Barbarossa: Siege Lord ? why the emperor needs a new movie
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/76124?ns=guardian&pageName=Barbarossa%3A+Siege+Lord+*+why+the+emperor+needs+a+new+movie%3AArticle%3A1745704&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Period+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CWar+films+%28Film+genre%29%2CFilm%2CCulture&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-May-16&c8=1745704&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=Film+blog&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FPeriod+and+historical" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">This historically haywire film about Frederick I Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, lets its fine subject down</p><p><strong>Barbarossa:</strong> <strong>Siege Lord</strong> (2009)<br /><strong>Director:</strong> Renzo Martinelli<br /><strong>Entertainment</strong> <strong>grade:</strong> E<br /><strong>History grade:</strong> C</p><p>Frederick I Barbarossa was King of Germany and later Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1155-1190. Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, was named after him.</p><h2>People</h2><p>The film begins with a boy, Alberto, accidentally stumbling into the path of Frederick I when the emperor is hunting wild boar in northern Italy. Armed with a crossbow, Alberto manages to kill the boar just before it gores the emperor. This is fiction. The adult Alberto da Giussano is held to have been a great warrior of the Guelph faction, leading the Lombard League to victory at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. There's no firm evidence that he existed. The early encounter with Frederick and a boar has been invented for the film, as has his backstory. He is cast improbably as a blacksmith married to a witch. In case that doesn't inspire you enough, he bellows "Freedom!" every few minutes in exactly the manner of William Wallace expiring in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jul/30/3" title="">Braveheart</a>. This doesn't bode well for Barbarossa: Siege Lord's historical accuracy.</p><h2>Marriage</h2><p>Frederick marries Beatrice of Burgundy. "So here she is, the future empress," says wedding guest Henry the Lion. "I just hope that she can make my cousin happier than his previous wife, who was incapable of being loved, and even more incapable of bearing him any children." Historically, Henry was Duke of Saxony, but in this film he's the Duke of Exposition. Still, it is true that Frederick's first marriage to Adelheid of Vohburg was miserable and childless. Beatrice lifts her veil. "But she's just a child!" gasps another guest. "I didn't realise she was so young!" This exposition spreads like the plague, and the plague is going to spread pretty fast later in the movie. At the time of their marriage, Beatrice was 13 to Frederick's 34. The film's casting of a 65-year-old Rutger Hauer as Frederick makes it look even creepier than it was.</p><h2>War</h2><p>In 1160, the emperor lays siege to Milan. Alberto takes him on. The film depicts Milan as described in the chronicles of Bishop Otto of Freising and his continuer, Rahewin: it's a walled city in the middle of a level plain, surrounded by a moat which was constructed in 1159 to ward Frederick off. The Germans fill the moat with barrels. "They're putting barrels in the river!" someone gasps from the Milanese battlements. "To make a platform for the towers!" Is that the Duke of Exposition again? Can't be: until 1174, he's on Frederick's side. The epidemic of clunky screenwriting must have claimed a Milanese victim.</p><h2>Cruelty</h2><p>Frederick straps captured prisoners to his siege towers, so the Milanese cannot attack them without killing their fellow citizens. Did he really do that? Yes, but not at the siege of Milan. This happened at the siege of Crema in 1159, which was notorious for its brutality. The Cremese responded by hacking imperial prisoners to death on their ramparts, in full view of Frederick's army. Both Crema and Milan eventually fell to Frederick, in 1160 and 1162 respectively.</p><h2>More war</h2><p>Alberto convenes the Company of Death, an association of knights that will fight Frederick. Historians doubt the Company's existence, but the Battle of Legnano on 29 May 1176 was real. In it, Frederick's imperial troops took on the Milanese (and possibly the Company of Death, if you believe in them). During the fighting, as is shown here, Frederick was unhorsed and lost. Assuming he was dead, his imperial troops lost heart and scattered. In fact, he had merely done a runner. A few days later he turned up in Pavia, right as rain. The film is correct about this, but wrong in suggesting that Legnano was a decisive battle. Frederick was already inclined to negotiate a truce ? though doing so by no means ended his ambition.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>Frederick I Barbarossa is a fine subject for a movie, but he could do better than this heap of soggy spaghetti.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/war-films">War films</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Reel history: Goodbye Bafana
