Dramatisations, Docudramas About Historical Events
Historic Dramatisations which are as accurate as possible to real events and real people and are supported by history buffs, teachers, students .... work in progress ... suggestions wellcome!
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- DirectorBernardo BertolucciStarsJohn LoneJoan ChenPeter O'TooleBernardo Bertolucci's Oscar-winning dramatisation of the life story of China's last emperor, Pu Yi.
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsMichael JaystonJanet SuzmanRoderic NobleTsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.
- DirectorOliver HirschbiegelStarsBruno GanzAlexandra Maria LaraUlrich MatthesTraudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
- StarsPaul GiamattiLaura LinneyJohn DossettThe life of one of the USA's Founding Fathers, its second President, and his role in the nation's first 50 years.
- DirectorRon MaxwellStarsTom BerengerMartin SheenStephen LangIn 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsTatsuya NakadaiTsutomu YamazakiKen'ichi HagiwaraA petty thief with an utter resemblance to a samurai warlord is hired as the lord's double. When the warlord later dies the thief is forced to take up arms in his place.
- DirectorPeter WatkinsStarsTony CosgroveOlivier Espitalier-NoelDon FairserviceThe 1746 Battle of Culloden, the last land battle fought in the British Isles and the battle that ensured that Scotland was controlled by England.
- DirectorFred ZinnemannStarsPaul ScofieldWendy HillerRobert ShawThe story of Sir Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarry.
- DirectorKen HughesStarsRichard HarrisAlec GuinnessRobert MorleyPuritan statesman Oliver Cromwell leads England in a civil war against the absolutist and Catholic-sympathetic King Charles I.
- DirectorGleb PanfilovStarsAleksandr GalibinLynda BellinghamVladimir GrachyovThe story of the last year and a half of Tsar Nicholas II and his family from the February Revolution of 1917 to their execution in July 1918.
- DirectorPeter GlenvilleStarsRichard BurtonPeter O'TooleJohn GielgudKing Henry II of England comes to terms with his affection for his close friend and confidant Thomas Becket, who finds his true honor by observing God's divine will rather than the King's.Most of the historical inaccuracies in the film are from the play, as Anouilh was writing drama rather than a history, and he took dramatic licence.
The major inaccuracy is the depiction of Becket as a Saxon who has risen to a perceived Norman social standing, when in fact the historical Thomas Becket was a Norman (while Henry was an Angevin). Anouilh did this because he had based the play on a 19th-century account that described Becket as a Saxon. He had been informed of this error before his play was produced, but decided against correcting it because it would undermine a key point of conflict, and because "history might eventually rediscover that Becket was a Saxon, after all."
Becket is depicted as Henry's loyal "drinking pal", who aids him in illicit romantic entanglements, but who becomes saintly and responsible after his appointment as Archbishop. Passing mention is made in the film of the Constitutions of Clarendon (simply as the "Sixteen Articles"); the struggle between Becket and Henry is boiled down to their conflict over Lord Gilbert's murder of the captive priest. In no way is Becket depicted as a man who desired special legal privileges (defrocking rather than prison) for his clergy, as some believe that he was.
Henry's mother, Empress Matilda, died in 1167, three years before the treaty of Fréteval allowed Becket to return in England. Henry appears to not have any respect for his mother and treats her as something of an annoyance, a rather drastic departure from what is generally held as historical fact. Empress Matilda was Henry's sole parent for much of his childhood, and she was instrumental in shaping Henry into the fierce warrior and skilled administrator he was. Far from seeing his mother as a burden, Henry seems to have adored Matilda and relied heavily on her advice and guidance until her death.
Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine was in fact beautiful, brilliant and superbly educated, famous for her wit, charm and daring.
