The Social Network

For my “recent history” movie, I watched “The Social Network”. I know there is an argument about how old something has to be before it is considered history, but my stance was always that anything as old as yesterday worth remembering, is history.

The movie was made in 2010, but the website Facebook was launched in 2004. Both recent, but both history, in my option. Adding to the historic value of this movie/event is the undeniable fact that Facebook was/is the beginning of a new digital age. Facebook consumes the lives of almost everyone I know. Whether you check it once a day, or you’re on it all day long, I can count how many people I know with out a Facebook on one hand. I can count the people I know who have never once had a Facebook before on zero hands. If Facebook dies out tomorrow, it will still have been relevant enough that my children, and other generations to come will learn of it and other social medias.

I think “The Social Network” is history on film. The invention of the internet, let alone the rising popularity of social medias, is all fairly new, but monumentally relevant to ours, and everyone to come’s lives. This film tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, and how the website came about. They show him in college, carrying out his every day life, and how he came up with the idea from an idea that two brothers had, and asked for his help with. It is argued that Zuckerberg stole the idea from them, but that is besides the point.

The movie shows how Facebook went from the creation of a nerdy college kid, that could only be used by harvard students, to a world wide phenomenon with headquarters and Facebook offices and constant new developments.

There were some inaccuracies added to make the story more entertaining, but regardless of these minor details, I think the prevalent story of the creation of Facebook makes it history on screen. For arguments sake: a friend of Zuckerbergs in college wrote in an article about the truths and untruths of the movie, that Zuckerberg was actually very friendly and smiley in public, not dark and sarcastic and fast spoken as depicted in the movie. Also, there is a pretty humerous scene in which Zuckerberg is drunk blogging bad things about his girlfriend and her bra size for everyone to see. This leads to her breaking up with him, leading to him later hooking up with attractive college girls due to his new Facebook given popularity. Those accounts were untrue- Zuckerberg has had, and recently married, the same girlfriend throughout college, and they never had a break up over mean things blogged about her.

Though this is very recent history, I would still consider it history on screen. I think generations to come will use Facebook, for personal use, and business use. Facebook has become an important part of today’s society and will certainly be marked in history.

Titanic

As I wrote in my first blog about “Titanic” I don’t really think that this movie is history on screen. Possibly a period piece, in the sense that it is set in the specific small period of time of the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

In actuality, the movie focuses strongly on the love story of Jack and Rose. It is almost a minor detail that they are on the Titanic. Their story, a classic tale of forbidden love between a peasant boy and wealthy girl, merely uses the Titanic as a backdrop to dramatize their story. The only real role the Titanic plays in the main story of their love is it separating them at the end since Rose lies when she says her famous line “I’ll never let go, Jack.”

Though the movie is not so much history on screen as it is a romantic story, and though Jack and Rose were not real passengers aboard the actual Titanic, some characters depicted in the movie were, in fact, real. Molly Brown, Captain E.J. Smith, John Jacob Astor, Thomas Andrews, and Bruce Ismay, were all real people aboard the ship.

There were other things that could in a way constitute as history on screen for this movie, such as the film of the Titanic wreckage underwater was all actual footage. The violinists were instructed to play during the sinking to calm down passengers, which is accurately depicted in the movie, as is the instruction of “women and children first” on the lifeboats. A small detail I found very interesting that was true, as verified as a real Titanic survivor, is that as the ship went down, the lights continued to burn. To my, and every other hopeless romantic girl who fell in love with Rose and Jack’s love story’s, dismay, the “heart of the ocean” necklace was not real. It was just another addition to the drama of their romance. I think I speak for all of those girls, however, when I say thank God it wasn’t real since Rose casually tosses it into the ocean at the end of the movie. When I was little, I thought that the beginning and ending scenes of the movie, with the elderly Rose, were real footage. Now THAT would have been some breath taking history on screen.

Kinsey

For my “one additional historical bio-pic” I watched Kinsey, the biography film of Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey was a biologist and professor of zoology who’s profession led him to an interest in human sexuality. He was a pioneer of sexual exploration and this movie based on his life is a work that I would consider history on screen in every aspect.

