Historically Inaccurate Movies

Although moviegoers love period pieces, filmmakers are notorious for getting the details wrong. Tune in as our resident history buffs take a look at historically inaccurate movies -- from Pocahontas to The Bridge on the River Kwai -- in this podcast from

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Kandis Gibson, joined by writer Jane McGrath Candice Pay. Jane,
you are a huge movie buff and I am not

(00:22):
as big a buff as you. I'm actually a little
bit too hyper really to sud best it's still and
watch a movie from beginning to end. But you've written
this fantastic article about ten historically inaccurate movies. And just
to give all of our listeners a little bit of background,
When How Stuff Works editors and writers come up with

(00:42):
topics for articles, we send out what we call an
initial approach and it's just a mass email that asks
for people's suggestions. And every now and then there will
be a topic that comes along that gets people emailing
back and forth like crazy, and this was one, and
this was one of them. Jane had responses coming in
until like gosh, I think six o'clock at night, and

(01:02):
she sent the I A out at eight something in
the morning, and at that point, you know, case class.
She had picked the top tens. She wanted to work
with them. People were sah excited. They were hammering her
with requests. That's right, and it's interesting. Yeah, you mentioned
I am a movie buff, and uh, that's one of
the reasons I think I am really interested in history.
I don't know, like I might be showing my impressionable
age when I say this, but when I grew up

(01:23):
watching uh, the Indiana Jones movies, for instance, UM, it
really I'm interested in you know, the Nazis and even
like ancient and biblical history as well. And I think
I think that was really a drive that got me
interested in history. And that's one point that a lot of, um,
at least some historians make is that even though films
can be really, really egregiously historically inaccurate, historians give filmmakers

(01:47):
credit for at least, you know, sparking interest in history
so that if you want to know the whole story,
you can look it up yourself. That's true, and I
think that there are historical purists among movie audiences. You
want to see every single detail followed to the letter,
and sometimes you know, that's that's a pretty tall order.

(02:07):
And a film that isn't exactly historical film by nature,
but one that I really enjoy and have seen from
beginning to end, several times through is almost famous. And
the director of that movie, Cameron Crow, wanted so much
for his film to be accurate that he hired on
Peter Frampton to be an authenticity director. So all of

(02:27):
these details in the movie are you know, really telling
of you know, the the era and the musical scene
at that time. And Frampton actually makes a small appearance
in a scene where he and some other band managers
are gambling. But on the opposite end, you look at
movies that are like um literary dramas for instances that
are period pieces Gone with the Wind or even you know,

(02:49):
the BBC mini series on different Austin novels and things
like that, and we see that these films can end
up being hours upon hours long because people are trying
to be so true to the story in the book.
Um Bride's Had Revisited, for instance, is one that just
came out, And I think that there was a BBC
mini series based on the book that was eleven episodes long,

(03:12):
versus the movie theater production of two thousand eight, which
purists like, you know, uh and and I don't know,
because ultimately it comes down to how the screenwriter wants
to portray the book and editors have to make very
careful decisions about how to portray the narrative. And that's
what gets historians rivaled up is when not necessarily creative

(03:34):
license is taken with you know, the art direction or
how a person looks, but how the story is told,
and you can you can easily end up ruining a
historical person's reputation of today, you know, Sily. So with
that in mind, we're going to talk about some real disseys.
And one of the first ones Candice is gonna talk

(03:54):
about in particular, and that was Pocahonas. And this one
you have to tell me about, Candice, because I have
never seen it, believe it or not. When I was
growing up, my dad forbade me from seeing it because
it was so historically inaccurate. So please please tell us
about it. And I just admitted to Jane that I was, oh, gosh,
this is Pocahonas came out, so I think I was
like ten or eleven years old at that point, and

(04:15):
I saved up all my babysitting money to go see
this film in the theater, not once, not twice, but
five times. I was crazy about Disney's Pocahonas. And this
is definitely one where the narrative has been skewed in
the interest of keeping the audience engaged. And most notably
is the fact that it sort of revolves around abudding

(04:38):
romance between Pocahona's the Native American girl and uh John Smith, who,
of course is that the British explorer who comes server
to scout out this potential colony, and we see, as
you know, he becomes more entrenched in a Native American
culture and she's trying to teach him, you know, the
ways of life here and how one can just come