She is shown publicly rebuking Henry in a scene near the end of the film, when in fact Eleanor, whatever private reservations she may have had, is not known to have ever behaved in such a manner in public. During the same scene, she says she will go to her father to complain of Henry's treatment of her; however, her father had died decades before, when Eleanor was just 15 years old. It was her father's death that made Eleanor the Duchess of Aquitaine and the most eligible bride of the 12th century, and Henry would not have married her had she not come with Aquitaine. When combined with Henry's own duchies in France, the marriage gave the royal couple control over more land in France than the actual King of France possessed at the time. Also, the film shows Henry and Eleanor as having four children, all boys. In truth Henry and Eleanor had eight children, five sons and three daughters. While the eldest son, William, had died before the events of the film, the three daughters are neglected. - DirectorSteve McQueenStarsChiwetel EjioforMichael Kenneth WilliamsMichael FassbenderIn the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free Black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.Historical accuracy
African-American history and culture scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a consultant on the film, and researcher David Fiske, co-author of Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave, provided some material used to market the film. Nevertheless, news and magazine articles around the time of the film's release described a scholar alleging some license that Northup could have taken with his book, and liberties that McQueen definitely took with Northup's original, for dramatic, modernizing, or other reasons.
Scott Feinberg wrote in The Hollywood Reporter about a September 22 New York Times article that "dredged up and highlighted a 1985 essay by another scholar, James Olney, that questioned the 'literal truth' of specific incidents in Northup's account and suggested that David Wilson, the white amanuensis to whom Northup had dictated his story, had taken the liberty of sprucing it up to make it even more effective at rallying public opinion against slavery." According to Olney, when abolitionists invited an ex-slave to share his experience in slavery at an antislavery convention, and when they subsequently funded the appearance of that story in print, "they had certain clear expectations, well understood by themselves and well understood by the ex-slave, too."
Noah Berlatsky wrote in The Atlantic about a scene in McQueen's adaptation. Shortly after Northup's kidnapping, he is sent on a slave ship. One of the sailors attempts to rape a female slave, but is stopped by a male slave. "The sailor unhesitatingly stabs and kills [the male slave]," he wrote, stating that "this seems unlikely on its face—slaves are valuable, and the sailor is not the owner. And, sure enough, the scene is not in the book."
Forrest Wickman of Slate wrote of Northup's book giving a more favorable account of the author's onetime master, William Ford, than the McQueen film. In Northup's own words, "There never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford," adding that Ford's circumstances "blinded [Ford] to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of Slavery." The movie, however, according to Wickham, "frequently undermines Ford." McQueen undercuts Christianity itself as well, in an effort to update the ethical lessons from Northup's story for the 21st century, by holding the institutions of Christianity up to the light for their ability to justify slavery at the time. Northup was a Christian of his time, writing of his former master being "blinded" by "circumstances" that in retrospect meant a racist acceptance of slavery despite being a Christian, a position untenable to Christians now and to Christian abolitionists of the 19th century but not contradictory to Northup himself. Valerie Elverton Dixon in The Washington Post characterized the Christianity depicted in the movie as "broken".
Emily West, an associate professor of history at the University of Reading who specializes in the history of slavery in the U.S., said she had "never seen a film represent slavery so accurately". Reviewing the film for History Extra, the website of BBC History Magazine, she said: "The film starkly and powerfully unveiled the sights and sounds of enslavement – from slaves picking cotton as they sang in the fields, to the crack of the lash down people's backs. We also heard a lot about the ideology behind enslavement. Masters such as William Ford and Edwin Epps, although very different characters, both used an interpretation of Christianity to justify their ownership of slaves. They believed the Bible sanctioned slavery, and that it was their 'Christian duty' to preach the scriptures to their slaves." Wikipedia - DirectorAndrew DominikStarsBrad PittCasey AffleckSam ShepardRobert Ford, who has idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the resurgent gang of the Missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.
- DirectorGillo PontecorvoStarsBrahim HadjadjJean MartinYacef SaadiIn the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.Not all reception was positive. In France, Cahiers du cinéma devoted a special feature to the film consisting of five articles by critics, philosophers, and film scholars, wherein the negative assessment of the film was cast in such strong terms that it undermined, on moral grounds, the legitimacy of any critic or analyst who did not condemn the film, let alone anyone who dared consider it worthy of filmic attention."
