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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Kandis Gibson, joined by writer Jane McGrath Candice Pay. Jane,

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Speaker 1: you are a huge movie buff and I am not

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Speaker 1: as big a buff as you. I'm actually a little

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Speaker 1: bit too hyper really to sud best it's still and

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Speaker 1: watch a movie from beginning to end. But you've written

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Speaker 1: this fantastic article about ten historically inaccurate movies. And just

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Speaker 1: to give all of our listeners a little bit of background,

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Speaker 1: When How Stuff Works editors and writers come up with

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Speaker 1: topics for articles, we send out what we call an

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Speaker 1: initial approach and it's just a mass email that asks

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Speaker 1: for people's suggestions. And every now and then there will

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Speaker 1: be a topic that comes along that gets people emailing

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Speaker 1: back and forth like crazy, and this was one, and

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Speaker 1: this was one of them. Jane had responses coming in

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Speaker 1: until like gosh, I think six o'clock at night, and

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Speaker 1: she sent the I A out at eight something in

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Speaker 1: the morning, and at that point, you know, case class.

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Speaker 1: She had picked the top tens. She wanted to work

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Speaker 1: with them. People were sah excited. They were hammering her

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Speaker 1: with requests. That's right, and it's interesting. Yeah, you mentioned

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Speaker 1: I am a movie buff, and uh, that's one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons I think I am really interested in history.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, like I might be showing my impressionable

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Speaker 1: age when I say this, but when I grew up

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Speaker 1: watching uh, the Indiana Jones movies, for instance, UM, it

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Speaker 1: really I'm interested in you know, the Nazis and even

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Speaker 1: like ancient and biblical history as well. And I think

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Speaker 1: I think that was really a drive that got me

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Speaker 1: interested in history. And that's one point that a lot of, um,

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Speaker 1: at least some historians make is that even though films

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Speaker 1: can be really, really egregiously historically inaccurate, historians give filmmakers

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Speaker 1: credit for at least, you know, sparking interest in history

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Speaker 1: so that if you want to know the whole story,

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Speaker 1: you can look it up yourself. That's true, and I

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Speaker 1: think that there are historical purists among movie audiences. You

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Speaker 1: want to see every single detail followed to the letter,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes you know, that's that's a pretty tall order.

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Speaker 1: And a film that isn't exactly historical film by nature,

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Speaker 1: but one that I really enjoy and have seen from

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Speaker 1: beginning to end, several times through is almost famous. And

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Speaker 1: the director of that movie, Cameron Crow, wanted so much

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Speaker 1: for his film to be accurate that he hired on

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Speaker 1: Peter Frampton to be an authenticity director. So all of

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Speaker 1: these details in the movie are you know, really telling

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Speaker 1: of you know, the the era and the musical scene

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Speaker 1: at that time. And Frampton actually makes a small appearance

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Speaker 1: in a scene where he and some other band managers

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Speaker 1: are gambling. But on the opposite end, you look at

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Speaker 1: movies that are like um literary dramas for instances that

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Speaker 1: are period pieces Gone with the Wind or even you know,

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Speaker 1: the BBC mini series on different Austin novels and things

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Speaker 1: like that, and we see that these films can end

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Speaker 1: up being hours upon hours long because people are trying

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Speaker 1: to be so true to the story in the book.

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Speaker 1: Um Bride's Had Revisited, for instance, is one that just

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Speaker 1: came out, And I think that there was a BBC

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Speaker 1: mini series based on the book that was eleven episodes long,

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Speaker 1: versus the movie theater production of two thousand eight, which

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Speaker 1: purists like, you know, uh and and I don't know,

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Speaker 1: because ultimately it comes down to how the screenwriter wants

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Speaker 1: to portray the book and editors have to make very

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Speaker 1: careful decisions about how to portray the narrative. And that's

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Speaker 1: what gets historians rivaled up is when not necessarily creative

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Speaker 1: license is taken with you know, the art direction or

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Speaker 1: how a person looks, but how the story is told,

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Speaker 1: and you can you can easily end up ruining a

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Speaker 1: historical person's reputation of today, you know, Sily. So with

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Speaker 1: that in mind, we're going to talk about some real disseys.

