Posted on 08/20/2009 12:30:12 PM PDT by JoeProBono
If you thought Tom Cruise's character in "The Last Samurai" represented a real figure from history, you were wrong. But don't feel ashamed. A new study shows that even students, with facts staring them in the face, tend to substitute Hollywood fiction for historical fact in their minds.
"What we found is that there's something really special about watching a film that lets people retain information from that film, even when they had read a contradictory account in the textbook," said Andrew Butler, a psychology researcher at Washington University in St. Louis during the time he and his colleagues conducted the study.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
I've seen/heard "talkie" news reel footage of St. George. His voice was nowhere near as gruff as Scott, nor was his demeanor anywhere near as dour. Actually, I thought he sounded kind of like Tony Snow did when he would loosen up as Rush's guest.
Cruise is a pretty big fabrication in real life, too.
Really? The rebellion it was based on was put down by a conscript army rather easily, and at the direction of Emperor Meiji[The Samurai rebelled because: (1) they were to be denied the right to carry the two swords, and: (2) The Army, including the officer corps was to be opened to the middle class]. And Cruise’s character would have gone from helpless drunk, tortured by the demons of indigenous aboriginal genocide; to training officer of the Japanese Army, within a month of the Last Stand. Pretty good, even for Tom.
1. (And I need to repeat this) IT’S A MOVIE.
2. They took A LOT of liberties to make this movie. It’s inaccuracies are why we’re ripping it apart, but it’s still a good movie.
When I was in Fifth grade, back in 1956, I got in a heated argument with my teacher over Blackbeard’s death. She insisted he was buried up to his neck at the low tide mark and drowned by the incoming tide. How’d she know? Saw it in a movie! [And Blackbeard looked just like Robert Newton, and Lt. Maynard bore a striking resemblance to Keith Andes].
But the scenery and cinematography were good.
By the bye, one of the liberties they took was having Americans there at all. The Japanese Navy was trained by the British. the Japanese Army was trained by the Germans.
However, for female pulchritude, this put a century of National Geographic Magazines into the shade. /grin
I went through all that myself, when deciding wether or not to watch it on cable. I hated “U571” for recasting the Brits role as an American one.
I have to suspend reality in The Great Escape, but it’s still a GREAT MOVIE.
And you forgot Billy Connely as Cruise’s Sergeant Major.
Bortai (Susan Hayward): For me, there is no peace while you live, Mongol.
Temujin (John Wayne): Yer beautiful in yer wrath.
It was Dances With Wolves in Japanese clothing.
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Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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I happened to see about a half hour of “King Richard and the Crusaders”, which is on a number of worst-movies lists. It wasn’t that bad, for the most part played tongue in cheek. There are *so many* movies that are really lousy, that just stink, suck, and {fill in the blank} so much that no one puts them on such lists because they don’t want anyone else to know they actually watched them. :’)
“War! War! That’s all you think of, Dick Plantagenet! You burner! You pillager!”
Of course, the Liz Taylor “Cleopatra” (I think Rex Harrison was in both) is right at the boundary between unsatisfactory and awful, but pulls me back in because of the costuming, sets, and (mostly unintentional) humor.
There are many Freepers who seem to get their history from John Wayne movies.
There are many Freepers who seem to get their history from John Wayne movies. That’s as ridiculous as me getting history about John Wayne from “Repo Man.”
The real Patton had a high-pitched, whiny voice.
I’ve never thought she was pretty. :’)
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