Political controversies in the 1960s
The movie produced considerable political controversy in France and was banned there for five years. The topic was controversial because there were differing views on whose side the film was on. Many in France felt the film was too sympathetic to the Algerian view and may be why it was not screened for many years. "A moving film that presented events from the Algerian point of view."
Pontecorvo said "The Algerians put no obstacles in our way because they knew that I'd be making a more or less objective film about the subject. The French authorities, who were very sensitive on the Algerian issue, banned the film for three months." Threats from fascist groups prevented screenings of the film for four years despite Pontecorvo's attempt to make a politically neutral film.
The Battle of Algiers and guerrilla movements:
The release of The Battle of Algiers coincided with the decolonization period and national liberation wars, as well as a rising tide of left-wing radicalism in Western nations in which a large minority showed interest in armed struggle. Beginning in the late 1960s, The Battle of Algiers gained a reputation for inspiring political violence; in particular, the tactics of urban guerrilla warfare and terrorism in the movie were supposedly copied by the Black Panthers, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. The Battle of Algiers was apparently also Andreas Baader's favourite movie
Wikipedia - DirectorBruce BeresfordStarsLothaire BluteauAden YoungSandrine HoltIn the 17th century, a Jesuit missionary nicknamed Black Robe by the natives and his small party of companions try reaching the Huron tribe in Canada all while facing mistrust, Iroquois warring parties and harsh winter conditions.Black Robe was praised as a "magnificently staged combination of top talents delivering a gripping and tragic story",and has been rated one of the most meticulously researched representations of indigenous life put on film. Notably, the film includes dialogue in the Cree, Mohawk, and Algonquin languages. The French characters speak English in the film. Latin is used for Catholic prayers.
Political activist Ward Churchill, after highly praising the film-making, criticized historical inaccuracies. He said he thought the film vilified the Mohawks as part of a theme that Indian resistance to European culture was evil - DirectorRoland JofféStarsRobert De NiroJeremy IronsRay McAnallyEighteenth-century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.Historical basis[edit]
Main article: Bandeirantes
The Mission is based on events surrounding the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, in which Spain ceded part of Jesuit Paraguay to Portugal. A significant subtext is the impending Suppression of the Jesuits, of which Father Gabriel is warned by the film's narrator, Cardinal Altamirano, who was once himself a Jesuit. Altamirano, speaking in hindsight in 1758, corresponds to the actual Andalusian Jesuit Father Luis Altamirano, who was sent by Jesuit Superior General Ignacio Visconti to Paraguay in 1752 to transfer territory from Spain to Portugal. He oversaw the transfer of seven missions south and east of the Río Uruguay, that had been settled by Guaranis and Jesuits in the 17th century. As compensation, Spain promised each mission 4,000 pesos, or fewer than 1 peso for each of the circa 30,000 Guaranis of the seven missions, while the cultivated lands, livestock, and buildings were estimated to be worth 7–16 million pesos. The film's climax is the Guarani War of 1754–1756, during which historical Guaranís defended their homes against Spanish-Portuguese forces implementing the Treaty of Madrid. For the film, a re-creation was made of one of the seven missions, São Miguel das Missões.[8]
Father Gabriel's character is loosely based on the life of Paraguayan saint and Jesuit Roque González de Santa Cruz. The story is taken from the book The Lost Cities of Paraguay by Father C. J. McNaspy, S.J., who was also a consultant on the film.[9]
The waterfall setting of the film suggests the combination of these events with the story of older missions, founded between 1610–1630 on the Paranapanema River above the Guaíra Falls, from which Paulista slave raids forced Guaranís and Jesuits to flee in 1631. The battle at the end of the film evokes the eight-day Battle of Mbororé in 1641, a battle fought on land as well as in boats on rivers, in which the Jesuit-organized, firearm-equipped Guaraní forces stopped the Paulista raiders.[8]
Historical inaccuracies[edit]
The fictional characters Gabriel and Rodrigo were involved in a struggle that is factually incorrect since it was only the Guarani who fought against oppression in the resulting three-year warfare against the Portuguese. The Jesuit missionaries did not directly disobey the orders of Altamirano, and none stayed to fight with their converts.[citation needed] The character of Altamirano is also historically inaccurate. He was not a cardinal sent by the Pope but an emissary sent by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Ignazio Visconti, to preserve the Jesuits in Europe in the face of attacks in Spain and Portugal.[10] - DirectorRichard FleischerKinji FukasakuToshio MasudaStarsMartin BalsamSô YamamuraJason RobardsThe story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.Historical accuracy[edit]
USS Yorktown during the filming of Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1968.