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/49127?ns=guardian&pageName=Reel+history%3A+Goodbye+Bafana%3AArticle%3A1742594&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CCulture%2CNelson+Mandela&c5=Not+commercially+useful&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-May-10&c8=1742594&c9=Article&c10=Comment%2CBlogpost&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=Film+blog&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2Fblog%2FFilm+blog" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">This dubious tale of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment, based on his prison guard's memoirs, contradicts all other known accounts</p><p><strong>Director: Bille August<br />Entertainment grade: C<br />History grade: Fail</strong></p><p>Nelson Mandela was imprisoned by the apartheid regime in South Africa for 27 years. </p><h2>Friendship</h2><p>It's 1968. Ambitious young prison officer James Gregory (Joseph Fiennes) is given a new beat at Robben Island. The highest-profile prisoner there is Nelson Mandela (Dennis Haysbert, miscast). "I'm in charge of the worst terrorist this country has ever seen," Gregory gloats. He receives a special posting at the censorship office on account of his fluency in Xhosa, the language of the prisoners. Soon, though, the intimacy this gives him with Mandela begins to break down his racist opinions. Mandela's own version of the story, from his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, gives a different view. On Robben Island, Mandela wrote, "I had not known him [Gregory] terribly well, but he knew us, because he had been responsible for reviewing our incoming and outgoing mail."</p><h2>Sources</h2><p>Perhaps it's telling that, rather than the familiar "based on a true story" or the recently-fashionable "inspired by true events", the film-makers of Goodbye Bafana have used the more neutral claim "based on the memoirs of Nelson Mandela's prison guard". Gregory's memoirs, also titled Goodbye Bafana, have proven controversial. Key events therein have been strongly disputed by Mandela's fellow prisoners and Gregory's fellow prison guards, as has the overall theme of a close friendship between the two men. According to Mandela's friend and authorised biographer, Anthony Sampson, Mandela himself said privately that Gregory must have "hallucinated" in some of his memories. Sampson interviewed Gregory, and quoted him as admitting he used "author's licence". Faced with this evidence, all of which was available before the movie was released in 2007, it's surprising that the producers of Goodbye Bafana decided to go ahead with this project at all.</p><h2>Dialogue</h2><p>If you're interested in the disputes over Gregory's book, they're detailed in an <a href="http://www.nelsonmandela.org/images/uploads/Nelson_Mandelas_Warders.pdf">excellent research paper by Mike Nicol</a> published by the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 2011. The film adds a few inaccuracies of its own, too. For instance, Gregory is repeatedly shown calling Mandela "Madiba", the Xhosa clan name by which many of his supporters know him ? implying respect. In fact, Gregory calls Mandela "Nelson" throughout his book. </p><h2>Literature</h2><p>Gregory claims in his book to have regularly gone to the public library during the late 1960s to read the ANC's Freedom Charter. Nicol points out that this was unlikely. The charter was banned at the time, so you couldn't just stroll into a library and have a gander. So the film adds a scene in which Gregory bluffs his way past security and steals the banned charter to read privately. Maybe this seems more convincing, but adding a complete fabrication to an already questionable story doesn't add up to truth.</p><h2>Politics</h2><p>Perhaps the most dubious invention in the film is a scene in Pollsmoor prison. Gregory implores Mandela to negotiate with the white minority regime. "You can stop this! You can put an end to the violence! Tell your people in Lusaka to end the armed struggle!" This doesn't appear in Gregory's book: most of the time at Pollsmoor is taken up with rather intrusive personal accounts of Mandela's medical treatment. Furthermore, it directly contradicts Mandela himself, who says specifically of Gregory in Long Walk to Freedom: "In the years that he had looked after me from Pollsmoor to Victor Verster [another prison], we had never discussed politics". And yet Goodbye Bafana has Mandela repeatedly engaging with Gregory on political issues. According to Sampson, "Mandela was urged to sue him [Gregory], but was satisfied when the prisons department distanced itself from the book." It's probably lucky for this movie, too, that the real Mandela is the forgiving sort. </p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>There is no excuse for the historical negligence in this movie ? and its implicit dismissal of the contradictory accounts of Nelson Mandela and others could be seen as insulting.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nelsonmandela">Nelson Mandela</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Reds wins votes left, right and centre