Kinsey’s story is one that needed to be told. In my opinion, he is someone that especially my generation should look up to for his bravery and persistence, and his exploitation of the then taboo subject of sexuality. Obviously back in Kinsey’s time, the 1940’s and 1950’s, sex was quite a hush hush subject. Also obvious, is the fact that sex has always been something that goes on, otherwise none of us would be here. Kinsey in his own way, through his research, started the trend of sex being okay to be talked about openly, an act that all of society engaged in, finally exposed and publicized, and no longer shameful.

All of this is shown in the movie “Kinsey” plus many more details of his life. The film is dubbed a biography, though most the movie is about his work and his development of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex. As the movie progresses, the viewer learns that the focus on his work, is because his work was in fact his life. This movie shows every aspect of Kinsey’s life, from his struggles with his relationship with his father as a child, to his inner struggles with his sexuality, to his life’s dedication of interview upon interview, and research on top of research all to uncover details about the relationship between sex/sexual acts, and people. This very riskay movie even shows a scene in which Kinsey sexually experiments with homosexual acts with his partner (partner meaning research partner not his wife “Mac”.)

One very critical writer says in an article that there were many historical inaccuracies in the movie. All of the inaccuracies this man describes, however, seem to me to be not such a big deal. For instance: the portrayal of a very racy man, Kenneth Braun. The movie only shows one interview with Braun being the source for all of Kinsey’s material on what he had to say (pedophilia, intercourse with animals, homosexuality etc) but apparently Kinsey had years and years of interviews conducted with Braun. Though this detail is important in other aspects, showing only one interview with him instead of dozens, doesn’t effect the credibility of the movie whatsoever.

I think this movie is definitely history on screen and it is even noted on the Kinsey Institute website that the movie has many truths, and the director and writer visited the institute before shooting, and interviewed with many people who knew Kinsey. I think it’s an important film for everyone today to view to see how far we’ve come in expressing our sexuality, and how Kinsey paved the way for the lifestyle many people openly carry out today.

Ghosts of Mississippi

“Ghosts of Mississippi” is 100% history on film, in my opinion. I looked up a lot of historian reviews and movie critic reviews, and almost none of them even had any inaccuracies to point out. The story is based on the true events of the murder of Medger Evers and the conviction of Byron De La Beckwith, and shows them accurately based on the true accounts of these events.

The shooting, where Medger sadly dies in front of his family, the court trials- from the first to the last, even the phone calls to Mrs Evers all are filled with details true to what actually happened. Though the final trial took place in 1994, which is still pretty recent to today, I definitely consider the event, and the movie along with it, to be history because it was a big deal that a lot of people invested emotions into at the time, enough to threaten the real Bobby DeLaughter. Even the events of DeLaughter and his wife breaking up, and him later marrying the nurse were all true.

I found an article that said that critics tend to agree that this movie is “85 to 90 percent true.” Medgar Ever’s brother, Charles, said that “the bigger problem is that other ‘true’ facts are shunted to the background.” While Charles may have a point, it is obvious that it is difficult to include every single true detail in the foreground and see to it that it is prominent. The article also said “Yet one must wonder: could anyone, even Evers’ brother, tell a story that is 100 percent true?” I thought that one quote was really interesting because every time I write a blog analyzing these historical movies I find myself thinking the same thing. It’s basically impossible to make the story 100% true down to the last detail. In order to do that, it would have to be reality TV style footage of the actual event or something.

Another article that I came across said something that I really liked.”While one has to (and should) follow the actual events when dramatizing a true story, this one is sorely in need of some dramatic license to allow for more effective storytelling.” Though the writer meant this line to criticize, this is exactly what I liked about the movie. Many historical movies I’ve seen in this course took took much artistic license and added untrue events like a love story, or just wild exaggerations of true accounts. It almost distracts from what actually happened, just to add to the entertainment value. I liked that “Ghosts of Mississippi” didn’t do that, and included solely the true events in the nature in which they happened. History on screen is definitely my final judgement of this movie.

