Historical Films That Are Historically Accurate
There were quite a few movies about submarines released in the 1980s. Unfortunately, a lot of those films weren’t very good. Even so, Das Boot managed to effectively portray how maddening it can be to fight a war while in a submarine. You may be able to easily hide, but you can be die just as easily as well. Director Wolfgang Peterson really let the raw emotion hit the audience through the screen. It really showed what made submarine warfare unique.
The Battle of Stalingrad is considered one of the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. And the film named after it certainly delivers in showing the horrors of the conflict. It helps with historical accuracy in that it’s one of the most studied moments during World War II. Director Joseph Vilsmaier made sure to stay true to history when it came to retelling the event. It’s captured from a German perspective, but the utter brutality is on full display.
Tora! Tora! Tora! is considered a far more historically accurate version of the bombing of Pearl Harbor when it comes to adaptations of the event. And the directors, Richard Fleisher, Toshio Masuda, and Kinji Fukasaku, certainly wanted to make sure they didn’t a one-sided story of the event. They provided a deep dive into both sides of the conflict. Not to mention, the real-life aircraft carrier, the Yorktown, made an appearance in the film. The Navy made it available to them before its decommissioning the following year.
Everyone knows the tragedy that happened when the RMS Titanic. The story’s been adapted a few times, with the most notable one being James Cameron’s Titanic. However, Roy Ward Baker’s A Night to Remember was a far superior adaptation in terms of historical accuracy, even if this one didn’t make as much money at the box office. The film gives insight into the lives of characters from each class and how they struggled to survive.
When making a film about any real-world culture, you want to make sure you properly represent their society. Historical accuracy is far more important as a result. Black Robe portrays indigenous people and their culture. And this portrayal received great acclaim for its representation of their lives, way of living, and dialogue from Cree, Mohawk, and Algonquin languages. Director Bruce Beresford simply wanted to bring the pages of the Black Robe novel he read to the big screen with as much accuracy as possible.
Come and See is another film that portrays the brutality of World War II. This time, the film is portrayed from the side of the Russians. Director Elem Klimov wanted to make a film that showed the real story of Russia’s involvement in the war. And a lot of Russians weren’t exactly happy with his work. They believed it steers too far away from the stories they were told. Even so, historians praised the film for its accurate portrayal of death camps and victims. People shouldn’t close their eyes to history.
Gettysburg is a film that’s four hours and 31 minutes long. And they use that run time to give you all of the nitty-gritty information about the landmark Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. The film’s pacing can be lacking in some places, but the audience still gets the chance to see how the three-day battle affected all those who fought in it. The film was still praised by audiences and critics alike for its historical accuracy and performances.
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln shows all those qualities that makes the titular president considered the greatest one the US has ever had, even by historians. Even so, all of his shortcomings are in full display as well. The uses the information of Lincoln’s simple upbringing to inform his decisions, as well as portraying the intensity of the political climate at the time.
Saving Private Ryan isn’t technically based off of a true story. It is influenced by the story of a young soldier whose three brothers died in combat, so they sent him home. However, the mission to save a “Private Ryan” never technically happened. However, the film still has plenty of historical accuracies. Most notably in the storming of Omaha Beach. Soldiers that had actually fought in the war stated the accuracy of the event, saying it was the most realistic portrayal of combat they had ever seen. The movie received immense critical acclaim from both audiences and critics as well.
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