie? from what i know about the plot it seems accurate to a basic degree.

It was wildly inaccurate.

First they portray Hitler like he was some sort of bad guy instead of the gentle humanitarian his admirers knew. Worse, they have Hitler surviving the assassination attempt instead of perishing and being replaced by the ahead of its time audio animatronic robot duplicate which Werner von Braun built.

[kanhawk]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

So, if I was making "Pearl Harbor" and depicted some aircraft involved in the attack which wasn't manufactured until a year later, but was faithful to the events as they actually unfolded, that would be one class of historical movie. If I decided that FDR happened to be in Hawaii on December 7th, had himself rolled out to a P-40 and hoisted into the cockpit, and then he took off, shot down the entire attacking force, and then flew out and sunk all of the Japanese carriers..."Use the force, Franklin"....that would be a different class of filmmaking.

That would actually make a hell of a movie. Franklin Roosevelt as a Yoda-like jedi pilot defeating the imperial forces . Maybe Michael Bay and George Lucas could collaborate........

[annika08]

Originally Posted by LLN

I did a search and did not find it, though I did not read all pages. If this is redundant, I apologize.

"COME AND SEE" is unquestionably the best, most precise WWII film I have ever seen. By far the most disturbing as well. It is a Russian film about partisan activity and SS village burning. It will haunt you. I think it was produced in the early 1980's.

From what I have heard, the film, for some reason, was virtually snubbed in the US. You can find it, segmented on YOUTUBE or get it through NETFLIX, I think.

Anyone with ANY interest in WWII films will NEED to see COME AND SEE. After viewing, you will then, in all likelihood, amend your "best" list.

lln

Agreed. You are the only other person I've ever known who has seen this film.

It is available through Netflix...I think there's only a couple of scenes (the barn scene) available on Youtube.