I have been fascinated, somewhat frustrated, and occasionally amused by the continuing chatter over various movies that are reportedly based upon historical events.
First off, don’t tell me it’s “just a movie.” People understand that movies such as Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind had a rather significant impact on the historical consciousness of Americans.
Second, people tend to criticize movies they don’t like by complaining about issues of historical accuracy … and I don’t just mean the small things. When someone likes a movie, they might concede a few errors, but they cast them aside. Want proof of this? Both Gods and Generals and Glory have their share of errors. So does Lincoln. If you didn’t like one of those movies, you tell everyone that it’s riddled with errors and tells the wrong story. But if you like the movie, you tend to shrug off the matter of errors or tell us why a movie can’t meet the standards of accuracy that we expect from scholarship. After all, you say, the movie tells us essential truths … which means you liked it and it told what you believe to be the truth.
I happen to enjoy a great many movies based on historical figures and events where I know the movie’s flawed in little and big ways. Take Patton, for example, or Waterloo … and then there’s A Bridge Too Far. I like All the President’s Men as well. Each one has its problems as history, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the movie as a movie … unlike, say, Pearl Harbor, which did not speak to me as a movie, and so I really didn’t care about the issue of historical accuracy.
The fact is that historians face quite a conundrum when it comes to discussions about a movie based upon a historical event. People are bound to ask you for your professional opinion about it. Given that nearly everyone agrees that the vast majority of historical dramas have some problems with accuracy … maybe because of time compression, maybe because of the stories told and ignored, maybe because of more serious issues … a scholar who does not choose to duck the question will raise some points. It does not take a genius to figure out how some people will respond. It’s a movie, not a book (or a documentary); you’re nit-picking; that’s artistic license; you’re jealous; make your own movie; look at the box office. Yadda yadda yadda. Note that these comments tend to come from people who liked the movie and its message. So, one wonders, given these assumptions, why ask historians for their opinion? You’ve already figured how to discount it in any case if you don’t like it, because you liked the movie and its message.
The eagerness with which some people awaited the release of Lincoln struck me as a bit off-putting. It stood to reason that most of those people were fairly determined to like what they saw, and you could anticipate what would follow. Compare this to Hyde Park on Hudson, which came out soon afterwards, and which soon faded away, although in many ways it was not all that different a movie (no, I’m not saying they are identical or of equal worth or quality). That film also had its problems, played with chronology, and addressed a president making important decisions in wartime while struggling with issues in his private life. However, far fewer people were invested in it doing well: Bill Murray as FDR is no Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, although Murray wasn’t all that bad, either.
But this conflict reminds me of a little story …
When I was a boy, a classmate’s mothers told my mother that children’s breakfast cereals contained one of two preservatives, and that while one of the preservatives was “good,” the other was “bad.” As I recall, BHA was “good,” and “BHT” was “bad.” Being the conscientious mother that she was, my mother would look carefully at every box of cereal to ascertain whether the preservative was “good” or “bad,” and my sister and I soon learned that we’d never get to eat certain cereals, among which was the just-introduced Cap’n Crunch. We accepted our fate without much complaint.
One day my mother returned from the grocery store somewhat disgusted. She soon shared why. It seemed that as she was going down the cereal aisle at the local supermarket, she came across my classmate’s mother pushing a cart along … with none other than a box of Cap’n Crunch in the basket. Knowing full well that the cereal contained the supposedly “bad” preservative, my mother asked why my classmate’s mother, after all she had said, was buying Cap’n Crunch. The answer was straight and to the point: because her daughter liked it.
After that, my mother paid far less attention to the ingredients on cereal boxes … although she never did buy Cap’n Crunch.
So it is about historical accuracy and the movies. We’re ready to point out all the missteps and errors and so on, and say that they discredit a movie as history … unless we like the movie. At times, some folks who have defended Lincoln have sounded a little bit like Tony Kushner … and that’s not a good thing. As for myself, I keep “movie as movie” and “movie as history” separate, so that I can enjoy the movie as a movie (note I’ve said not a word here about Lincoln as a movie) while understanding full well that as a rendering of history it may be found wanting. So when you tell me that my observations about the movie as history are besides the point because you like the movie, understand that just because you like the movie doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the movie as history. It just means you like Cap’n Crunch.
Just so – provocative art produces as many reasons to go positive as negative, and dramatic, real events are provocative. You’ve also got me fascinated by this: in what ways did GWTW shape American historical consciousness, and how has that consciousness changed?
GWTW reinforced notions of a cruel Reconstruction undertaken by vengeful Yankees as well as faithful slaves and former slaves finding their enslavement to be no big deal as they remain “loyal” to their former owners. Fiddle-dee-dee indeed! So many people recall the scene of Atlanta burning that they forget who set it on fire … the evacuating Confederates. I think the portrayal of the war itself is not nearly so troubling (Rhett’s comments about Confederate arrogance against Yankee economic might has a point, after all, as does the selfishness of some Confederates).
I think we now see slavery as a more violent and coercive institution, although we have yet to see a movie on Reconstruction that does that subject justice. Cold Mountain gave us some ideas about divisions on the Confederate home front and the ugliness of war that are worth pondering.
There aren’t a lot of happy ending stories to come out of Reconstruction or post-Reconstruction. So we’ll likely never see many movies, if any, about it.
There is good reason for a Jackie Robinson movie, but not a lot of reason for a movie about Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday.
And from a historical standpoint Cold Mountain gave us at least some illusion of realism by lining up the Romanian Army for the Petersburg scenes. Anybody who has read references to the lean, tattered A of NV is likely to wonder what all the fuss was about after they watch Gettysburg or G&G. I didn’t know that there was a Denny’s located just behind Seminary Ridge.
