[fr_freak]

I hate arguments like this. If you want 'facts' watch a documentary. It's a great film.

If there is no need to be true to the reality, then why use historical figures at all? Why not just invent new characters, based on historical figures if you wish, and then take as much license as you care to? My objection to these historical drama pieces is that even supposedly intelligent, educated people accept them, on some level, as real, and thus have a distorted view of history. Therein lies the propaganda value of such films. If you want to destroy a country or culture, you simply make movies, plays, etc. that cast their historical figures in whichever light you want them seen.

[kearnyirish2]

I have no issue with the movie (because I viewed it as entertainment rather than truth), but I see your point: Too many Americans take Hollywood’s take on events as reality, and you’ll never convince them otherwise; they certainly won’t read up on it.

Just caught part of a show on “Titanic”, comparing the movie with reality. One inaccuracy was the higher death rate in second-class passengers over steerage passengers; the producers attributed this to a possible physical advantage of the average steerage passenger over office clerks and such. The movie practically has first class passengers making rafts out of the children of steerage passengers...

[Boogieman]

“If there is no need to be true to the reality, then why use historical figures at all? Why not just invent new characters, based on historical figures if you wish, and then take as much license as you care to?”

Well, one reason is that you can draw in the audience much easier and more quickly if you use characters they already have some familiarity with.

Sure, you could make a movie about a fictional classical composer, but nobody would have heard of him, so who cares? Plus, if he’s fictional, you’ll have to hire a composer to make up some fake music for him to have written, instead of being able to use lots of public domain classics that everyone knows Mozart wrote :)

[Borges]

I’ve never met any educated person who thought Amadeus was anything other than an entertaining fantasy based on historical events. That’s what Peter Shaffer called his play. Do you know how many operas on historical subjects are completely off the mark in terms of actual history? No one feels misled.

[Lonely Bull]

My objection to these historical drama pieces is that even supposedly intelligent, educated people accept them, on some level, as real, and thus have a distorted view of history. Therein lies the propaganda value of such films. If you want to destroy a country or culture, you simply make movies, plays, etc. that cast their historical figures in whichever light you want them seen.

I look forward to the 2184 movie Hussein; audiences will delightedly watch the life and times of the amazing composer-president and his rival Bush.