Hello Everyone!
I would like to welcome everyone to the They Might Be Critics sister site! Recently we have been involved in discussions that have veered from the movie track. I would like to pose a question to fine assemblage we have here. I reviewed the movie Marie Atoinette a bit ago and was wondering if people think that artists have a right to turn history around to make their point, even if the history they present is wrong or do you think they should stick to historical facts? I would like to thank Wicked Little Critta for the idea for this question.
I would like to welcome everyone to the They Might Be Critics sister site! Recently we have been involved in discussions that have veered from the movie track. I would like to pose a question to fine assemblage we have here. I reviewed the movie Marie Atoinette a bit ago and was wondering if people think that artists have a right to turn history around to make their point, even if the history they present is wrong or do you think they should stick to historical facts? I would like to thank Wicked Little Critta for the idea for this question.
posted by Stormy Pinkness at 9:34 AM
14 Comments:
DO they have the right to turn history around to make a point? My initial leaning is no. Can you cite a specific example from the film to give a more specific idea, for those who haven't seen it?
I think artists do have a right to mess with historical facts, but only if it's clear that they're doing so for a purpose. If they're taking a historical event, then adding events that didn't happen, and packaging the whole thing has factual, then that's wrong.
I think it depends on the medium and the message. And I think it's partly up to the viewer to be savvy and not accept all an artist's statements as facts, and it's partly up to an artist to be responsible and not peddle outright lies to viewers.
i think it depends on what you want to accomplish. if you're trying to write a story that connects with people on emotional and spiritual levels, then historical accuracy is less important than if you're trying to make people understand a certain time period. obviously you can't have Hitler be a humanitarian or Booth be a terrible shot, but a certain amount of artistic license is permissible, and even expected, in certain situations, not in others.
I think you're right about representation, DW. Packaging something that's not historically accurate as historically accurate is, I feel, blatantly wrong. I think some minor changes to aid dramatic purposes, empathy towards characters, etc, are acceptable. I think that wantonly fudging facts to forward an artist's point of view is completely unacceptable. I hate to cite this as an example since discussions of gayness have all but resulted in out and out flame wars on the main site, but it's the only big example that sticks out in my mind. In Braveheart, Edward II is portrayed as a sissy, a stereotypical limp-wristed fag. A lot of people were miffed at the time, because of negative streeotyping. But from what little I've read about Edward the II, he was quite masculine, much more so than a typical prince of the era would be. So, that's wrong because not only was Mel Gibson perpetuating negative stereotyping, but he was also doing so by directly ignoring the historical facts.
However, I should make note of the fact that there are many inaccuracies in Braveheart, to the point of the film being a re-imagining, or historical fiction, rather than saying "This is how it was."
as to packaging, i am reminded of The DaVinci Code. now, this movie is obviously a "what if" scenario, but the original Dan Brown novel (apparently) contained a claim by the author that the history (the Priory of Psion, the Knights Templar, the Council of Nicea being a very close vote) were all real, accurate, and "how it really was," when they were actually either completely untrue or completely unknowable.
LOL, yes, Blogger is far from perfect.
I think Dan Brown doesn't have half the egg on his face that he should from his audacious claims. The whole DaVinci Code mess gives me a headace just thinking about it.
I think that history should be represented accurately when trying to reach people on a emotional or spiritual level, because history is about people and people have emotions. For example, portraying Hitler accurately would show him as a human not just this monster (which he was) he was evil but he was human and I think that would REALLY reach people on an emotional level if only to invoke anger at him.
Good point, SP. I just put Downfall near the top of my Netflix queue. It's extremely high on the IMDB Top 250, and I'm interested in how it presents Hitler. And, the thing is, we are all human. Even Genghis Khan had a mother.
Stormy Pinkness has a solid point here. History is, in and of itself, so utterly charged with emotion. So why would one need to mess with it to make an emotional appeal, unless the author (or auteur) wanted to make a specific emotional point?
As related to The Da Vinci Code, just because Dan Brown asserted the story was true, doesn't mean he thinks the story was true. There's a long tradition of patently untrue works of fiction being preceded by an author swearing up and down that the story IS true, Gulliver's Travels being one example that sticks out in my mind.
I think "true vs. not true" in people's minds becomes a problem when history is misrepresented. I mean, how many people today read history books in their spare time? (SP excluded) So many people get their history from film now, for better or worse.
Even if definitive acts are not changed, when things are painted even slightly different when representing a certain era, than the average person accepts a piece of that. "Well, that's how things were back then." "Well, Edward II was just a pansy." And what do we base these trivial, off-the-cuff comments on? Many times, what we see in movies.
However, as Hession said, showing "a fake history for your viewing pleasure" would not only cut down on this tendency, but would be very amusing. Hehe.
I'm pretty sure I saw some variant of that disclaimer somewhere, but can't remember for the life of me what it was. Probably in more than one thing, too.
It is true that some of us do read history for fun (casual reading at the beach ;) ). I agree with Hession that if they are going to divert from fact they need to acknowledge it. There is nothing worse than people saying what they saw in movies as historical facts. Usually people giving wrong info does not bother me a lot but when it comes to history i want sources to back up your claim!
I apologize for joining the discussion at this late a stage, but I would like to risk repeating ideas that have already been expressed here and say that, in many respects, I think it is an artist’s duty to play with historical facts. And the reason why I’m saying that is the very subjective nature of what we tend to refer to as "facts".
I can quickly think of two examples:
1. Who is the villain behind World War I? If you read Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August, you will be provided with much proof that it’s the German’s fault. However, you can also find many other books that would tell you of English / French / Russian joint ventures to destabilize Germany are to blame. Personally, I still blame Germany, because they were the ones that fired the first shot; but I’m judging them by today’s standards, and if we were to always apply today’s standards on history we will find that many of our historical icons are also racists.
You may dismiss Guns of August as yet another book, but JFK confessed to being deeply affected by it during the Cuban missile crisis. Maybe we are all here today because of that book.
2. Coming from Israel, I often encounter people telling me things like "it’s a good thing you left all that violence behind". They are obviously affected by what you see on TV; the reality of living in Tel Aviv, however, is that your chances of being hit by a truck are significantly higher than your chances of losing a bit of hair due to a terrorist attack. My point there is that our views on historical facts are greatly affected by factors we tend to dismiss, such as our limited access to relevant information.
So – do I think artists should go all the way? Should we have a movie about Hitler the humanitarian?
Personally, I think I would be very curious to watch such a loaded film. However, we do not live in an ideal world, and in our world there are too many people who think the way a child would and conclude that what they see on TV is real because it’s on TV.
Should we limit the artists because of these people’s limited capacities, or should we limit those with limited capacities? I would prefer to limit the artist before we limit basic freedoms, but my point is that this is a deeply loaded question that cannot, probably, find its conclusive answer.
In the mean time, I don’t think there is even one movie out there that doesn’t twist the facts in one way or another, doesn’t rely on "facts" that are not controversial, or doesn’t "creatively" fill in the gaps in between. A good recent example for all of those is Munich, and if you ask me whether all of the "creativeness" in there is worth it my answer is yes; it may not be an accurate account of events, but it definitely delivers an important point of view on the subject.
Interesting point Moshe. What you re talking about is something that historians have discussed for years that is the Whig interpretation of history versus the Prig interpretation. Basically what it boils down to is that the whig interpretation of history views history with the current mindset, however the prig version views it with the mindset of the period they are evaluating. It is also interesting to hear about you experience in Israel, because I have been fooled by all the news that it is an extremely dangerous place to be, but i thoroughly appreciate the viewpoint , so thank you!
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