Capote

So, I did a little research on “Capote”, and it turns out there is a lot of historical inaccuracies in this movie. Nevertheless, I still consider it history on screen for a couple reasons.

Firstly, Truman Capote really did write “In Cold  Blood” based on the murder account of that Kansas family, and he really did interview the killers extensively as shown in the movie. According to a few websites I came accross, it turns out that the dialogue for “Capote” was entirely scripted, and none of it is actual known direct quotes. The essence of the story, the details of what he did to get the information for his book and such, is all true, however the actual words spoken in unfolding that journey in real life are not known, or shown on screen. There was a lot of truth to the movie, though. Such as his friendship with Harper Lee shown throughout the film. She was his partner in crime, if you will, while writing “In Cold Blood” and that is clearly demonstrated by the film. Other things are true as well, like how Capote made regular visits to get the full story from the murders. Though it took him about 6 years to write the book, the film makes it seem like quite a shorter timeframe.

I suppose it will never really be known the exact conversations had between Capote and the prisoners, and everyone else for that matter, that appeared on screen. I can’t imagine that Capote remembers every conversation he had during that time in order to make the story completely true if the director had wanted to. Scenes that were noted as dramatizations included the scene where the one killer gets really angry because the book is named “In Cold Blood” and he thinks that Capote is betraying him as his friend in making it seem like they are cold blooded murderers. There is no proof that that altercation actually happened, but one can imagine that it might have some truth to it, and it certainly adds to the story.

The other reason that I decided that this is history on screen is because of the scene where Capote says something along the lines that he is going to write a book about the murders and it will be a new kind of writing that he will call non-fiction. Though it’s not a huge widely known event such as a war, the beginning of the non-fiction style of writing is certainly history. Capote was the first to break that barrier and write about actual events and I thought that was really interesting and worth noting.

Among other historical inaccuracies, some of the names of the people had been changed, for whatever reason. There are quite some untruths in the film, especially the big one about all the dialogue just being someone’s made up script of what could have been said. What I think matters most though, is that the events are true, and I think that makes “Capote” qualify as history on screen.

Schindler’s List

Along with Saving Private Ryan, I watched Schindler’s List. I think that this movie definitely qualifies as history on screen. Though there are some artistic licenses taken to make the film more entertaining, the story is so powerful that it didn’t need many. Despite the dramatizations, it is still the true story of Oskar Schindler.

I had never seen this movie before, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the actual Schindler’s list was a list of people to be spared from the Nazi killings. Prior, I thought that Schindler was the bad guy and that his list was of all the Jewish people murdered by him. It goes to show that you cant judge a book, or movie, by its cover.

Among the slight discrepancies shown in this movie, is that the Jews named Schindler, in 1958, a “righteous gentile” for his bravery and heroism. Technically, according to historians, he was not named that until 1993, after he had passed away.

Historians also doubt the scene where Schindler watches the liquidation of the ghetto from the hill. That scene may have been added for dramatic effect, as if the Holocaust was not dramatic enough.

In the article “Oliver Stone and the Decade of Trauma”, it is pointed out that Stone’s films “rely on the emotional impact of spectacle and controversial assertion” to engage their audience as well as entertain them. Though this is directed by Steven Speilberg, I think that he takes the same artistic license and does the same with this film. These small exaggerations or added scenes certainly reflect off of that. It is also noted in that article that “Stone makes an extremely strong argument in favour of the idea that film makers have a right to contribute to the discourse about the meaning of the past.” I thought that was a really interesting line because so many film makers, including Speildberg with this film, do contribute their own scenes and ideas into the depiction of events in historical films, and in my opinion it makes the movies all the more interesting and thought provoking.

I think this is definitely history on screen because it has all the details of Schindler’s plot to save Jews, and how he bribed the SS officers, and even little details like the ring that all his “workers” gave him at the end. This movie was a really intense and emotional showing of history on screen.