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Speaker 1: And one of the first ones Candice is gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about in particular, and that was Pocahonas. And this one

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Speaker 1: you have to tell me about, Candice, because I have

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Speaker 1: never seen it, believe it or not. When I was

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Speaker 1: growing up, my dad forbade me from seeing it because

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Speaker 1: it was so historically inaccurate. So please please tell us

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Speaker 1: about it. And I just admitted to Jane that I was, oh, gosh,

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Speaker 1: this is Pocahonas came out, so I think I was

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Speaker 1: like ten or eleven years old at that point, and

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Speaker 1: I saved up all my babysitting money to go see

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Speaker 1: this film in the theater, not once, not twice, but

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Speaker 1: five times. I was crazy about Disney's Pocahonas. And this

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Speaker 1: is definitely one where the narrative has been skewed in

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Speaker 1: the interest of keeping the audience engaged. And most notably

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Speaker 1: is the fact that it sort of revolves around abudding

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Speaker 1: romance between Pocahona's the Native American girl and uh John Smith, who,

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Speaker 1: of course is that the British explorer who comes server

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Speaker 1: to scout out this potential colony, and we see, as

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Speaker 1: you know, he becomes more entrenched in a Native American

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Speaker 1: culture and she's trying to teach him, you know, the

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Speaker 1: ways of life here and how one can just come

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Speaker 1: over and assert one's cultural values into a land that

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Speaker 1: one wishes to claim. Uh, they fall in love, and

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Speaker 1: ultimately the story climax is when John Smith is going

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Speaker 1: to be put to death and Pocahonas throws herself on

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Speaker 1: top of him, and there's this, you know, very dramatic.

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Speaker 1: You know, she's still a cartoon but seeing I think

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Speaker 1: her hair is white and just like, no, no, you

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Speaker 1: can't do this. And it's great, except it, you know,

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Speaker 1: all went to croc because Pocahonas would have only been

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Speaker 1: like myself when I saw the film about ten or eleven,

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Speaker 1: and so John Smith was was much older there was

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Speaker 1: never any romantic interest between them, and Pocahontas ended up

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Speaker 1: marrying another British explorer who was actually more in the

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Speaker 1: role of a diplomat than anything else, and that was

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Speaker 1: John rolf And if you like me, kept up with

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Speaker 1: Disney Spokehonas and Saldia straight DVD Pocahonas to Journey to

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Speaker 1: a New World. You know that Disney tried to redeem

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Speaker 1: itself a little bit by ending the Pokeahona story on

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Speaker 1: a true note where she chooses John Rolf over John Smith.

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Speaker 1: Oh really interesting. I have a little bit more respect

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Speaker 1: for them. Now there you go. But like I said,

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Speaker 1: critics were in sense because here's this historical story being painted,

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Speaker 1: um no pun intended, painted in many wrong ways, and um,

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Speaker 1: children are going to have to get back. And we

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Speaker 1: learned that the real talent school and it was just

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Speaker 1: sort of a Pandora's box problems. That's true. And another

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Speaker 1: one that I addressed in the article is a is

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Speaker 1: another one having to do with a Native American girl

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Speaker 1: and a white explorer, and that was kind of a

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Speaker 1: lesser known movie back in the fifties called The Far Horizons,

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Speaker 1: and that dealt with the Lewis and Clark expedition, which

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Speaker 1: you've talked about before, and on this voyage. Obviously we

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Speaker 1: all know. Anyone who's at all familiar with the voyage,

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Speaker 1: they know that they picked up soccer Jowea on the

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Speaker 1: way and she ended up being a great help to

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Speaker 1: to the whole expedition. But in the movie, in these

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Speaker 1: in this fifties movie, I love how the their choice

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Speaker 1: for Soccer Jowiah was Donna Reid, which of course you

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Speaker 1: know from you know she's the whitest fifties housewife you've

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Speaker 1: ever seen. And she she plays the Native American girl

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Speaker 1: who falls in love with William Clark, which is a

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Speaker 1: little curious because in actuality she was very visibly pregnant

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Speaker 1: when they picked her up and um had her joined

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Speaker 1: with her husband, John pepe Baptiste Charbonneau I believe it's pronounced,

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Speaker 1: so he was there on the expedition as well. So

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Speaker 1: I don't think there are any sparks going off between

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Speaker 1: William Clark and Saka Jelia now, And for what I understand,

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Speaker 1: h Charbonneaux and Shaka Jewiah were sort of a two

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Speaker 1: fur to buy the Clinton's language there. They didn't pick

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Speaker 1: up Sacha Jelia to be their guy. They picked up Sharbonneau,

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Speaker 1: and his wife just happened to come along because she

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Speaker 1: was in pregnant. She was pregnant at the time, and

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Speaker 1: she knew quite a lot about the lands they were

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Speaker 1: traveling through and the people who they encountered, so she

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Speaker 1: turned out to be an even greater help than her husband.

