CR5 Issue 169 June 2019

More Story than History
There’s an old saying, ‘If you don’t learn from
history then you’re doomed to repeat it’.
Strangely, I don’t know the history of that
statement. So I might say it again. Hmmm.
Anyway, it’s aimed at telling people to learn
from past errors. Like not looking up while
standing on a hill near Hastings when the
Normans start firing arrows at you, or calling
your ship ‘unsinkable’ when you’ve got
Leonardo de Caprio and Kate Winslet on
board.
But you’ve got to be wary where you get
your history from. Even the most learned
and academic of tomes can be open to
accusations of bias. I’ve just finished reading
a book called ‘Arnhem’ about the failed
attempt to capture a number of Dutch bridges
in the latter parts of World War II. It’s a great
book, and I’d cheerfully recommend it to
anyone with a interest in that direction, but
for whatever reason, author Anthony Beevor
clearly doesn’t like Field Marshal Bernard
Montgomery, and can’t resist taking a pop at
him at every opportunity. And it goes beyond
simply holding him responsible for being the
architect of the failed plan.
So when you start looking at more dramatic
representations, where the intent is primarily
to entertain rather than educate, then you can
be in real trouble if you take what you see as
actual history.
It’s not new. Shakespeare’s take on history
was decidedly dodgy. Macbeth wasn’t a
dagger-wielding psychopath, but an elected
King (yep, they elected Kings in Scotland at
that time, like they did in England until William
the Conqueror turned up) who ruled wisely
and well for a number of years. Richard III
wasn’t the epitome of evil and he almost
certainly didn’t have a hump-backed
deformity. Both depictions were a result of
needing to curry favour with Queen Elizabeth.
But for serious, bona-fide, reality-warping
historical depictions, you can rarely do better
(or worse) than the movies.
If you take Hollywood as your guide, from
ancient pre-historic times to the modern day,
then the world you see will be very different
from reality.
In ‘One Million Years BC’ (1966) a fur
bikini-clad Raquel Welch screams in horror
as her caveman boyfriend fights dinosaurs,
despite the last dinosaur having died out over
sixty million years previously.
In the marketplaces of ‘Troy’ (2004) they
trade Llamas from Peru, which no-one from
Europe would be visiting for another two and
half thousand years. Mongol tribesmen,
Indian war-elephants and an armoured
rhinoceros are brought together by the
emperor Xerxes to take down the
ludicrously over-oiled Spartans led by Gerard
Butler in ‘300’ (2007). But Xerxes’ empire
never extended to either India or Mongolia
and no-one has ever armoured a rhino (well
not until ‘Black Panther’ (2018), and that’s a
comic-book movie and so doesn’t count) and
lived. Let’s be honest, would you?
Let’s catapult forward in time. Mel Gibson’s
‘The Patriot’ (2000). Set in a version of South
Carolina where slavery really wasn’t that bad
during the Wars of American Independence,
the sadistic British commander (who else)
rounds up the local crying women, doe-eyed
children, invalids etc., sticks them in a church
and burns it to the ground. An act of atrocity
that would have had a profound impact on
Anglo-American relations long after the war
had finished. If it had ever happened, which it
didn’t. Talking of which, and in a long line of
‘how the Americans won the war’
movies, we have ‘U-571’ (2000) in which Jon
Bon Jovi helps his fellow sub-mariners to
steal an Enigma code machine from a stricken
German U-Boat. Set in 1942, it’s so inaccurate
it almost defies listing. Other than the simple
fact it didn’t happen, the British had already
captured an Enigma machine back in February
1940 and deciphered the code by 1941, before
the Americans had even entered the war.
Sorry Jon, but you gave war movies a bad
name…
So, whether it’s ‘Mary Queen of Scots’,
‘Dunkirk’, ‘Darkest Hour’ or any of the recent
historical films, or ‘Gentleman Jim’ or ‘Victoria’
on the television, take it as an entertainment.
Even, if your curiosity is piqued, take it as an
opportunity to look further into the subject or
period. But never take it at face value…
Paul M Ford
Graydorian – The Writing Bureau
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