What Historical Event Should Be a Movie?

[MNDude]

If you could take any historical event and have it made into a movie (and it would be made to your liking) which historical event would it be? Hannibal? Maccabees? Etc.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I would like to see a movie about the TV network casting couches ( mainly NBC ) in the mid to late 70s and early 80s that gave us the terms T&A and Jiggle TV.

[clearcarbon]

"president Obama leaving the white house and being arrested for treason two years later when the extent of his crimes our learned and can not be denied."

Perhaps they'll call it "The Rise and Fall of the False Imam." It will probably have to be filmed in India.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

You forgot Russell Crowe!!

Oh right. And Kevin Costner. I'm sure we can work in Michael Moore somewhere too, behind the scenes. Cuz the Galileo story has to be done right.

[Slyfox]

The Pilgrimage of Grace - when English lost their liberty due to the machinations of the tyrant Henry VIII.

[Political Junkie Too]

How about some forgotten people from America's early days, like a biopic of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys?

-PJ

[nathanbedford]

It is interesting to compare the list comprised by conservatives, most of whom I guess are male, to the standards Hollywood applies to selecting the subject matter of screenplays.

Our list reveals our understanding of history which turns on battles, wars, political events but Hollywood looks at gate receipts not history to select the stuff of its work product. Hollywood knows that 50% of its traditional audience is female and they exercise a real influence on ticket sales, so Hollywood makes movies which on the whole which to females, more than just "chick flicks," but movies with which females can relate. So whether the female interest is introduced as a love story or otherwise, a movie which is successful at the ticket office will depart from this requirement at its peril. Many movies have done so successfully, for example, Lawrence of Arabia but for the most part the need to draw the female audience is part of the equation. Hence, movies about the Alamo are not as likely to succeed as movies which incorporate a love story, such as The Last of the Mohicans.

Hollywood is also aware of demographics and they know that people over 35 go to the movies much less frequently than do youngsters between 17 and 35 so we get a rash of zit movies, car crash movies, and exploitation films of various sorts. Ask yourself what a 19-year-old female will find of interest about the battle of Marathon, and the inevitable conclusion is, not much.

Hollywood also needs conflict. The conflict of one Army battling another Army is not the sort of conflict it seeks. It needs conflict which shape human character, or put a better way, how human character shapes plot. So if one considers the movie, Patton, it succeeds in spite of the absence of females and in spite of the absence of a love story because the whole movie is about our heroe's character and how that drives the war. In general, the conflict is about the psychology of the main character, how he is confronted with a challenge and how he overcomes that challenge by drawing on some inner resource. The challenges and responses leading to the satisfying conclusion must increase for the ultimate effort leading to the ultimate triumph. Consider the classic, High Noon as an example of a psychological journey and a love story rather than a Western shootout in which the main protagonist is confronted with ever more difficult odds but holds fast to it his principles and overcomes them by digging deeper and meeting the ultimate challenge.

Stalin once said that the death of millions is a statistic with the death of an individual is a tragedy and Hollywood accepts that maxim in striving for audience empathy. So movies about huge battles do not excite Hollywood nearly as much as boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back and lives happily ever after.

We note all of this before commenting on the ideological tendencies of Hollywood to write propaganda on behalf of the left. That comes partly from the influence of the red diaper babies, from many Jews such as Sean Penn and his parents, from the pervasive ideology of of the arts but also from the nature of filmmaking and how audiences are hooked. It is not all a bunch of liberals sitting around deciding how to make metrosexuals of us all.

[Falconspeed]

Great topic and comments.

Pope John Paul II and Gorbachev in December 1989 with G. H. Bush standing outside in the Vatican hallway.

[Cowman]

How about some forgotten people from America's early days, like a biopic of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys?

