History vs. Hollywood

Volume 3 | Issue 1 - Film

Article by Rob Russell. Edited by Thom Absalom. Research by Jack Barnes.

What better way to start the academic year, and the New Histories magazine’s first edition of the year than with a good old fashioned rant!

The subject in my cynical crosshairs this week is film. More specifically, Hollywood’s tendency to take ‘poetic license’ to the extreme and, for a few extra dollars and greater excitement, produce blatant factual inaccuracies. Not only do these practices pull my strings as a history student, but frankly grinds my gears as Mel Gibson et al make money at the expense of historical truth, shame on them!

The first film to cross the boundary of historical accuracy is Braveheart (1995), which traces William Wallace’s (d.1305 A.D.) epic struggle with the English. I must admit it is a cracking film – especially the blue face-paint and cries of ‘FREEDOM!’ However, there are just a few tiny problems. First of all I feel it crucial to stress that as good as Mel Gibson looks in a kilt they were sadly not worn by the Scottish until the sixteenth century. What is more, in the film Isabella of France, King Edward II’s wife, is seduced by Wallace’s manly charm. A quick glance at the history books and some simple arithmetic shows that this was not possible – Isabella was just three years old at the time of the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 A.D! The seduction seems to have been conflated with Isabella’s affair with Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who later helped Isabella depose her husband. Finally, what really peeves me about Braveheart, especially after volunteering in a museum with medieval swords all summer, is that William Wallace plainly did not fight with a sword as big as is suggested in the film!! As awe-inspiring as Gibson looks roaming the battlefield with a sword as tall as a 12-year-old boy, the sword used in reality would have been a broadsword about half its size. The broadswords commonly used by both sides in the wars of Scottish independence were far smaller in size than the swords portrayed in the film. Late thirteenth and fourteenth century broadswords were typically around 96cm in length, far shorter than great swords which were more frequently used for ceremonial purposes as opposed to real life battle situations.

The next film which enters the woods of historical inaccuracy is Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000). The film depicts the emperor, Commodus (r.180-192 A.D.), as an ineffectual, evil, sister-loving creep. As convincing as Joaquin Phoenix is in such a role, yet again the history books suggest a somewhat different tale. To begin with Commodus ruled quite aptly for over a decade and was respected by many within the Senate, as opposed to the disaster filled few months portrayed in the film. Secondly, and to the detriment of Hollywood he didn’t kill his father. Marcus Aurelius actually died from a nasty bout of chickenpox! Above all Commodus met his sticky end not in the gladiatorial arena, in front of 50,000 blood thirsty Romans, but in the somewhat more private domain of his own bathroom.

The final film to irk my historical sense of injustice is 300 (2006), the action-packed story of 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C). One of the key plot holes is the likelihood of the Persian King Xerxes being an 8 foot tall man mountain. Second of all, despite Gerard Butler’s desire to fight solely in some slim-fitting leather Speedos in order to show off his buff physique, in truth the Spartans would have fought in bronze body armour. It is also worthy of note that the Spartans did not fight alone at the battle of Thermopylae, as they were supported by a group of allied soldiers from neighbouring Greek city states. Although briefly alluded to in the film, they were more numerous in reality.

So the next time you watch a money-spinning Hollywood ‘historical’ film, be sure to check up on some of the basic facts to make sure you know what really happened.

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According to The Times, Braveheart is second on the list of most historically inaccurate films.

While Commodus was indeed killed by a professional fighter, it was by a wrestler named Narcissus, not a gladiator. His death did not occur in the Colosseum, but he was strangled while bathing. In the original Gladiator script the name of the main character was “Narcissus” not “Maximus”.

Maximus is shown with S.P.Q.R. tattooed on his shoulder which he removes. The identification tattoos Roman soldiers were required to wear by law were actually on their hands in order to make it difficult to hide if they deserted. By law, gladiators likewise were tattooed, but on the face, legs and arms until emperor Constantine (ca. AD 325) banned tattooing the face. The Latin word for “tattoo” was “stigma”, hence our word “stigmatise”.