Why Historical Accuracy Is Important In Film
Movies. They are works of fiction, a way of taking us away from the present and putting us in a world of the impossible. Although at times, they teach us about the past by telling us the stories of how we got to where we are today. The accuracy of these movies will never be perfect as it is impossible to create a completely historically accurate movie, but the more accurate it is the better. The influence these movies have on people could change their perception of an event and inaccuracies could sway this perception to not be accurate.
Apollo 13: The first study is Apollo 13, widely considered one of the most accurate historical movies of all time. This movie creates an atmosphere of realism not usually seen in historical films and almost frame for frame what happened in real life and gives a documentary feel to the movie with actors in place of the actual people. The performances by Tom Hanks and the other leading roles are impeccable and create an even higher feel of realism for the audience. The movie has barely any dramatization and research was done to the extent of the temperatures on board the Apollo during the trip and those were applied to the movie. The amount of research done to make this movie as real as possible is impressive. Any small detail that happened in real life on the ship, there was an effort for this detail to be included in the movie, as the structure of the ship has been deemed as nearly entirely accurate. The use of nearly entirely historically accurate scenes has garnered not just audience and critic applause but the movie even earned multiple Oscars in 1995.
Miracle on Ice: Secondly, there is Miracle, a movie about the 1980 US Ice Hockey team that unexpectedly won gold in the 1980 Olympics. This film is created using real Ice hockey players from colleges across the US, creating an authentic performance on the ice that is used to make the movie feel more “real”. The storylines off of the ice as well as the actual rosters and names of the players are entirely authentic as well. Diving into Coach Herb Brooks’ life, balancing being a coach and a family man creates authenticity of the stress involved in the midst of one of the greatest underdog stories in the history of sports. It won an ESPY award for best sports movie and is widely considered one of the top 10 sports movies of all time, and the accuracy of the historical events has a major contribution towards that .
Letters From Iwo Jima: Lastly on the good side of historical films is Letters from Iwo Jima, This film explores the battle of Iwo Jima from the side of the losing side, the Japanese. This film is historically accurate to a striking degree and really shows how hard war is on the body and the mind, leaving audiences with a feeling of sympathy for a side of the war they didn’t know anything about and how the hardships of war affected the losing side and shows the destruction of Japan.
Mr. Ryan Walters, an avid movie watcher and high school history teacher, says Letters From Iwo Jima is his favorite historic film.
“It is shot beautifully, depicts WW2 from the enemy side, and shows the futility of WW2. It is very sad but very powerful,” he said.
The movie really creates an idea of the war and this battle being a terrible event and in no way glorifies its realities.
Pearl Harbor: While lots of historical films are historically accurate in their storytelling of past events, there are some that do not do this as well as they could. One of these films is Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor is a film that tells the relative story of the events that occurred but overdramatizes nearly every aspect of the event it is trying to retell, at points in the film there are even laughable events that in now way actually happened and were used only to boost the story. One of them includes FDR standing up to prove a miracle can happen even though FDR had polio. This in no way happened and FDR could not operate his legs for the last part of his life. This dramatization is almost overshadowing the actual events that occurred in the film that depicted this tragic event and it glorifies war, which in truth is deadly and the effect it has on soldiers is in no way positive like the movie depicts. Overall this movie's glorification of war and dramatization of events along with its awful reception by audiences make this not only inaccurate but it suffers as a result.
Overall, a movie's historical accuracy can have a great impact on its success, and can make the audience have a better experience while watching it. Movies with good historical accuracy usually are better received by critics and are more often the ones winning awards than historical movies that are not accurate to the event that they portray.