A comment I keep hearing from our audiences is how much different American history would be if Pres. Lincoln had led Reconstruction. I always say, “That is a complex question, best left to professional historians…”
Gods and Generals, unfortunately, is at the outer reaches of the spectrum. The numerous historical blunders are only part of the problem. Add in poor cinematography, wooden acting, generally awful “dialogue”, and a few silly stereotypes which fit Ted Turner’s apparent GWTW view of the Confederacy (e.g., Stonewall’s top aide, Col. Jim). The historical inaccuracies might seem trivial (if numerous) in isolation but not given (1) the rest of the odious package and (2) the fact that it is supposed to lean strongly towards the “factual history” side of things. Good acting, solid direction and filming, and a strong script can overcome technical historical problems. G&G has none of those.
Maybe, but you should understand that people who don’t like Lincoln say the same things about it, except, perhaps, for the acting and cinematography … and that’s more about movie as movie than movie as history.
No Cap’n Crunch? Now that does explain quite a bit.
I don’t think I have any disagreement with your comments on the movie as a historical document. I do think that others have been commenting on the movie as a movie using the historical shortcomings. That at least is what I got from Kate Masur’s article. Perhaps I’ve misread what she wrote. I read Eric Foner as commenting on the movie as a movie in saying that we should go see it, and then adding a comment on the movie as history by saying, then go read the real story.
I didn’t like the theatrical version of G&G because I thought it was atrociously edited. I have the Director’s Cut and I really like that much better.
Al: There are still a horrendous number of cinematic errors, poor production values, primitive digitalization, added to generally wooden acting and bad dialogue. Then there are the historical errors. Of course, it’s all a matter of opinion but the image one is left with is that of a bunch of re-enactors who might be properly outfitted but otherwise look like older guys dressed up for the weekend, engaging in low-budget 1950′s special effects better suited to black and white tv westerns. Spielberg would at least have fixed the effects – and might resisted having Ted Turner dress up as a “Confederate officer” at one of those campfire/marshmallow toasting singalongs Lee was noted for.
John, the Director’s Cut is at least watchable. The theatrical version was simply too disjointed to make any sense. I guess I just figured there was a shortage of young, thin reenactors and simply accepted the old, fat ones.
Hi Brooks,
I just wrote this piece over on civilwartalk.com about Gods & Generals. Just wanted to add it to the discussion.
I have a “love-hate” relationship with Gods & Generals. I love the opening with the flags and the song “Going Home.” I love that there are a lot of small details that are based on historic facts. I’ve read several primary source accounts that verify things that were portrayed in the film. And when I visited the Manassas National Battlefield Park, I was blown away when I saw the VMI jacket (with the fatal bullet hole) of Cadet Charlie Norris, a young man featured in the film. He was the guy who said, “C’mon boys! Quick and we can whip ‘em!” Right before he impulsively ran ahead without orders to charge the Union lines.) I did not know the story was true and I was amazed to see the truth revealed to me and not just be reading the story in a book. Indeed, there are a lot of facts and stories I did not know about the Civil War before I saw this film.
But Gods & Generals is a major disappointment as a movie. The film is a celluloid monument to the Lost Cause. When I saw it in the theatres in 2003, I couldn’t define what the Lost Cause was if someone asked me because I was unfamiliar with the term, though I knew the ingredients of it: the war was fought over states’ rights. many Black people were faithful servants to their masters. Southerners fought hard but they were beaten by superior numbers. They lost not because they were poor soldiers. They lost because the North beat them with overwhelming resources.
Many of the scenes are bad history, plain and simple. The opening scene with Robert E. Lee and Preston Blair is just wrong from top to bottom. I’ve written a blog post about this (see attached below) . In the next scene, which takes place April 1861, where the movie introduces Thomas Jonathan Jackson, the caption on the screen says “Major, Thomas Jonathan Jackson, U.S. Army.” Another mistake. Jackson had resigned from the US Army in 1851 and never went back. He resigend to become a professor at VMI and the uniform he wears in that scene is the blue uniform of the Virginia State Militia… not the blue uniform of the Federal Army. If you watch the scene, take a look at his belt buckle- it’s a Virginia State belt buckle.
And the scene before Fredericksburg where Jackson tells Jim Lewis that some people in the Confederate High command are seriously contemplating enlisting Blacks as soldiers as pure and simple BS. I don’t believe this conversation ever took place.
This movie presents a sanitized, Christian Confederacy that reluctantly finds itself thrown into an unwanted war. It shows slavery as such a benign institution, that when Martha Beale and Jim Lewis speak of the desire for freedom, you almost wonder why they would want to leave the wonderful life they apppear to already have. It’s nice that it gets details right like someone’s uniform or the rifles the 1st Virginia used or whatever… but by misrepresenting the big stories of slavery and what the Confederacy was really about… all of the historic facts it painstakingly got right are sacrificed to Lost Cause nonsense.
I recall hearing that 1500 historians worked on this film. I’m not sure what they did.. but “work” is not the word for it.
http://thehistoryclubblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/francis-preston-blair-sr-1791-1876/
” But if you like the movie, you tend to shrug off the matter of errors or tell us why a movie can’t meet the standards of accuracy that we expect from scholarship. After all, you say, the movie tells us essential truths … which means you liked it and it told what you believe to be the truth.”
This applies to books as well and a large amount of historians !
Might it also apply to you?
Glad you found the blog.