Saving Private Ryan

For my Steven Spieldberg historical movie, I chose “Saving Private Ryan.” I would have to say that this movie is not necessarily history on screen, with the exception of maybe one or two battle scenes, but definitely qualifies as a period piece.

While I found myself utterly bored after the first 10 minutes of the 27 minute long opening battle scene, history movie buffs were interested enough by it to blog, write articles, and rant about it all over the internet. Touching on the slight “history-on-screen-ness” of the movie, there are many speculations by different historians, that I came across in my research, with conflicting views on whether the battle scenes were accurate or not. The historical accuracy of the d-day battle scene is widely discredited by the historians. One thing that all the accounts I came across have in common, however, is the depiction of the invasion of Normandy scene was said to be one of the best and most accurate historical depictions ever to hit the big screen. I suppose in that scene, and that scene only, the movie could be considered history on screen.

The position I most support is that it is simply a period piece. One detail I found supporting this argument is how the story came about. The writer, Robert Rodat, came up with the idea for the story when he saw a monument dedicated to 8 brothers who died in the Civil War. He then constructed a similar story, based during World War II. That monument is proof that something of the sort was not uncommon during war time. A less credible source that I found online claims that the story was based after a man named Fritz Filand. Filand and his 3 brothers all served, and his mother received notice of the deaths of his 3 brothers all on the same day. There was no record of a save mission in order for Fitz Firland, however.

In addition to the story of multiple brothers being killed at war, other aspects convey the period of WWII. Almost the entire movie is battle scenes. There is very few scenes not set in combat. There are surprise attacks, and men risking and losing their lives for other men. All of these true to wartime. There is a scene in which one soldier is recruited to come into battle on the journey to find Private Ryan. This particular soldier says he hasn’t used a weapon since basic training, since his job in the army was mainly to make maps and translate. The usual men who would translate and fight both died in action, therefore this soldier had to take their place. A story of that sort was not uncommon during wartime.

They even include a pinch of PTSD in the story, or at least what seems like it. Tom Hanks’s character has a hand tremor, no doubt due to the war. Whether it’s from an injury, though none is apparent, or shaking from being afraid, it is a direct result of serving. Many PTSD cases came from every war, and still do from soldiers today.

I would say “Saving Private Ryan” was a really interesting story, and did a pretty good job of conveying the feel of wartime during WWII.

Born on The Fourth of July

Along with JFK, I watched “Born on The Fourth of July”. Oliver Stone’s “Born on The Fourth of July”, based on the autobiographical book by the same name, tells the story of Ron Kovic’s life. I think this movie is not only history on screen, but also a period piece.

It is clearly history on screen because it is the actual story of a man’s life. No only is it the story of Ron Kovic’s life, but it is his story through his point of view since it’s based on the book. In my research, the only inaccurate historical facts of the movie were the character of Donna, who apparently never existed, and the scene where he apologizes to the family of the soldier he accidentally killed. That conversation never happened, but Stone felt it necessary to feed to the character’s inner struggle and to make it apparent on screen. Other than that, it is Kovic’s actual life story, as told by him. Kovic said in an interview that he felt he didn’t have much time left on earth and he wanted to leave something behind so that people could really know what it was like to be a soldier back then, and to really know all the struggles that he, and other soldiers, had to go through.

Like I just said, Kovic’s goal in telling his story was get people to understand what it meant to be in a war. In doing so, this movie also becomes a period piece. Whether there is written accounts of it or not, it is very likely that while being under attack one could shoot the wrong man on accident. That aspect of the story, as well as the depiction of the attack contributes to making this movie a period piece. Other scenes making this a movie of the time period are the ones where he is in the veterans hospital. People didn’t often see the medical facilities that the wounded soldiers were sent to. The bad conditions, lack of staff, and lack of advanced medicine back then, are shown in great detail in scenes such as when he is lying upside down strapped to his bed “staring at [his] own vomit for hours.” Ron is begging for the doctor, who is always busy and claims it is because the government wasn’t giving them enough money to take care of the soldiers. All little details like that feed into a much greater story of the history of that time. It really gives a feel for the struggles soldiers had to go through even when not on a battle field.