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Speaker 1: And furthermore, in the movie, Charbonneau is portrayed as a

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Speaker 1: villain that Clark and uh Louis are up against, but

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Speaker 1: in reality that wasn't the story at all. Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 1: Arboneau was always a help to them, and you know,

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Speaker 1: he did what he was hired to do, and he

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Speaker 1: helped them with translating and everything like that. So I

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Speaker 1: don't think Clark would have double crossed him by stealing

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Speaker 1: his life. Another movie that is I think is the

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Speaker 1: whopper in this list is The Bridge on the River Quai,

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Speaker 1: which I'm not gonna lie. I love the movie. I

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Speaker 1: think it's fantastic um and if you haven't seen it,

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Speaker 1: you definitely should. Has Alec Ginnis in it, and he

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Speaker 1: plays this British commander, Colonel Nicholson. So Nicholson he's fighting

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Speaker 1: in World War two, he's captured by the Japanese. He's

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Speaker 1: brought into a POW camp and he's the highest ranking

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Speaker 1: Allied officer there. And so at this camp they're having

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Speaker 1: the the Allied forces who are prisoner there the building

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Speaker 1: a bridge for the Japanese to help them in their

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Speaker 1: military campaigns. The Japanese are forcing the Allied troops to

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Speaker 1: help build this bridge, and Nicholson comes along and he

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Speaker 1: actually becomes obsessed with building the bridge. He wants to

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Speaker 1: make the best bridge possible, and he sort of just

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Speaker 1: loses track of the idea. He's oddly oblivious to the

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Speaker 1: fact that he's helping an enemy in war, and he's, uh,

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Speaker 1: he's just oblivious to the end. And I don't want

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Speaker 1: to spoil the the ending for you, but you have

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Speaker 1: to see it in truth. Uh. Nicholson is based on

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Speaker 1: a real life guy. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Philip

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Speaker 1: Twuzi and he was the highest ranking Allied officer in

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Speaker 1: this PUW camp and the Pacific that was charged with

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Speaker 1: building the Tai Burma railway. And people who saw the

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Speaker 1: movie see it a sort of a slap in the

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Speaker 1: face to the real life Twosi because it's true. Twusi

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Speaker 1: was forced to help build this bridge, and he was obsessed.

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Speaker 1: But he wasn't obsessed with building a good bridge. He

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Speaker 1: was obsessed with keeping his men alive. And yeah he was.

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Speaker 1: He was a real hero to a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: His granddaughter actually wrote uh well acclaimed book on on

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Speaker 1: his life and what he did. And even though he

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Speaker 1: did end up having to help build the bridge, he

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Speaker 1: did his best to you know, put in a little

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Speaker 1: sabotage where he could, such as like what they would do.

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Speaker 1: They would get some white ants and they would put

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Speaker 1: them in the wood of the bridge to try to

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Speaker 1: get it, get them to eat it from the inside.

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Speaker 1: And he would also mix the concrete badly so hopefully

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Speaker 1: it would crumble. And he would see his his men

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Speaker 1: get random beatings and he would step he would step

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Speaker 1: in and he would get beaten as a result. And

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Speaker 1: so this great hero of the war is sort of

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Speaker 1: like his reputation is tarnished by this odd, you know,

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Speaker 1: obsessive Aleghinnis character in the in the movie so Um.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people were upset about that. And Aleghinnis

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Speaker 1: actually got an Oscar Award or just the nomination I

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Speaker 1: think he wanted in that year and so it was

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Speaker 1: a big movie. Yeah, and so when when people went

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Speaker 1: awards for their portrayals of historical figures, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: cements I think in the public's mind that this is

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Speaker 1: somehow more authentic, or it carries that it carries a

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Speaker 1: heavier weight in some way. And I wonder sometimes, you know,

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Speaker 1: films come to the theaters and if it's something to

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Speaker 1: the grand scale of Pearl Harbor, where you know, it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty significant event and in American history, and it

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Speaker 1: carries out a really have a cultural impact. I think

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Speaker 1: sometimes people obligated to go see it and maybe even

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Speaker 1: want to take it for what it's worth. But you

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Speaker 1: can never discount dramatic effect and what filmmakers do to

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Speaker 1: make a bigger punch on the silver screen. And I

