Movie vs History

In this Oscar weekend, and with two historical movies and one contemporary "factual" movie up for Best Oscar, I thought we'd look at historical movies and ask the question: Why is it that screenwriters and producers feel that a movie “based on actual incidents” or calling itself “historical” is allowed to play fast and loose with the facts?

I can tell you straight out that any book that purports to be based on “actual events” or any other historical novel for that matter, can’t get away with a cavalier attitude about throwing facts around. Our readers expect adherence to what actually happened, using real people of the past as accurately as we can. It’s our contract with the reader. Oh I know that I must get some things wrong. It’s the littlest things that usually trip up an author. But the brushstrokes of historical detail, the events, the people, the culture, the mores, are all as accurate and authentic as I can get it.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that books made into films have to go through significant changes to get them to the screen. After all, you only have about two hours to present the story. Sometimes characters have to be combined, time-shortened, events left out. It’s understandable when you are a talking about two distinct formats of storytelling.  But what I’m talking about is a complete retelling of historical facts, twisting it all to conform to a set idea about a script, rather than manipulating plot to suit history.

So let’s take a couple of examples of movies from the past that have tried to depict real people and events. Let’s begin with The Wind and the Lion, starring one of my favorite actors, Sean Connery as a Berber bandit, and Candace Bergan as his hapless but not helpless kidnap victim. It’s a sweeping romantic saga in the tradition of Rudyard Kipling or any Warner Bros. classic with Errol Flynn. It’s based on the Perdicaris Incident from 1904 when an American citizen was abducted in Tangier by the Berber bandit Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli or Raisuni. A true international incident, getting President Teddy Roosevelt involved by sending seven warships to the region, with all the adventure and tense international politics one can think of.

Except that the real Perdicaris wasn’t a woman at all, but a man, Ion Perdicaris. And he had renounced his American citizenship years earlier for that of Greek citizenship. Perdicaris began to sympathize with his kidnapper, just as Candace Bergan’s character does in the film, only you get a sense of romantic interest with the fictional Eden Perdicaris rather than the male camaraderie Ion Perdicaris had for Raisuli. This is taking a giant leap from fact to fiction. Why not just change the names, then? Change all of it that might relate to the real incident? I suppose it's to sell tickets. The producers get that added value by being able to say that it was based on real incidents, though now the public is duped into thinking that this really happened as shown in the film.

Another fatally flawed film is Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. Surely created with good intentions, it tells the story of the heroic William Wallace who seemed to come from humble roots and fighting against the seemingly insurmountable English forces for freedom for his Scottish countrymen. A stirring tale, full of battles with knights, in-fighting with the Scottish lairds, amid the background of the ruthless King Edward I’s court. And it is a good story. The real story is good. But what they did in Braveheart was tell their story the way they wanted to.

Where to begin? First, small things. “Braveheart” actually refers to Robert the Bruce, who became King of Scots, not William Wallace. Second, there were no kilts and no belted plaid. Five hundred years too early for that. Blue woad on the face? Striking imagery, but about 1,000 years too late for that. The Jus Primae Noctis that King Edward supposedly invoked, meaning that the English knights could sleep with Scottish women the night of their wedding thus impregnating Scottish women with Englishmen, is pure myth. It never happened. And finally, probably the most obnoxious fantasy of all, Princess Isabella married to King Edward’s son--the eventual King Edward II--is depicted in the film as having an affair with William Wallace. She intimates to the dying King Edward that she is pregnant with Wallace’s child and he will eventually sit on the throne, so there! Except that at the time, Isabella was still a child of about six and living in France. By the time her son (the eventual Edward III) was born, Wallace had been dead seven years.      

Even recent films like Lincoln and Argo have their historical flaws. In Lincoln, for instance, a film that Mr. Speilberg said could be used for teaching in the schools, plays the fast and loose card. In the scene where the states are voting on the amendment to end slavery, they depict Connecticut as having two delegates vote against, when they all voted for. A seemingly small thing, but not to those in Connecticut and Connecticut schools. In Argo, the Canadians get short shrift when it was really them spearheading the deception that gets the Americans out of Tehran. The English are depicted as wanting nothing to do with it, when they indeed had a lot to do with helping the Americans. No car chases at the end, but plenty of real drama to choose from. Recent history obscured by Hollywood splash. Even Zero Dark Thirty, the Get Bin Laden film suffers from over dramatizing events that didn't happen, the controversial scene about CIA using torture to get their information on where Bin Laden was. Still producers feel a little twisting of history serves the plot. But what about history? Directors are fond of saying that they must embellish to make it exciting. I say, they ain't trying hard enough with the real facts.

