Best Historical Films, From a Historian's Perspective

[DoctorJones24]

Give us a Top 10 or whatever you like, and perhaps an explanation of criteria. For instance, personally, I'm willing to grant a fair amount of creative license to directors in how they distort some of the history to fit into the narrative required for a 2 hour film. I also tend to appreciate more directors like Sayles who try to buck some of the conventions of popular historical cinema.

If it's not clear, I'm looking at this question with the emphasis on the history side...not necessarily on the cinema side. Just as a discussion of historical novels might focus on particularly useful ones from a historical standpoint, but which may not be amazing literary works in their own right.

[Calexico77]

I can think of a hundred historical movies that I've either loved or hated, all based on human details. I'm usually one to get really cranky when narrative is placed above fact, (not that facts speak for themselves, but still).

I've often lamented that, outside of documentaries, there hasn't been a film about the Holocaust that really made me feel like I understood what it was like inside the concentration camps.


Then I saw a film called "The Grey Zone"

This film floored me. It was dark, brutal, and very very human. I really felt like I understood maybe what the day to day life was for the prisoners in the camp.

Much of the film is understated. No great speeches or Shakespearian monologues a la Schindlers List. No comedic relief. No amazing photography or iconic moments. Just a lot of fear.

It took me a day or two to get this movie out of my head. You rarely see this kind of violence- cold, effortless - on screen.

I have a feeling that it's subject matter and its release around 9/11 buried it from the public eye.

[spejic]

The movie Downfall is mentioned a lot around here. And it deserves it.

[GringoTex]

I made my list and then realized most of them aren't even based on true stories, although they all deal with real historical events. This is probably not coincidental, as cinema is best when it doesn't have to follow the facts.

My top 10:

The BRD Trilogy by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (includes The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, and Lola)(1978-1981): each film is about a woman's struggle to survive in post-World War 2 Germany. One's an enterpreneur, one's an actress, and one's a whore. A harrowing look at how a nation ignored the horrors of its past through an "economic miracle."
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The Best Years of Our Lives by William Wyler (1945):Three WWII veterans return home to small-town America to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed. This film looked at the World War 2 generation more honestly than any film has since: not as heros but as men and women.

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The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Th. Dreyer (1928): Follows the records of the trial excatly. Dreyer built huge, expensive sets and then film only close-ups. History via faces.

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to be continued...

[DoctorJones24]

I made my list and then realized most of them aren't even based on true stories, although they all deal with real historical events. This is probably not coincidental, as cinema is best when it doesn't have to follow the facts.


Sure, I think that's within bounds. After all, historical cinema is not meant to replace textbooks and primary documents (or even documentary films) as a medium of history, but to offer a new way of approaching an event or time period. Robert Toplin has a nice essay on the various characteristics that define historical cinema. I'm not crazy about some of them, as I think he panders too much to bottom line considerations, but overall, it's a helpful list. Robert Rosenstone also has a useful essay in which he distinguishes the historical cinema genre from "costume dramas." They're probably the two foremost academic historians to do serious work on Hollywood representations of history.

[GringoTex]

Robert Rosenstone also has a useful essay in which he distinguishes the historical cinema genre from "costume dramas."


Is this online? I'd like to read it. What's his gist?

[GringoTex]

4.The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo (1966): Although filmed on location only a few years after the event with a cast mostly of people who actually took part, has the feel of a great mythology.

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5.The Leopard by Luchino Visconti (1963): Visconti takes a right-wing novel about Italy's Risorgimento and adapts into a left-wing epic.
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6. Young Mr. Lincoln by John Ford (1939): The only historical film I know of that both Marxists and conservatives claim as their own.

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[IASocFan]

Gandhi is the only historical film that immediately came to mind. I'm not sure of its historical accuracy, but it ranked high in my mind.

[GringoTex]

7. The Flowers of Saint Francis by Roberto Rosellini (1950): The greatest religious biopic and the greatest evocation of transcendentalism ever.

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8. Throne of Blood by Akira Kurosawa (1957): Kurosawa's reworking of MacBeth is one of the great critiques of the feudal system.

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9. Stagecoach by John Ford (1939): The only film I know of that wrote history itself, accuracy be damned.


10. Lancelot of the Lake by Robert Bresson (1974): Makes the case for existentialism as an ancient philosophy rather than a 20th century invention.

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[Mel Brennan]

(1) Cimarron, 1930, for illuminaing (expanding? chicken/egg...) the space in popular culture for debilitating stereotypes of race, ethnicity and culture in terms of both legitimizing media and scholarly institutions from which film often takes its social cues.

(2) Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies, 2002, for doing the diametric opposite, and dismantling such sensibilities in favor of (through undeniably powerful character portryal, in dramatic historical context) keeping track of the humanity or lack thereof that constitutes each of us...

[Norsk Troll]

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Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

[DoctorJones24]

Is this online? I'd like to read it. What's his gist?