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/22357?ns=guardian&pageName=Reds+wins+votes+left%2C+right+and+centre%3AArticle%3A1739452&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CCulture%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29%2CWar+films+%28Film+genre%29%2CWarren+Beatty%2CDiane+Keaton%2CJack+Nicholson+%28Film%29%2CCommunism+%28News%29%2CPolitics&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-May-02&c8=1739452&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FPeriod+and+historical" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Warren Beatty's portrait of an American journalist who witnessed the October revolution in Russia in 1917 is everything a historian could want in a movie</p><p><strong>Director:</strong> Warren Beatty<br /><strong>Entertainment grade:</strong> A?<br /><strong>History grade:</strong> A?</p><p>John Reed was an American journalist who witnessed the October revolution in Russia in 1917.</p><h2>Sex</h2><p>Earnest leftie Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) meets earnest leftie Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) in Portland, Oregon, late in 1915. He impresses her with his thoughts on the profit motive in the first world war, somewhat anticipating <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1916lenin-imperialism.html" title="">Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism</a>, written a few months later. This was exactly the way to an earnest leftie's heart in the 1910s, and if only Reed had said something more specific about dialectical materialism it would probably have been pants off straight away. As it is, that takes them until the second date. "I'd like to see you with your pants off, Mr Reed," says Bryant. Aha, there we go.</p><h2>People</h2><p>Reed persuades Bryant to follow him to New York, where they meet the film's two most shameless scene-stealers. First, there's Maureen Stapleton, doing a wickedly enjoyable turn as no-nonsense anarchist Emma Goldman. "What do you write about?" Goldman asks Bryant. "Oh, everything," she replies nervously. "You write about everything?" Goldman snaps. "Everything, yes," stammers Bryant. "Everything ? nothing, huh. Just?" Goldman gives her a look that could flay the hide off a rhinoceros. Second, there's Jack Nicholson as bilious playwright and future Nobel laureate Eugene O'Neill. Actually, he's more or less just playing Jack Nicholson, but he is awfully good at that ? and the quick-witted screenplay gives him plenty of brutal O'Neillish lines to snarl.</p><h2>Romance</h2><p>Bryant is fleetingly seduced by O'Neill. In real life, she was not quite so ingenuous. In fact, it was she who seduced O'Neill, telling him untruthfully that Reed was seriously ill and they were no longer in a sexual relationship. Reportedly it is true, as portrayed here, that O'Neill fell hopelessly in love with her. That would be easier to believe if Reds allowed her more of the confidence and audacity she had in real life.</p><h2>Politics</h2><p>After the action-packed first half, ending on the high of the October revolution, it's a slight disappointment that the film's second half begins with the internecine struggle between the American Socialist Party, the Communist Labor Party and the Communist Party of America. If you've seen <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/25/life-of-brian-monty-python-reel-history" title="">Monty Python's Life of Brian</a>, this is a lot like the schism between the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front, only with no one hawking a tray of otters' noses.</p><h2>Ideology</h2><p>The action picks up again as Reed returns to the Soviet Union. Emma Goldman is already there, and disillusioned with the Soviet project. That's convenient for the screenwriters, but it's also true. "The situation is such that we are now going through the deepest spiritual conflict in our lives," she wrote to a friend at the time. Nor does Reed arrive in the glorious socialist paradise he expected. Instead, he finds food and fuel shortages, and the head of the Comintern, Grigory Zinoviev (Jerzy Kosinski), imperturbably eating a lemon. Zinoviev effectively kidnaps Reed and puts him to propaganda work. This, too, is accurate, as is the film's depiction of his doomed attempt to escape.