Why am I complaining? I mean, I've enjoyed lots of movies that aren't accurate. Just sit back, munch the popcorn, and don't complain, right?

It wouldn’t be so bad if people didn’t get their history from movies. But I hate to think that there are people walking around believing that Edward III was fathered by William Wallace, or that the Raisuli gave a female Perdecaris the eye when such things are not history. School kids are already bombarded with strange “truths” from school districts trying to inflict “Creation Science” into their classrooms, as if there is a choice about scientific fact. Let's not give history the heave ho, too. After all, philosopher and poet George Santayana warned us that “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Doesn’t it seem that we should concentrate a little more on history to avoid the pitfalls?

Ah well. Just sit back, enjoy the movie. But please. Don’t believe everything you see.

Holidays . . . How do you relax after the tree goes up?

By Lonnie Cruse

The holidays have finally officially arrived at our house . . . well, after much hemming and hawing by yours truly. Drag out the household decorations/don't drag out the household decorations? Put up the tree/don't put up the tree? Have the party/don't have the party?

Why all the hem and haw? Our tree from the last several years was huge (over seven foot) and it rotated--don't ask me how. (Yes, I bought the rotating tree stand, but no I don't understand how it worked.) To add to the problem, some of the pre-lit (pre-installed?) lights died and had to be replaced, plus last year the tree got caught in the curtains by the window as it rotated and several ornaments went flying, breaking one of my faves, sigh. Okay, I realize that was probably too much information. But if you are thinking about buying a rotating tree, think again.

Anyhow, a friend has been after me to host my annual ladies' luncheon/ornament swap. The luncheon is usually potluck, usually fairly fattening, and usually relaxed and fun. The ornament swap usually dissolves into a cat fight over who gets to go home with the best ornament, and I usually lose. But my momma didn't raise any dummies, so if I don't get the ornament I want, I find out who brought it and where they got it, and off I go on an ornament hunt. Where was I? Decorating for Christmas.

So, up goes the tree, but what to put on it, given that I've been collecting ornaments for forty-five years or so? Ornaments made by my kids, made by me, given to me, and whatever I could manage to hang onto at the annual ornament swap. No way this new tree would hold all of them without toppling over. No way I could go through all of them and weed some out. Time for plan B. Meaning use ONLY the vintage glass ornament balls I've collected the last few years along with the new bubble lights hubby got me last year.

I have some of the "vintage" bubble lights, by the way, but anything that old would be risky to plug in. And I'm particularly aware of the danger of lighted Christmas decorations this year, as is everyone in or near Paducah, KY, thanks to a three story tall, lighted Christmas tree that set the local Michael's craft store on fire. Thankfully no one was hurt but the store is still in pretty bad shape. And I'm still in mourning until they reopen. Sniff.

With the tree decorated, sans the rotating stand, out came my collection of snowmen to decorate the house, but I did scale back in that area by leaving most of my Santas in storage. Maybe they'll get their chance next year?

Anyhow, the Christmas sugar cookies have been purchased (I gave up baking and icing hundreds of them at a whack when the last bird flew out of my nest) my cinnamon coffee is snuggled in the cabinet ready for use, and I have two new Christmas themed books to read. Not to mention watching my favorite Christmas movies. All of this frivolity after I visit the chiropractor, of course.

So, once the tree is up, the other decos are out, the storage boxes are once again hidden away, the coffee is hot and the cookies are on a plate, the muscle relaxer is near at hand, what is your favorite way to recover from all the reaching, lifting, shopping, wrapping, baking? Read a good book? Listen to Christmas music? Favorite Christmas movie? More Christmas shopping trip? Praying for snow? All of the above?

Suspense, "24," and "The Departed"

Elizabeth Zelvin

I saw Martin Scorsese’s film “The Departed” the other night, and it started me thinking about suspense. The difference between mystery and suspense is a much discussed topic among mystery lovers. The marketing folks who make so many of the decisions in publishing nowadays seem to think that slapping “A Novel of Suspense” on the cover of a mystery—even if it’s part of a longstanding series of police procedurals or private eye novels—will make it sell better. Maybe it does. But I think it would be a mistake to blur the distinction between mystery and suspense.