(04:58):
over and assert one's cultural values into a land that
one wishes to claim. Uh, they fall in love, and
ultimately the story climax is when John Smith is going
to be put to death and Pocahonas throws herself on
top of him, and there's this, you know, very dramatic.
You know, she's still a cartoon but seeing I think
her hair is white and just like, no, no, you
can't do this. And it's great, except it, you know,

(05:19):
all went to croc because Pocahonas would have only been
like myself when I saw the film about ten or eleven,
and so John Smith was was much older there was
never any romantic interest between them, and Pocahontas ended up
marrying another British explorer who was actually more in the
role of a diplomat than anything else, and that was

(05:40):
John rolf And if you like me, kept up with
Disney Spokehonas and Saldia straight DVD Pocahonas to Journey to
a New World. You know that Disney tried to redeem
itself a little bit by ending the Pokeahona story on
a true note where she chooses John Rolf over John Smith.
Oh really interesting. I have a little bit more respect

(06:01):
for them. Now there you go. But like I said,
critics were in sense because here's this historical story being painted,
um no pun intended, painted in many wrong ways, and um,
children are going to have to get back. And we
learned that the real talent school and it was just
sort of a Pandora's box problems. That's true. And another
one that I addressed in the article is a is

(06:21):
another one having to do with a Native American girl
and a white explorer, and that was kind of a
lesser known movie back in the fifties called The Far Horizons,
and that dealt with the Lewis and Clark expedition, which
you've talked about before, and on this voyage. Obviously we
all know. Anyone who's at all familiar with the voyage,
they know that they picked up soccer Jowea on the

(06:42):
way and she ended up being a great help to
to the whole expedition. But in the movie, in these
in this fifties movie, I love how the their choice
for Soccer Jowiah was Donna Reid, which of course you
know from you know she's the whitest fifties housewife you've
ever seen. And she she plays the Native American girl
who falls in love with William Clark, which is a

(07:05):
little curious because in actuality she was very visibly pregnant
when they picked her up and um had her joined
with her husband, John pepe Baptiste Charbonneau I believe it's pronounced,
so he was there on the expedition as well. So
I don't think there are any sparks going off between
William Clark and Saka Jelia now, And for what I understand,

(07:26):
h Charbonneaux and Shaka Jewiah were sort of a two
fur to buy the Clinton's language there. They didn't pick
up Sacha Jelia to be their guy. They picked up Sharbonneau,
and his wife just happened to come along because she
was in pregnant. She was pregnant at the time, and
she knew quite a lot about the lands they were
traveling through and the people who they encountered, so she
turned out to be an even greater help than her husband.

(07:48):
And furthermore, in the movie, Charbonneau is portrayed as a
villain that Clark and uh Louis are up against, but
in reality that wasn't the story at all. Yeah, that's true.
Arboneau was always a help to them, and you know,
he did what he was hired to do, and he
helped them with translating and everything like that. So I
don't think Clark would have double crossed him by stealing
his life. Another movie that is I think is the

(08:12):
whopper in this list is The Bridge on the River Quai,
which I'm not gonna lie. I love the movie. I
think it's fantastic um and if you haven't seen it,
you definitely should. Has Alec Ginnis in it, and he
plays this British commander, Colonel Nicholson. So Nicholson he's fighting
in World War two, he's captured by the Japanese. He's
brought into a POW camp and he's the highest ranking
Allied officer there. And so at this camp they're having

(08:35):
the the Allied forces who are prisoner there the building
a bridge for the Japanese to help them in their
military campaigns. The Japanese are forcing the Allied troops to
help build this bridge, and Nicholson comes along and he
actually becomes obsessed with building the bridge. He wants to
make the best bridge possible, and he sort of just
loses track of the idea. He's oddly oblivious to the

(08:57):
fact that he's helping an enemy in war, and he's, uh,
he's just oblivious to the end. And I don't want
to spoil the the ending for you, but you have
to see it in truth. Uh. Nicholson is based on
a real life guy. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Philip
Twuzi and he was the highest ranking Allied officer in
this PUW camp and the Pacific that was charged with

(09:19):
building the Tai Burma railway. And people who saw the
movie see it a sort of a slap in the
face to the real life Twosi because it's true. Twusi
was forced to help build this bridge, and he was obsessed.
But he wasn't obsessed with building a good bridge. He
was obsessed with keeping his men alive. And yeah he was.
He was a real hero to a lot of people.

(09:41):
His granddaughter actually wrote uh well acclaimed book on on
his life and what he did. And even though he
did end up having to help build the bridge, he
did his best to you know, put in a little
sabotage where he could, such as like what they would do.
They would get some white ants and they would put
them in the wood of the bridge to try to
get it, get them to eat it from the inside.

