From crisica@idt.net Sun Jul 2 16:17:40 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id QAA25020 for ; Sun, 2 Jul 2000 16:17:40 -0700 Received: from u3.farm.idt.net (root@u3.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.12]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id QAA01987 for ; Sun, 2 Jul 2000 16:17:39 -0700 Received: from 18spd (ppp-35.ts-4-bay.nyc.idt.net [169.132.216.179]) by u3.farm.idt.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id TAA29545; Sun, 2 Jul 2000 19:17:35 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: From: "Christopher Robbins" To: "Classics List" Subject: Historical fidelity redux: Patriot v. Gladiator Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 19:17:34 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Dear Classics-list colleagues: Having just returned from several weeks of absense and sojourn, I see that the film _The Patriot_ has opened - and opened once again the issue of history v. Hollywood. Or rather, more to our own concerns, the question of whether and to what extent this new film, whatever its historical fidelity, might engender an independent interest on the part of the film-going public in the American Revolutionary period (a la the way _Gladiator_ may or may not have so done vis a vis Roman antiquity). There is Classical aspect here, too, by the way (lest I be ostracized for violation of topic), at least for those of us who may believe that the Founding Generation was infused and informed by classical antiquity in one or another manner (and an exchange on just what that "manner" was might be an engaging topic as well). But back to point, for on the fidelity front the first shot at _Patriot_ has been fired in today's (Saturday's) _New York Times_ (or at least the first printed shot that I know of; the History Channel presented a little filmic reprise as well last evening). Unlike Lexington in April 1775 (or Williamsburg, for that matter, where the Royal Governor felt compelled to flee to a British ship for his safety) this is not likely to be a "shot" that will be heard "'round the world", but it comes from a reputable source nonetheless. David Hackett is an historian and the author of _Paul Revere's Ride_ (Oxford) 1994, a work which well documents that this famed warning was no "Lone Ranger" episode (Longfellow notwithstanding) but rather the work of a tightly coordinated group of New England patriot radicals who had their own well-developed sense of the meaning of "liberty" (and which also, by the way, under the general lead of Samuel Adams, played a large role in fomenting the AmRev at virtually every critical juncture of the Imperial Crisis). Prof. Hackett, therefore, is a person concerned with historical accuracy, as indeed an historian should be. His observations in this regard are welcome, of course, but there is a tone of hyperbole to his piece which mimics Hollywood's own general tendency to excess and exaggeration. His referral, for example, to the critically significant Seven Years War (the French and Indian War to us colonials) as just "an earlier Indian war" seems pointlessly dismissive. And his drawing of the Schutzstaffel analogy in regard to the composite expression of British atrocity in the Revolutionary War seems rather too much. Atrocity is an unfortunate attendant to all war, but neither side in the Revolutionary War can be fairly compared to the program of the SS or the Dritte Reich in general in the period from September 1939 to May 1945. The principal characters in _Patriot_ are indeed made more noble or more villainous respectively as plot and marketing require, but they are at least approximate composites of real persons, not fabricated out of whole cloth (a la Maximus in _Gladiator_). And the plot itself is centered on real events, i.e., the Southern campaign undertaken by the British following the disaster of Saratoga (Sep-Oct 1777), the ensuing French-American alliance (early 1778), and the inability of Britain's Northern forces to fix and destroy Washington's small, fragile but elusive and wasp-like Continental Army. But if Hackett has imitated Hollywood's tone and error in the hyperbolic marketing of his own Op-Ed piece, his editorial comprises a sharp critique of historical accuracy nonetheless, not unlike that heard in this forum, or by Prof. Coleman herself, in re the film _Gladiator_. And for that reason, I leave his observations to your consideration, either at the _NY Times_ web site next below... http://www.nytimes.com/info/contents/alphaIndex.html ....or, for those who cannot access the web, in full text at the conclusion of this posting. Because the larger question of our concern remains unresolved. Best regards, Christopher Robbins New York City crisica@idt.net P.D. To David L. of UPS: Sorry we couldn't connect when I was recently in Seattle. Hopefully next time. Or, how about coming East next April for the CAAS conference