ARTICLE: Do Movies & TV Shows Have to Be Historically Accurate?

[Ryan Goble]

From PopEater.com...

Great discussion / debate prompt at any grade level...

Do Movies & TV Shows Have to Be Historically Accurate? 

by Jane Boursaw Posted Jul 17th 2010 08:00AM

Pop-Ed: How accurate do TV shows and movies have to be when it comes to telling real-life history? Is it OK to fudge the details to enhance the story? Or should the storyteller be a stickler for detail? While doing press for 'The Pacific' earlier this year, Tom Hanks told listeners of Dennis Miller's radio show that the HBO series wasn't really intended to be a "big picture" view of the war in the Pacific. Rather, it was all about the characters and their lives, how the war affected them and their loved ones. But since 'The Pacific' was based on real people, should the filmmakers have stayed true to their real-life stories?

Hanks noted that the series included a meeting between Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie that never happened. That probably doesn't matter too much to the casual viewer, but you have to wonder if straying from the truth bothers the real families upon whom the series is based.

Filmmaker Peter Hankoff, who's helmed dozens of historical documentaries, including 'Secret Voice of Hitler' and 'Nazi Scrapbooks from Hell: The Auschwitz Albums,' told PopEater there's a good mix of real and fake history coming out of Hollywood, but that things are often condensed to maintain dramatic structure.

"There are so many bogus love stories shoe-horned into the plot to keep some structure alive while the audience is waiting for the a) big attack, b) assassination, or c) the whatever it is we hope will somehow give us satisfaction," he said, adding that the smaller stories like 'The Pacific' feel more real, "because it gives me time to think 'Hey, I could be that guy' or 'I wonder where they go to the bathroom.'" Yeah, the rest of us wonder stuff like that, too.

Read the full blog here.

[Mike Gange]

One of the key concepts of understanding media studies is that media (products) are a contruction of reality. Mike Moore's documentaries might be smart, smart-mouthed, and they make points that smart (ask K-mart about their gun policies today, thanks to insight from Mike Moore's Columbine) but intelligent people watching have to ask how much of this is made up? Even docs are slanted, in some way. Mike Moore says Canadians all leave their doors unlocked, keys in their cars, etc, and I can promise you that is not the case everywhere in Canada. This might also happen in Maine or Minnesota, by the way.

Another movie with Hanks' touch is Forrest Gump, which is a Hollywood treatment of a special needs boy, who somehow gets placed into history. It's important to remember it's a fictional treatment, although the use of B&W film stock makes the story seem even more real.

Woody Allen's Zelig (1983) is another that seems to put the character in the historical moments through out his lifetime. Well done, and an interesting story, it is non-the-less a fictional account.

For me, the answer is easy. If its Hollywood, there has to be some element of fiction in it. The Cinderella Man is an exceptionally well done story, and although its said to be a true story, how do we know what was said in the dressing rooms, in the boxing rings, on the radio by the NBC announcer?
If its media, I usually think it is mediated in some way.
I prefer to be called skeptical rather than cynical. (lol)

[Ryan Goble]

Nice last line "I prefer to be called skeptical rather than cynical."

[Mike Gange]

I love war movies. There are very few I have not seen. The Bridge on the River Kwai is another that is full of movie magic. There never was a Bridge on the River Kwai that was destroyed by British POW's under Japanese command. But we all believe in Col Bogie.

[Kelly Farrow]

This topic came to light this past weekend when my husband and I were at the always-phenomenal IL Shakespeare Festival in Bloomington, IL. I was telling him how the Festival directors don't usually set their productions in different time periods or places than Shakespeare (or any other playwright whose work they're presenting) did, as opposed to so many other theaters we attend where they do this routinely. Well, sure enough, one of the 3 productions WAS set in a different time--The Merry Wives of Windsor was set in the 20's. So then we were talking about how so many Shakespeare productions are re-imagined in different places and times, and whether that detracts from the story or the language. So it was an interesting discussion! I guess it doesn't necessarily bring anything to bear on the historical accuracy of Shakespeare's plays themselves (which I know could also be brought into this discussion as much as any movie, show, or book of today), but it's kind of a different spin on the same Q!