WWII History and Movies part two
World War Wednesday
Welcome to World War Wednesday, a weekly dive into the continuous, thirty-year epoch of global conflict from 1914 to 1945. Here, I strip away popular myths to analyze the dynamics of industrial warfare, institutional behaviors, and the ideologies that shaped the world we inherited.
Hello readers. I am currently attending a conference, so the longer essay I have planned about Normandy will come later, perhaps next week, but I wanted to revisit the movies I wrote about last week. Based on comments and the polls, I will review them in the following order this month:
The Exception, about Kaiser Wilhelm II in exile.
The King’s Choice, about the Norwegian monarchy’s response to the Nazi invasion.
Emperor, about the American investigation into Hirohito.
The King’s Speech, about George VI’s personal struggles on the eve of war.
Royal Night Out, about the British princesses celebrating the end of the war.
For newer readers, I’ll let you know that when I watch a historical movie, I am not viewing it for the purpose of nitpicking the historical details. I’ll point out problems if I think they are misleading to the point of giving you a wrong impression of reality; however, I will not dismiss a film just for taking liberties. Here is what I care about: does the film help make the actual history more interesting to an audience that does not know the story? That’s the point.
My reasoning is that as I am a historian, I am capable of giving you the story behind the story. I do it every week, and I am grateful for all of you take time to read my substack. Historians around the world research the reality and we do not need Hollywood to teach the real history. However, if Hollywood makes a movie that drives interest in a topic, then historians and museums are better off. If they make a movie that is bad or fantastical to the point that no one cares about the reality, well, that’s awful.
However, the example I like to give is Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.
That 1995 film is wildly inaccurate in important parts. But, it has the saving grace of being a movie that was so good that people who had no idea who William Wallace was, and had no reason to care, were actually interested in the story of the First War of Scottish Independence, a medieval conflict that defined English and Scottish relations from the 1290s to the 1320s. A 600-year-old war became a lightning rod; Scottish politicians latched onto it to support their campaign for devolution. That’s an important film.
Most movies about major events are not going to have a Braveheart-sized impact. Yet, if they can help a modern audience visualize the past in a way that makes them care to know more, then I think historians should be grateful, and we can be tough and endure a few inaccuracies for the sake of art. If anything, those inaccuracies can give us something to talk about.
I do not think a snobbish approach to history serves us well.
History is for everyone, and if these films open you up to learning a bit more, then all the better.
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I like the Movie Braveheart but that was a long war but Was not a cause..