in the suburbs of New York? I'm organizing a panel there with the prize-winning Argentine author, Patricia Sagastizabal, entre cuyos vicios se encuentra el releer las tragedias griegas y las obras de Homero. Your Spanish language ability will be richly rewarded on both fronts. Piensa en lo, OK? Hablo en serio. Chris *****Beginning of _NY Times_ Op-Ed Piece by David Hackett Fischer***** July 1, 2000 Hubris, But No History By DAVID HACKETT FISCHER AYLAND, Mass. -- Despite terrific pacing and beautiful costumes and photography, something has gone wrong in "The Patriot," the new Mel Gibson movie about the American Revolution. Signs of trouble appear in the idyllic opening scenes. Mr. Gibson plays a reluctant hero named Benjamin Martin, a widower with seven perfect children, a "Gone with the Wind" plantation and a work force of free and happy Black Folk who toil in his fields as volunteers. Then the plot unfolds. We learn that Martin was the hero of an earlier Indian war, but he decides to sit out the War of Independence until the villainous British Colonel Tavlington (who somewhat resembles the real-life British officer Banastre Tarleton) burns his plantation, carries off the happy Black Folk, kills one of his children and threatens to hang another. Martin impulsively decides to fight, mainly for revenge against Tavlington, and wins the war more or less single-handed. With a little assistance from George Washington, Nathaniel Greene and Light Horse Harry Lee, and a lot of help from his long-suffering sons and neighbors, Martin reforms American tactics, defeats General Cornwallis and sets up the British surrender at Yorktown. The film purports to be a history of the American Revolution. Its Web site tells us that it is "loosely based" on fact. How loosely might that be? In short, "The Patriot" is to history as Godzilla was to biology. Egregious errors appear in every scene. Some inaccuracies are introduced to create an illusion of authenticity. Tavlington, for example, is dressed in a red coat. In fact, Tarleton's mounted legion wore green, but these are the Redcoats, and red their coats must be (an issue discussed at length in Alan Alda's hilarious spoof "Sweet Liberty"). A similar example appears in the written documents that the tangled underplots require. Eighteenth century ink was black, which on the documents we have from those days has faded to a soft brown. To make the letters seem authentic in the film, they are freshly written in faded brown ink. Mel Gibson's character is "loosely based" on five historical figures: Francis Marion, Daniel Morgan, Elijah Clark, Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens, combined into an American hero without fault or flaw. The climactic battle where Mel Gibson defeats General Cornwallis and kills Tavlington is "loosely based" on a combination of the Battles of Cowpens (which Tarleton lost in Cornwallis's absence) and Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk's Hill and Eutaw Springs (all of which Cornwallis won). Cornwallis was not defeated in the Carolinas. Tarleton was not killed. The film is also heavy with anachronism. The dialogue alternates between 21st century slang and loose quotations from irrelevant historical materials. Mel Gibson is made to say "I prefer one tyrant 3,000 miles away to 3,000 tyrants one mile away" -- a garbled quote from Boston Tory Mather Byles -- and then lapses back into slang. Other errors introduce to the American Revolution events far removed in time and place. The extreme violence reaches its peak when the villain Tavlington confines the inhabitants of town in a church, sets it ablaze and burns them alive. Something remarkably like this event actually happened, but not in South Carolina during the American Revolution. It happened in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944, during World War II, and it was done by Germany's 2nd S.S. Panzer Division. There were atrocities enough on both sides in the American Revolution, but Roland Emmerich, the film's director, has converted an 18th century British and American Loyalist Army into the S.S. The British villain Tavlington is so steeped in evil and Cornwallis is so feckless and incompetent that the two men become mere caricatures. (So does the saintly American hero.) The real Tarleton was deeply conflicted, and more dramatic than the cardboard villain we are given here. The inaccuracies in "The Patriot" are all errors in the first degree: willful and premeditated. Mr. Emmerich is quoted on the Web site as saying, "On certain kinds of points, we had to decide what is most important, historical accuracy or the dramatic impact." One wonders if there was ever any point where the filmmakers decided accuracy was the more important. David Hackett Fischer, professor of American history at Brandeis, is the author of _Paul Revere's Ride_. *****End of _NY Times_ Op-Ed Piece by David Hackett Fischer***** .