Lydia Darrah

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

It was a bungling British act, as bungling as it gets. They sent that whole expedition out to get thousands of breadfruit trees in the belief that it would be a cheap source of food for slaves without actually testing first how EDIBLE breadfruit was! After all the hell of the mutiny, losing the ship, losing lives, and getting the mutineers and transporting them and losing more lives and trying them and hanging them they eventually got the breadfruit to the slaves and found the slaves hated it, wouldn't eat it. Same with the Robert Falcon Scott expedition to the Antarctica. Someone gave him the brilliant idea that PONIES would be the perfect animals to drag his 1000 pound sleds in minus 40 degree weather. Needless to say they immediately died yet he kept trudging on and surprise surprise he froze to death. This is the last photo they took before they all died. Look how happy they look! A pony? A pony to drag the sled? Yes that worked out perfectly didn't it. See how some of their faces are dark? That's frostbite. Even if they lived they would have lost probably most of their faces to gangrene. The guy sitting down on the left is named Bowers. He pulled the cable that took the picture. The guy standing on the far right committed suicide by walking out from his tent in a blizzard and telling Scott. "I'm going for a walk and may be a while" His "while" was eternity and incredibly all their bodies are still up there frozen solid.

[dorothy]

How about something in the maritime line, say, the Battle of Lepanto.

[JoeDetweiler]

The Battle for Lake Tanganyika during World War I. It’s perfect for today....a Commander who is covered in tattoos and wears skirts....oppressed Natives....men dragging two boats across 150 miles of African wilderness in order to fight a pointless battle....but it’s also a story of great courage on a small scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Lake_Tanganyika
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Spicer-Simson#Eccentricities

It would make a great movie.

[rlmorel]

The Battle of Leyte Gulf.

It is such a sweeping drama with so many subplots and angles:

San Bernadino Strait and Halsey's Chase.

The confusion of communications, culminating in the "The World Wonders" message.

The first encounter with Kamikaze attacks

The return of some of the Battleships raised from the mud at Pearl Harbor who find their way back into a battleship engagement, probably the last one ever.

The suicidal naval equivalent to the Charge of The Light Brigade by the Small Boys of Taffy III who steamed at top speed right into the muzzles of the Japanese battleships and cruisers.

And even the typhoon shortly thereafter...

Just an amazing sequence of stories.

Yep. In my mind, this is the movie that should be done!

With the state of the art in animation and assorted special effects, they could do the naval part right in a way that could never have been done in the past. They could make it believable. Even with the best special effects they could muster back when movies of that type were being made, they could not do the modeling well enough to fool your eyes. Something was always just a bit off, even from those who did it best.

But they could visually show that story correctly today with the special effects available.

[rlmorel]

Yes!

[rlmorel]

I have to tell you, I really love the original...for so many reasons:

It was so real to me.

[rlmorel]

How about “The Gulag Archipelago”?

[Tennessee Nana]

Scott getting his ship stuck in the ice in the Antarctic in 1904 and having to be rescued and then it all hushed up by the British Admiralty would be an interesting story ..

Scott the great Antarctic explorer getting stuck in the ice like a rookie..and having to be rescued by “lessor” men..

My grandfather was on one of the rescue ships,,the SV Morning ...

The sailors were sworn to secrecy but when the ships went into Lyttleton, New Zealand, (Christchurch) the reporters changed the names of the men who told them anything and the story leaked out anyway...sort of..

[Tennessee Nana]

Would the other people who walked with Laura Ingersoll Secord and the people who helped her be mentioned too ???

[Tennessee Nana]

Actually the War of 1812 lasted several years and Laura Ingersoll supposed took that stroll in 1813..

[Tennessee Nana]

Samson vs Goliath.
__________________________________

that’s David V Goliath...

[Cowman]

I would like to add the real story of Saco and Venzetti. This case was adopted by the Left at the time and has been a ritualistically sacred part of the Statist religion, (that these poor immigrants were railroaded by the nasty anti immigrant xenophobes in the legal system,) even Mike Dukakis said in one of the Presidential debates that he thought it was a miscarriage of justice.

It has now been proven by the discovery of a letter from the defense that the whole railroad defense was made up and every one knew they were Anarchists that robbed the factory to raise funds for the Communist party.

If you want to see liberal heads explode that would do it.