Parts of the film showing the takeoff of the Japanese aircraft utilize an Essex-class aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown, which was commissioned in 1943 and modernized after the war to have a very slightly angled flightdeck.[19] The ship was leased by the film producers, who needed an aircraft carrier for the film; and as Yorktown was scheduled to be decommissioned in 1970 the Navy made her available. She was used largely in the takeoff sequence of the Japanese attack aircraft. The sequence shows interchanging shots of models of the Japanese aircraft carriers and the Yorktown. It does not look like any of the Japanese carriers involved in the attack, due to its large bridge island and its angled landing deck. The Japanese carriers had small bridge islands, and angled flight decks were not developed until after the war.[20] In addition, during the scene in which Admiral Halsey is watching bombing practice an aircraft carrier with the hull number 14 is shown. Admiral Halsey was on the USS Enterprise, not the Essex-class carrier USS Ticonderoga, which would not be commissioned until 1944. This is understandable, however, as both the Enterprise and all six of the Japanese carriers from the attack had been scrapped and sunk, respectively. Enterprise was scrapped in 1959, and four of the six, including Akagi, were sunk within six months of the attack at the Battle of Midway.
In Tora! Tora! Tora!, an error involves the model of the Japanese carrier Akagi. In the film, Akagi's bridge island is positioned on the starboard side of the ship, which is typical on most aircraft carriers. However, the aircraft carrier Akagi was an exception; its bridge island was on the port side of the ship. Despite this, the bridge section appeared accurately as a mirrored version of Akagi's real port-side bridge.[21] Secondly, all the Japanese aircraft in the footage bear the markings of Akagi's aircraft (a single vertical red stripe following the red sun symbol of Japan), even though five other aircraft carriers participated, each having its own markings. In addition, the markings do not display the aircraft's identification numbers as was the case in the actual battle. The white surround on the roundel on the Japanese aircraft was only used from 1942 onwards. Prior to this the roundel was red only.[22]
The USS Ward was an old "4-piper" destroyer commissioned in 1918; the ship used in the movie, USS Savage, which portrays the Ward looked far different from the original destroyer.[23] In addition, in the movie she fired two shots from her #1 turret. In reality, the Ward fired the first shot from the #1 4" un-turreted gunmount and the second shot from the #3 wing mount.[24]
A stern section of the USS Nevada was built that was also used to portray the USS Arizona and other U.S. battleships. The lattice mast (or cage mast) section of the Tennessee-class/Maryland-class battleship was built beside the set of the USS Nevada stern section, but not built upon a set of a deck, but on the ground as the footage in the movie only showed the cage mast tower. The large scale model of the stern shows the two aft gun turrets with three gun barrels in each; in reality, Nevada had two heightened fore and aft turrets with two barrels each while the lower two turrets fore and aft had three barrels each. Another model of Nevada, used in the film to portray the whole ship, displays the turrets accurately. It should be noted that the reason for this anomaly is because the aft section model was used in the film to portray both USS Nevada and USS Arizona. The ships looked remarkably similar except that Arizona had four triple turrets and a slightly different stern section. Footage and photographs not used in the film show the cage mast as being built on the ground. The USS Nevada/USS Arizona stern section was shown exploding to represent the explosion that destroyed the Arizona, although in reality the explosion took place in #2 magazine, forward, and Arizona's stern section remains essentially intact to this day.