For me, a mystery is a whodunit. The basic skeleton of the plot is that a crime is committed, one or more people try to find out who did it, how, and why, and those questions are answered in the end. That skeleton is fleshed out by character and clothed in setting, ie place and culture. All of those things keep us reading mystery after mystery: the challenge of the puzzle and the drive to resolve it; empathy and liking or fascination with the characters, especially the protagonist; and interest in all the detail and color that the writer throws into the mix.

Suspense is something else. In suspense, the reader may know all along who the good guys and the bad guys are. The tension lies in uncertainty about what will happen. Will the good guys be okay? Will the plot be foiled in time? Will Jack Bauer save the world—again? Well, yes, Jack Bauer always saves the world in the TV series “24.” But except for that given, anything can happen. I watched the first season of “24” on video after hearing it extolled on DorothyL as an exemplar of suspense. And boy, is it ever suspenseful. I’ve now seen Seasons 2 through 4 on video too and have no intention of watching the current Season 6 on the tube until I’ve had a chance to get the Season 5 DVDs. I don’t see how those who watch when it's first aired can stand not knowing from week to week what will happen next. Many books and shows follow the unwritten rule that certain characters have to be okay, no matter how many harrowing experiences they live through. On “24,” that rule gets broken all the time. You really don’t know whether a good guy will turn out to be a bad guy, whether a familiar character will do something unexpected, when or how your personal favorite will die. The first season was the most excruciating, because the viewer didn’t know till it was over how far the show would go. But talk about cliffhangers! Every time I thought they couldn’t possibly increase the tension, they’d ratchet it up yet another notch. And to say the ending was a shocker is anything but hype. It really was a shocker!

“The Departed” is suspenseful but in a different way. I’ve gone in and out of watching “The Sopranos.” And I saw “The Godfather” about 25 years after everybody else without being sorry I’d waited so long. But this movie blew me away. If they don’t finally give Scorcese his long delayed Oscar for this one, I’ll be severely disappointed. The final 20 minutes (just guessing about the duration) were a jolt—a twisty multiple jolt. But that’s not what drove the movie. It was the journey, not the destination, that kept the audience enthralled. The characters all had moral ambiguities—except Jack Nicholson, who played the evil crime boss in his inimitable style—so the suspense wasn’t focused on reversals and revelations (although there were a few of those). But from scene to scene, I wanted to know what happened next. The movie made me care about the characters, the crisp pace kept the tension up, and the sheer delight of brilliant script, marvelous acting, and expert cinematography made me want this roller coaster ride to keep going.

I don’t know why it’s sometimes easier to talk about suspense with reference to a film or TV show than about a book. Maybe it’s that we can’t control the unfolding of the tale—except at home with our DVD or on-demand TV, where the watching experience is indeed less suspenseful. I don’t even want a book to be too suspenseful most of the time. Either I rush to find out what happened, missing all the joys of the writing along the way, or I find it unbearable and close the book. I don’t peek at the end, though I know some people do. At the movies, nobody can peek.

I can’t say enough about how powerful and yes, enjoyable, in spite of the horrendous subject matter, I found “The Departed.” (By contrast, I found the beautifully acted and filmed “Babel” totally depressing, and I won’t even go to see “Letters from Iwo Jima”—I’m sending my husband, who appreciates a good war movie.) In the theater on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, the whole audience was having a communal cultural experience throughout the movie. There were chuckles as we watched Jack Nicholson—you never forget it’s him, but it doesn’t matter—embody the quintessential villain. When Martin Sheen, near the end—no, better not tell you, it’s a spoiler—but anyhow, when the audience gasped, I believe they were reacting to seeing President Bartlet (“West Wing”)…in the situation on the screen. My husband wasn’t the only one who howled with laughter at some of the Irish one-liners, like when Matt Damon tells his girlfriend he’ll never leave: “I’m Irish: if something’s wrong, I’ll live with it for the rest of my life.” (I just tried to google the exact wording of this, and instead found a whole bunch of comments by people who didn’t like the movie. Oh well.) And yes, Freud really did say, “The Irish are one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."

So—about suspense. Does suspense in a book differ from suspense in a movie or TV show? How it’s created? How you react to it? What are your favorite novels of suspense? Have you read novels described as suspense that weren’t? Or vice versa? How much suspense do you want in your mysteries? And did you like “The Departed”? (No spoilers, please—if I could control myself, so can you.)