(10:04):
And he would also mix the concrete badly so hopefully
it would crumble. And he would see his his men
get random beatings and he would step he would step
in and he would get beaten as a result. And
so this great hero of the war is sort of
like his reputation is tarnished by this odd, you know,
obsessive Aleghinnis character in the in the movie so Um.

(10:24):
A lot of people were upset about that. And Aleghinnis
actually got an Oscar Award or just the nomination I
think he wanted in that year and so it was
a big movie. Yeah, and so when when people went
awards for their portrayals of historical figures, it's sort of
cements I think in the public's mind that this is
somehow more authentic, or it carries that it carries a

(10:46):
heavier weight in some way. And I wonder sometimes, you know,
films come to the theaters and if it's something to
the grand scale of Pearl Harbor, where you know, it's
a pretty significant event and in American history, and it
carries out a really have a cultural impact. I think
sometimes people obligated to go see it and maybe even

(11:08):
want to take it for what it's worth. But you
can never discount dramatic effect and what filmmakers do to
make a bigger punch on the silver screen. And I
think that the ending of this one, in particular, it's
just it's so laughably wrong. Fdr Franklin Delanor Rose about
rises from his chair at the very end of the film,

(11:30):
and that would have been completely impossible for him. Yeah.
I think my favorite from Pearl Harbor is the fact
that they have one of the Japanese admirals um saying
or a line from an earlier movie, and it was
a completely fabricated line from Toro Toora Tora, which is
a famous movie about Pearl Harbor. And uh. And so

(11:50):
it's to have both movies say it makes it seem like, oh,
this must be true. People, you know, they must have
said the sleeping giant line about America when it was
really it was. It stayed true to a Hollywood at least,
if not history, right. And I think you can see
some historical films like Shakespeare and Love, which is another
one that made Jane's list, that sort of winkingly acknowledge

(12:11):
false bits of history and anachronistic details, and not just
in the way that a movie like A Night's Tale
would incorporate music that was clearly many many many years.
I don't think anybody's walking away from nights Tale thinking
that they actually sang queen songs yeah or oh who
is here? A yeah? Yeah yeah. So And I think
another point to be made about this is that it's

(12:32):
hard to make a movie that really is historically accurate,
not only in the details like what they wear and everything,
but the I think the moral ambiguities going on in history.
I mean, we face them all the time. When we
talked about them in the podcast how how like these
difficult choices that people had to make, and you look
at someone like Twozi who had to aid you know,
the enemy at war, and when you make a movie,

(12:53):
it's much it's much simpler, and it makes for a
better story to make things black and white, definitely, and
at least in some of the older history Oracle films
that are on your list, I think it would have
been an even more complicated process of showing a multifaceted
political figure or historical figure. And in today's cinema, I
think that there's much more to be said about the

(13:13):
subtleties of filmography and the way that light can betray
some sort of expression that's just fleeting on a character
space or a very you know, subtle movement or or
detail can tip off the audience that something isn't quite right.
But films haven't always worked that way, you know, if
you think back to Tour Toura Tora, for instance, well,
for one, it was black and white, and secondly, and

(13:34):
it was very much done in the style of old cinematography,
and you don't have room for subtleties. And I think
the public has gotten a lot more into it just
or Hollywood, I should say, has really embraced going after
more subtleties more uh, you know, morally grays and uh,
it's become more popular, but you could get more tickets

(13:55):
when when it is something that's sort of shady and
you don't really know what's right and the wrong. Yeah,
so we see for instance, represented at the very recent
Academy Awards and maybe like Frost Nixon, where you know,
these these two sort of grainy, gritty characters are explored
for the world to see. You know, we're not just
celebrating you know, famous historical personages of the past. We're

(14:15):
really trying to explore what the morals and motivations must
have been of some pretty unethical people of the past.
That's true. So a lot out there for you to see,
whether you want to see a great figure celebrated like
I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, or or you want to
see Richard Nick Nixon psyche explored. Um, there's so many
more movies in Danefullest that we can't cover, so you're

(14:37):
going to have to give you the article yourself, and
while you're there, also check out the blogs that the
site is launching. The stuff you missed in History Class
as its own blog written by Candice and myself, and
we write about um all different kinds of stuff every day,
and we'd love to hear from you from your comments
and answer your questions there if we can, or you
can email us as always at History Podcast at how

(14:59):
stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com
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