Don't think so. It's from Cineaste, Spring, 2004.
Title: "Inventing Historical Truth on the Silver Screen"

Here's a couple excerpts:

"...What I mean by backwards, sideways, or out of alignment is this: for twenty-five years now, or ever since historians have begun to think and write about historical film, we have essentially been trying to make the dramatic feature fit into the conventions of traditional history, to force what we see into a mold created by and for written discourse. Such an approach ensures that history on film will come off as a largely debased and trivial way of representing the past. Those of us who have studied the topic (along with my own work, one might include such historians as Pierre Sorlin, Natalie Davis, and Robert Brent Toplin) and wished to make claims for the historical film have too often found ourselves on the defensive, explaining away the mistakes and inventions of filmmakers to skeptical colleagues, journalists, and students. Here I want to end that defensive posture by suggesting a different way of looking at historical films. One based on the notion that the historical film is already a way of doing history, if by the phrase 'doing history' we mean seriously attempting to make meaning of the past. This visual form of historical thinking cannot be judged by the criteria we apply to what is produced on the page, for it exists in a separate realm, one which relates to, comments upon, and often challenges the world of written history."


"...To say fiction, and particularly invention, are crucial to history on the screen may seem counterintuitive (and is sure to anger some), but it only expands upon a suggestion made by theorist Frank Ankersmit--that the truths of historical discourse are not located primarily in the individual details of a work, but in the arguments and metaphors that allow us to think about and understand the past. Along with its powerful experiential quality, the feeling that while viewing the screen we are virtually living in the past, the contribution of the historical film lies precisely at the level of argument and metaphor, particularly as these engage the larger discourse of history. By which I mean how the films relate to, comment upon, and critique the already existing body of data, arguments, and debates about the topic at hand."


He then analyzes Glory to demonstrate his point about "doing history":

"It is this discourse which helps us both to distinguish a 'historical' from a 'costume drama,' and to judge the usefulness of the inventions in a film. A 'historical,' I would argue, engages the discourse insofar as it poses and attempts to answer the kinds of questions that surround a given topic (at the time the question was 'Will the Negro fight?,' while now it can be seen as 'What was the effect of black military participation in the Civil War on both African Americans and Whites?'), though its answers are contained within and must be read out of the dramatic form. The discourse also helps us to judge the value of the inventions, which, to promote historical truths, must be apposite; that is, within the possibilities and probabilities of the given period. An invention that showed the 54th winning the battle of Fort Wagner rather than being decimated (nearly fifty percent casualties) would violate what we already know from the discourse (which includes data as well as arguments), though the invention that shows the unit advancing on the fort from the north rather than the south is harmless to the larger meaning of the work--perhaps setting the cameras there allowed the director to better render visually the difficulty and bravery of the 54th's assault. There is, of course, no formula for rendering such judgments, which must be--as in all historical judgments--decided on a case-by-case basis."

[GringoTex]

Along with its powerful experiential quality, the feeling that while viewing the screen we are virtually living in the past, the contribution of the historical film lies precisely at the level of argument and metaphor, particularly as these engage the larger discourse of history. By which I mean how the films relate to, comment upon, and critique the already existing body of data, arguments, and debates about the topic at hand."


This is an excellent nutshell. Thanks for sharing.

[Val1]

The Messenger Joan of Arc. The movie gets most of the nuances to Joan's character and to how captivating she was to the French people, even before she liberated Orleans. Dustin Hoffman as God/Devil was annoying.

Not an historical film, but one of the best from the historian's perspective (the second part of the title) has to be National Treasure. It really was fun watching a couple of history nerds be the heroes...

[DoyleG]

Conspiracy, starring Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci. It's a movie that revovles around Wannsee Conference, which set the wheels for the Holocaust in motion.

Very chilling.

[nicephoras]

I agree, Conspiracy was excellent.
From an ancient history perspective, I can't think of a single film that's been historically decent. Some are worse than others, of course, but none are great. At least we're moving in the right direction; from Quo Vadis to Gladiator.

[KevTheGooner]

Great thread.

In no particular order:

Z, 1969 - About the assassination of a Greek leftist politician, the cover up, the conspiracy, and the investigation of the murder.

Gettysburg, 1993 - I'm sure we've all seen it. Great fun with great lengths taken to ensure accuracy.

Battle of Algiers, 1965 - mentioned already

Henry V, 1989 - Could be the only film made with battle scene from Hundred Years War?

Birth of a Nation, 1915 - Loaded film, the film itself is history as much as the period it strives to represent

Bloody Sunday, 2002 - Stilted, but gripping account of the shooting of Irish protesters by English paratroopers

Return of Martin Guerre, 1982 - Realistic portrayal of medieval life in France

Burnt by the Sun, 1992 - Very compelling movie about a Leninist hero being caught in one of Stalins first purges

[GringoTex]

I agree, Conspiracy was excellent.
From an ancient history perspective, I can't think of a single film that's been historically decent. Some are worse than others, of course, but none are great. At least we're moving in the right direction; from Quo Vadis to Gladiator.

What about Spartacus? The actors were coached by historical linguists for their accents.

[GringoTex]

Henry V, 1989 - Could be the only film made with battle scene from Hundred Years War?



Olivier's version had the battle scene. His was purposely stylized.

[nicephoras]

What about Spartacus? The actors were coached by historical linguists for their accents.

You are not a historical linguist Gringo.