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Speaker 1: think that the ending of this one, in particular, it's

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Speaker 1: just it's so laughably wrong. Fdr Franklin Delanor Rose about

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Speaker 1: rises from his chair at the very end of the film,

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Speaker 1: and that would have been completely impossible for him. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think my favorite from Pearl Harbor is the fact

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Speaker 1: that they have one of the Japanese admirals um saying

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Speaker 1: or a line from an earlier movie, and it was

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Speaker 1: a completely fabricated line from Toro Toora Tora, which is

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Speaker 1: a famous movie about Pearl Harbor. And uh. And so

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Speaker 1: it's to have both movies say it makes it seem like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this must be true. People, you know, they must have

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Speaker 1: said the sleeping giant line about America when it was

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Speaker 1: really it was. It stayed true to a Hollywood at least,

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Speaker 1: if not history, right. And I think you can see

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Speaker 1: some historical films like Shakespeare and Love, which is another

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Speaker 1: one that made Jane's list, that sort of winkingly acknowledge

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Speaker 1: false bits of history and anachronistic details, and not just

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Speaker 1: in the way that a movie like A Night's Tale

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Speaker 1: would incorporate music that was clearly many many many years.

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Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's walking away from nights Tale thinking

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Speaker 1: that they actually sang queen songs yeah or oh who

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Speaker 1: is here? A yeah? Yeah yeah. So And I think

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Speaker 1: another point to be made about this is that it's

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Speaker 1: hard to make a movie that really is historically accurate,

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Speaker 1: not only in the details like what they wear and everything,

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Speaker 1: but the I think the moral ambiguities going on in history.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we face them all the time. When we

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Speaker 1: talked about them in the podcast how how like these

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Speaker 1: difficult choices that people had to make, and you look

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Speaker 1: at someone like Twozi who had to aid you know,

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Speaker 1: the enemy at war, and when you make a movie,

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Speaker 1: it's much it's much simpler, and it makes for a

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Speaker 1: better story to make things black and white, definitely, and

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Speaker 1: at least in some of the older history Oracle films

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Speaker 1: that are on your list, I think it would have

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Speaker 1: been an even more complicated process of showing a multifaceted

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Speaker 1: political figure or historical figure. And in today's cinema, I

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Speaker 1: think that there's much more to be said about the

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Speaker 1: subtleties of filmography and the way that light can betray

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Speaker 1: some sort of expression that's just fleeting on a character

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Speaker 1: space or a very you know, subtle movement or or

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Speaker 1: detail can tip off the audience that something isn't quite right.

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Speaker 1: But films haven't always worked that way, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you think back to Tour Toura Tora, for instance, well,

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Speaker 1: for one, it was black and white, and secondly, and

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Speaker 1: it was very much done in the style of old cinematography,

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Speaker 1: and you don't have room for subtleties. And I think

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Speaker 1: the public has gotten a lot more into it just

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Speaker 1: or Hollywood, I should say, has really embraced going after

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Speaker 1: more subtleties more uh, you know, morally grays and uh,

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Speaker 1: it's become more popular, but you could get more tickets

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Speaker 1: when when it is something that's sort of shady and

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Speaker 1: you don't really know what's right and the wrong. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we see for instance, represented at the very recent

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Speaker 1: Academy Awards and maybe like Frost Nixon, where you know,

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Speaker 1: these these two sort of grainy, gritty characters are explored

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Speaker 1: for the world to see. You know, we're not just

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Speaker 1: celebrating you know, famous historical personages of the past. We're

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Speaker 1: really trying to explore what the morals and motivations must

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Speaker 1: have been of some pretty unethical people of the past.

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Speaker 1: That's true. So a lot out there for you to see,

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Speaker 1: whether you want to see a great figure celebrated like

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Speaker 1: I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, or or you want to

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Speaker 1: see Richard Nick Nixon psyche explored. Um, there's so many

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Speaker 1: more movies in Danefullest that we can't cover, so you're

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Speaker 1: going to have to give you the article yourself, and

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Speaker 1: while you're there, also check out the blogs that the

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Speaker 1: site is launching. The stuff you missed in History Class

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Speaker 1: as its own blog written by Candice and myself, and

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Speaker 1: we write about um all different kinds of stuff every day,

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Speaker 1: and we'd love to hear from you from your comments

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Speaker 1: and answer your questions there if we can, or you

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Speaker 1: can email us as always at History Podcast at how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands

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Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: m