A List of Historically Inaccurate Movies

Now, I actually knew about the historical inaccuracies of the two Mel Gibson movies mentioned in this article. Both "The Patriot" and "Braveheart" have numerous historical inaccuracies throughout.

For example, in the movie "Braveheart", the events depicted came way too early for them to be wearing kilts. Yet, there they are, wearing kilts some eight or so hundred years ago!

And as for "The Patriot", the scene where the villagers are locked in a church that the British subsequently set fire to never happened at all during the American Revolution, although it did happen in France, during the Nazi occupation there!

Also, the main historical figure that the fictional Benjamin Martin is based on, Francis Marion, was hardly a hero to be celebrated. He committed atrocities at least on the level of the British during the American war for independence, and was a racist who owned slaves, something that was conveniently taken out of the more sanitized and politically correct movie.

Some of the other movies listed are pretty interesting, and I was not entirely aware of the historical inaccuracies in all of them.

I will say this, though: some other movies probably could easily be on the list. I'm thinking "The 300" would be a prime example. There are some other movies that should be on the list, but I don't seem to be remembering them at the moment. Surely, some of those westerns of old, when Indians were systematically portrayed as barbaric savages would qualify.

Actually, come to think of it, there is one movie that I suspect is loaded with numerous historical inaccuracies, and I actually wrote a review about it earlier this year! That would be 1492, starring Gerard Depardieu, and it portrays Chistopher Columbus in the traditional historic view as some kind of a hero, conveniently omitting his mentioning of how the natives would make good slaves, and placing all of the blame on the abuses by the Spaniards under Columbus on a completely fictional character that never existed in real life.

Also, the movie Alexander has quite a few distortions in it, to my understanding.

And I did not want to mention it, since I suspect Tarantino was taking poetic licenses, and since it should be obvious to anyone with even a basic understanding of the events of World War II. But Nazi Germany certainly did not come to an end in a French movie theater, with Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Bormann all dying in a fiery cinema while watching a movie about German military glories.  I love "Inglorious Basterds", but you certainly do not want to get the impression that you are watching something that will provide a picture of what the past was really like. It might make a nice movie, but that is obviously not what happened.

On the flip side, I also heard that certain movies that tried to reverse historically inaccurate perceptions of history were themselves not quite historically accurate. I'm thinking of "Dances With Wolves", which was a beautiful movie that I always love watching, but which is probably too sappy and designed to please modern sensibilities and political correctness to be accurate.

One movie that, while not historically accurate in terms of actual characters, but which I suspect does actually provide a fairly realistic version of history would be "Blackrobe" a movie that I would recommend to anyone. The characters feel very real, and all of them are very human and flawed. It shows a conflict of when two cultures from very different worlds met, and as a result, the movie is a fascinating look at the time of colonization in the Americas.

Maybe you have some ideas on movies that are rife with historical inaccuracies? If so, please feel free to share your thoughts!






7 Movies Based On History That Lied

http://www.answers.com/article/1198027/7-movies-based-on-history-that-lied?param4=fb-demo&param1=now&param2=733631