Most recently while watching the Kung Fu flick “Shanghai Knights” in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charlie Chaplin appear I re-realized how much it irritates me that genuine historical figures were used (or mis-used) in a completely bogus manner.
The problem I have with this is that by using recognizeable names improperly it sets the stage for miseducating those who don’t kmow any better. Certainly some stuff is easy enough to discern as bogus information, but other things (such as the little Tramp making his way to Hollywood as a child, without ever setting foot on stage as a burlesque entertainer) are easily enough to swallow if you don’t know any better.
Hell I’m guilty as well for believing ficticious film and literary accounts until the time when I make an ass of myself by sharing such misinformation.
Just remember one simple rule, and you’ll never go wrong -
Never believe anything you see on TV (and by extension, in the movies).
And am I the only one who remembers that what’s-his-name turned out to be Wyatt Earp at the end of the first movie? I mean, sure mis-using history pisses me off, but not as much as Total Consistency Failure.
One of my favorite stories of this kind involves the movie they made of Buster Keaton’s life. They hired dancer Donald O’Connor to play Keaton, and hired Keaton himself as an adviser.
During one scene, Keaton’s father is killed during his childhood at the circus, and young Buster has to go on and do the show while still reeling at the idea of his father’s death. Traumatic.
Since the real Buster was on the set that day, O’Connor asked him about life in the circus.
Keaton replied, “I was never in the circus. My family did vaudeville.”
O’Connor then asked how old Keaton had been when his father had died.
With a perfectly straight face (of course,) Keaton said “Forty-three.”
You were watching a movie. An entertainment. Something created solely for the enjoyment of the audience. A work of what is called by experts as fiction. This means a made-up story.
Here’s another clue: the events in the film never happened!
Why in the world would anyone think this was a portrayal of actual historical events?
You were watching a movie. An entertainment. Something created solely for the enjoyment of the audience. A work of what is called by experts as fiction. This means a made-up story.
Here’s another clue: the events in the film never happened!
Why in the world would anyone think this was a portrayal of actual historical events and people?
Why would you be more irritated by a film in which historical characters are used in a fictional way than by supposed biographies that are full of made-up scenes? Shanghai Knights was never advertised as being anything except a piece of fiction with some characters based on real people who were doing completely fictional things. On the other hand, to pick a recent example, A Beautiful Mind is supposedly a biography of John Nash, but it’s extremely inaccurate.
I used to be irratated as well, then I decided that I’d never believe any film on someones life, even a documentary.
I guess I sometimes still feel a little irked when they use a historical figure with a one dimensional brush, or they destroy a dramatic real moment with fictional characters. Then I say it’s just another lameoid American “historical” Film and ignore it.
I think it depends on how it’s done, but I don’t get pissed off by such things as much as I sometimes find them intrusive. The “real world” intruding on the fictional world I’m trying to inhabit. If it’s done well I think it works wonderfully; if it’s done poorly I find it grating.
I find the re-invention of history in movies more irritating. Especially when it turns into a festival of unjustified jingosim. Although I guess what annoys me most is the fact that I /know/ a ton of people will from that moment on will believe that’s what really happened.
Perfect example, take Schindler’s List. Now, who in their right mind would be stupid enough to imagine that movie has any relationship to historical fact?
Oh, right, just the idiots who use it as a teaching aid in history class . . . sometimes I AM in favor of the death penalty.
What I find annoying are the cases where the Powers That Be are convinced that Americans won’t watch a film unless Americans are the heroes, so history (or the original novel, if fiction) gets rewritten to accommodate this viewpoint. The Americans were mostly moved out of the compound at Stalag Luft III before The Great Escape, although the movie gave us Steve McQueen and James Garner in pivotal roles. U-571 gave us Americans getting hold of the German code machine from a German sub, something the British actually did.
Even the SF movie Riverworld substitutes an American space shuttle captain for Sir Richard Burton, one heck of an interesting character,
Of course, the change is nationalities was not exactly the only way in which that movie parted from historical fact. I agree with your other example, but viewed U-571 as nothing but an ahistorical action movie so wasn’t really bothered by the change.
They did do a good job at the end reminding the audience of the historical facts.
The really silly thing about Shanghai Knights is that it has the period totally wrong for Chaplain. Chaplain wasn’t even born until a year after the movie was supposed to take place. (1888)
Given that this was pretty much an in-joke – the target audience for Shanghai Knights doesn’t know Charlie Chaplain from Charlie Chan, and couldn’t care less about either of them – you’d think they would have picked someone who was, ya know, alive at the time instead.