I found it interesting that in the article about Oliver Stone it said, “throughout much of Born on the Fourth of July he challenges the audience to think about whether there are traits inherent in American society and its founding myths that led to militarization and blind patriotic fervor in the early Cold War years.” I found it funny that the article mentioned that because that’s actually what it did when I was watching it. There is a scene where Ron just gets home and they are all around the dinner table, eating as a family. Ron’s brother leaves the table angry because Rob is talking about war, and their sister blurts out that the brother is against war. At that moment, we had only seen the pro-war side of the story, since Ron was such a die hard patriot and all for the war. Once that view is introduced, I found myself wondering what side of that I would be on, and whether the patriotism came from all the hype, or from people’s hearts.

Overall I found this to be a great movie of an incredible heart wrenching story that most definitely constitutes as history on screen as well as a period piece.

JFK

This movie, “JFK”, would definitely be considered history on screen, or at least one interpretation of. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I was very disinterested in history prior to this class, and quite uneducated in many significant events in American history. I’m not so ignorant that I didn’t know that JFK was assassinated, but I was unaware of the conspiracy theories of the whole event.

The article “Oliver Stone and the Decade of Trauma” says that Stone’s intention was for the viewer to “leave the theater ready to think about things and, i hope, rethink them, and begin to wonder about some of the givens, some of the sacred cows, some of the official story.” This movie certainly left me wondering. As I mentioned, I didn’t know much about the event, and after viewing this movie the only information I did know was what I saw on screen. Thus, I turned to the ever-informative internet.

I found a website with an incredible overview of specific scenes in “JFK” pointing out its historical inaccuracies. According to this website, which has all it’s information adapted from an attorney’s notes prepared for a 1993 course on the assassination, there were many over-exaggerated aspects, and scenes that included details that could not be proved. For instance, there’s a scene where the Clay Shaw admits to a cop to using an alias Clay Bertrand. Later in court, Clay denies this accusation. Apparently, in real life, the cop that claimed that Clay said that was taken to court and his story had been deemed not credible and dismissed.

The article suggests that “JFK” was made as a compilation of different versions of the truth. I agree with that completely. Since it was such a chaotic incident, and poorly investigated, for whatever reason, the world will never know the real truth. At this point, it’s just hear-say. Because of all this, I would conclude that this movie is one interpretation of that historic event making it history on screen. Despite the discrepancies, the event did actually happen, and there is no other sub story happening during the time or anything of the sort. It’s purely history, or, at least one side of the story.

W.

I’m neither a Bush fan, or Bush supporter, frankly I was young when he was president so he didn’t much phase me, and still doesn’t. This film is a tricky one. I am first inclined to say that this is not history at all. It’s clear that the point of the movie was to make fun of George W. Bush, not so much to accurately detail his life.

When I was researching the movie, I found that Oliver Stone didn’t even interview Bush or his family to get information for the movie. There were many scenes in which Bush would say the wrong word for something, or just simply say something that made him sound like a complete idiot. Though there were incidents that the public has seen where Bush fumbled upon his words, other details that made him seem like a fool are not actual tendencies of W; such as frequently talking with his mouth full.

Though I said at first I was inclined to dub this movie not history on screen, there were some parts that made me think otherwise. There was actual footage from Iraq included, so technically that unarguably constitutes as history on screen. In addition, some of the political scenes such as the elections, and W. making political decisions, could serve as history on screen as well. They show his father, Bush senior, getting upset when he lost the election. That was a true event that technically is history. There were other scenes where W is talking through with others what to do with the war and what not. Though there is incredible artistic license taken with W’s character, those scenes would be considered history as well.

In researching this movie, I found that a lot of the stories of Bush’s past had truth to them, like his alcohol dependency and iffy college career. Though it appears there are true events of W’s life outlined in this movie, making it history on screen, I personally think it was made more to make fun of the man, then to tell the story of his life. Interestingly enough though, Clinton claims that he lent his copy of the movie to Bush to watch and that Bush said he liked it. I guess he takes criticism very well.