Why is historical accuracy important

Often times, films like Braveheart , have the ability to distort how we as audience members view actual history, taking for granted that filmmakers would have changed certain facts or embellished certain points.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is natural to embellish stories and make them better. Anyone who has ever heard their friend tell a story they know not to be entirely accurate understands just how easy it is for facts to get muddied, making a real story that may just be mediocre, great.

But movies with a fair amount of historical accuracy have succeeded in the past. Outlaw King yes, another movie about Scottish rebellions , although not as famous as a movie like Gladiator , was a popular movie that premiered on Netflix in Here we have an interesting problem, where movies that are more historically correct and ones that are not, are both enjoyed. Maybe the issue is not historical accuracy, but the time in which a movie is released. Braveheart was wildly successful upon its initial release, and it has maintained that popularity over time; however, it has also been harshly criticized.

In the same vein, did finding out that Outlaw King was more historically accurate make the movie retroactively better for audiences? Unfortunately, Rotten Tomatoes does not have a tool to measure that feeling.

Do filmmakers have a responsibility to the history they are portraying? Is it important to accurately represent the people and events being depicted in movies or can that be sacrificed for the good of a compelling and interesting story? Does Commodus in Gladiator deserve to have his death portrayed correctly? Hacksaw Ridge, a film about a World War 2 soldier named Desmond Doss who won the congressional medal of honor even though he refused to bear arms is another example of a film that plays with history.

Hyperbolizing and expanding on the truth is almost a guarantee for any Hollywood movie, but there is something to be said about overemphasizing aspects of a story, and how that warps the way we view real people and events. In this case, it is hard to blame the creators of the movie for making the site larger, but there is speculation that Mel Gibson and his team did not even visit the real site, instead creating their own version of it in Australia.

Maybe it does not matter that the World War 2 site is totally and completely identical to the real location, but it certainly changes how we view the real history, and like the tourists who were disappointed at the real size of Hacksaw Ridge , fans who discover their historical movie is riddled with lies and inaccuracy are oftentimes left saddened by the reality of the situation. Again, this goes back to the idea of turning history into legend and whether or not that is a bad thing.

It is quite possible that history fans should leave their expectations at the door and focus entirely on the enjoyability of a film, allowing the truthful historical depictions within those movies to be added bonuses. Adding in history can at times play a factor in the success or failure of a movie, but whether or not it should is questionable. At the end of the day, or rather, at the end of the movie, it all comes down to each individual audience member and knowing that a movie can simply be a great story or a great representation of history in art and that both of those movies can be enjoyed.

Or, maybe historical films are just the natural process of turning truth into myth, and myth into legend. Land, Graham. August 9th, Livingston, Michael. Tor Publishing. Thursday, November 29th, Tor publishing. Thursday, January 10th, Graham-Harrison, Emma.

Sunday, February 5th, This is a really interesting article and the films that were used in articles were well chosen. Braveheart is a really good case study for historical inaccuracies and they affect how opinion of a film. As someone who has worked on several films in which historical accuracy was treated as little more than an inconvenience to the producers, I was delighted to help in the editorial stage of your article.

It brought back some amusing memories. Sometimes one simply has to bite the bullet and think of the pay cheque. A great read and thank you. Enjoyed the article. I teach a world history of sport course, and use lots of films to communicate a sense of things, but relate the inaccuracies to current perspectives and misunderstandings. Sure, things happened.

There were battles and wars, births and deaths etc but those were just things which occured. History on the other hand is about interpretations and a narrative, in that it is just our impression of what actually went on. It is only at best a partial retelling at other times completely and utterly wrong. They almost certainly going to be more accurate than some of the text books I learnt about Churchill thirty years ago in school. There are two sides to that approach, though, especially when it comes to the deliberate use of known inaccuracies to support dramatic impact on a public which is perhaps completely unfamiliar with the events or circumstances in question.

In an ideal world we would all be able to distinguish between when we are watching fiction and when we are watching an attempt to document and present fact, but we know that is not so. Historical narratives that adopt the approach that the story is more important than the facts certainly play into this human weakness. If a story is not the literal and provable truth then it is not the truth.

It is a story. A bit of background: I grew up with a history buff dad. At its best, this meant he had to comment on it. At worst, it meant a full-scale rant. Interesting article with a gigantic question to answer. We however live in a time where history and culture is inconvenient and nagging, so filmmakers can afford to butcher it without cost. Historical films tell us more about the present than they do about the past. And what we can conclude is that audiences these days know very little about history and care even less.

Interesting piece. I tend to find myself watching historical movies all the time. The second two are liable to more flexible interpretation as there is not enough information as to what actually happened, however the rabbits in The Favourite and the non-meeting of the Queens in Mary Queen of Scots those MIGHT add amusement or dramatic tension but are just lazy, a crime in storytelling.

I also really liked your point about the more slight film inaccuracies for the sake of pacing and dramatic effect being a sort of new form of mythology.

Really enjoyed reading this article — interesting questions were raised — some food for thought. We are, right now, making the history of the future. Thus, history is an immensely important subject to study and understand. It provides the answers to why the world is like it is. An inaccurate understanding of the past, therefore, will present the incorrect answers as to why the world is like it is now. This is incredibly important: having the incorrect answer to why the world exists as it does presently means that the consequences of choices made in the past, or the reality of the development of the past, will be lost and unknown.

This means that, as we move forward into the future, we will be unable to truly understand our own place in history and the nature of the changing world around us. Such misinformation about the past can provide people inaccurate assumptions about the world around them. It is lamentable, then, that history is so often either lost, deliberately misconstrued, misunderstood or misinterpreted, or entirely fictitious.

Much of our understanding of history, and the stories presented to us, do not accurately describe actual events in the past.

We therefore often cannot truly understand the nature of the world around us. Much of early recorded history is rife in inaccuracy, legend, and fable. This, of course, is a result of the nature of early human civilization: writing was uncommon and in its early stages of development, history was told through word of mouth and legend, and such a medium for the recording and telling of history easily allows for the true history to be changed, altered, and reinterpreted. Furthermore, it seems unfair to make film-makers obey historians when historians often disagree among themselves.

Experts are divided over whether Mary Queen of Scots should have a Scottish accent, as Saoirse Ronan does in the film, or whether she would have sounded French. Even if we had one, we might find that 16 th -century Scottish and French accents were different from those we recognise, and that the colloquial speech patterns of early, modern English were nothing like modern film dialogue either.

Film-makers will make whatever historical films they can get funded. Some care deeply about history, and do feel a responsibility towards it, but they are paid by studios and investors to do a job that is not that of a historian. If we want film-makers to prioritise responsibilities to history or art rather than commerce, they need more public funding. As it is, films are generally commercial products. So how can we navigate through this squall of real and made-up information?

If we learn to think critically as individuals and as societies, we can make better judgments and decisions. We cannot only survive complexity, but embrace it. Perhaps those who fret about fiction are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. But the film has prompted much discussion of the politics of race and class in cinema, and an upsurge of interest in the real Shirley, a fascinating man and extraordinary talent.

They should think critically, too, and expect criticism. But audiences do not mindlessly absorb everything at face value. They are capable of understanding fiction and debating it. Whether you love or loathe Green Book, or any of the other Oscar contenders, historical films can be seen not as a threat to history but an opportunity to engage audiences.