The film has a Japanese Zero fighter being damaged over a naval base and then deliberately crashing into a naval base hangar. This is actually a composite of three incidents at Pearl Harbor attack: in the first wave, a Japanese Zero crashed into Fort Kamehameha's ordnance building; in the second wave, a Japanese Zero did deliberately crash into a hillside after U.S. Navy CPO John William Finn at Naval Air Station at Kāneʻohe Bay had shot and damaged the aircraft; also during the second wave, a Japanese aircraft that was damaged crashed into the seaplane tender USS Curtiss.[25]
During a number of shots of the attack squadrons traversing across Oahu, a white cross can be seen standing on one of the mountainsides. The cross was actually erected after the attack as a memorial to the victims of the attack. - StarsJeremy IronsAnna ChancellorEmma KayIn two parallel stories, the clockmaker John Harrison builds the marine chronometer for safe navigation at sea in the 18th Century and the horologist Rupert Gould becomes obsessed with restoring it in the 20th Century.
- DirectorAlan J. PakulaStarsDustin HoffmanRobert RedfordJack Warden"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
- DirectorTerry GeorgeStarsDon CheadleSophie OkonedoJoaquin PhoenixPaul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, houses over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda, Africa.
- DirectorAva DuVernayStarsDavid OyelowoCarmen EjogoOprah WinfreyA chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
- DirectorTom McCarthyStarsMark RuffaloMichael KeatonRachel McAdamsThe true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandStarsSolomon PerelMarco HofschneiderRené HofschneiderA boy in Nazi Germany, trying to conceal that he is Jewish, joins the Hitler Youth.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneThierno Faty SowStarsSidiki BakabaHamed CamaraIsmaila CisséIn this semi-autobiographical film, black soldiers help to defend France, but are detained in prison camp before being repatriated home.
- DirectorCharles JarrottStarsRichard BurtonGeneviève BujoldIrene PapasKing Henry VIII of England discards one wife, Catharine of Aragon, who has failed to produce a male heir, in favor of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn.Historical accuracy:
Historians dispute King Henry VIII's paternity of one or both of Mary Boleyn's children. Henry VIII: The King and His Court, by Alison Weir, questions the paternity of Henry Carey;Dr. G.W. Bernard (The King's Reformation) and Joanna Denny (Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen) argue that Henry VIII was their father.
Anne Boleyn might not have been eighteen years old in 1527; her birth date is unrecorded. Most historians today believe that she must have been about 25 in 1527.
There is no proof that Henry VIII ordered the breaking of Henry Percy and Anne Boleyn's engagement because he wanted Anne for himself at that point. Percy's family, the Northumberlands, were one of the leading families in the North of England and they had always wanted Henry Percy to marry Mary Talbot, a rich heiress from the same region, and not a girl from a comparatively lower status family. They might have asked the King and Cardinal Wolsey's intervention when the engagement was made to be known. In fact, in order to have no impediment for Henry VIII's and Anne's marriage, all parties always denied that any engagement had ever taken place.
Most histories of the period say nothing about Anne pressuring Henry to have More executed.
Catherine of Aragon's daughter Mary was not present at the time of Catherine's final illness and death; they were being kept apart forcibly.
Catherine of Aragon's depiction by Irene Papas was quite wrong in terms of appearance, as it is well documented that the Queen had auburn hair and a very pale complexion. Obviously Papas was chosen as she has stereotypical Mediterranean appearance matching false popular assumptions on how a 'Spanish' noble would look.
The meeting between Anne and Henry shortly before her execution is fictional, and even if such a meeting had taken place, some details of their discussion are implausible. Anne's marriage was annulled anyway, and she was never offered a deal which would have given her her freedom. Elizabeth and Mary were both declared illegitimate, but were nevertheless in the line of succession, but not until after Anne's death. Thus, at that point the chances of Elizabeth inheriting the crown probably seemed rather low.
Henry did not intervene in Anne's trial; she was disallowed the right to question the witnesses against her. She and the King met last at a joust the day before her arrest.
Anne of the Thousand Days depicts Anne as innocent of the charges; considered historically correct, per the biographies by Eric W. Ives, Retha Warnicke, Joanna Denny, and Tudor historian David Starkey which all state her innocence of adultery, incest, and witchcraft.
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