</p><h2>Love</h2><p>Bryant sets out on an odyssey from the US to the USSR to find her husband. The audience's sympathies for Reed are undiminished by the fact that he had an affair with a Russian woman, because the film tactfully leaves that out. Furthermore, the tension has been ramped up by its claim that communication between Reed and Bryant was impossible, whereas in real life they did correspond and he knew she was coming. Still, though Reds fiddles with the details, the political and emotional situations portrayed have been impressively well researched. Without spoiling the end, it too is correct ? well, almost.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>An engrossing, beautifully filmed and remarkably balanced portrait of a fascinating moment in history, cleverly enhanced by the intercutting of real-life documentary interviews. Reds is everything a historian could want in a movie.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/war-films">War films</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/warren-beatty">Warren Beatty</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/diane-keaton">Diane Keaton</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/jacknicholson">Jack Nicholson</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/communism">Communism</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Summer of Sam is an almost boringly flawless portrait of a real-life monster
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/66741?ns=guardian&pageName=Summer+of+Sam+is+an+almost+boringly+flawless+portrait+of+a+real-life+mon%3AArticle%3A1736176&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Spike+Lee+%28Film%29%2CCrime+%28Film+genre%29%2CFilm%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29%2CThriller+%28Film+genre%29%2CCulture&c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Apr-26&c8=1736176&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FSpike+Lee" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Spike Lee's picture of 1977 New York can hardly be faulted historically, but was there a more compelling story to tell?</p><p><strong>Director: </strong><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/spikelee" title=""><strong>Spike Lee</strong></a></p><p><strong>Entertainment grade: B-</strong></p><p><strong>History grade: A-</strong></p><p>Between July 1976 and August 1977, a serial killer known as Son of Sam terrorised New York City.</p><h2>Crime</h2><p>As films about real-life serial killers go, Summer of Sam is unusual. Rather than having either the killer or an investigator as the lead, it focuses on a fictional group of Italian-Americans who live in the neighbourhood in which Son of Sam is killing. Sharp-eyed viewers familiar with New York City may notice this seems to be the Bronx. In real life, Son of Sam's crimes were mostly committed in Queens. As he wrote in his most <a href="http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/berkowitz/letter_1.html" title="">famous letter</a>, (which is quoted in the film, though without this particular line): "I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game ? tasty meat. The wemon of Queens are z prettyist of all." On the other hand, it is true that this letter was left for police at a murder site in the Bronx, after the double shooting of Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani on 17 April 1977. The film depicts this accurately, though in a fictional twist its character Vinny (John Leguizamo) narrowly misses becoming a victim.</p><h2>Dialogue</h2><p>The fictional characters go on with their lives, which mainly seem to involve having sex, disco dancing and saying the word "fuck". According to a Christian parenting website, which devotes itself to itemising such things, this word is said 435 times in Summer of Sam. It's a record for a non-pornographic movie, beaten only to the top spot of Wikipedia's highly informative <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_that_most_frequently_use_the_word_%22fuck%22" title="">list of films that most frequently use the word "fuck"</a> by a documentary about the word itself.</p><h2>Psychology</h2><p> Occasionally the action flashes away to the Son of Sam (Michael Badalucco), eventually identified as postal worker David Berkowitz. He lives in a standard-issue serial killer apartment: a bare, dirty mattress, satanic scrawl decor, big holes in the walls where he's punched them. A bit of a fixer-upper. Berkowitz's neighbour's dog, a black Labrador called Harvey, barks all night. Berkowitz is tortured by the noise, so he shoots Harvey. This is accurate. In real life, he also tried to blow Harvey up with a molotov cocktail. Animal lovers will be pleased to know that the indomitable Harvey survived both attacks, though Berkowitz was eventually convicted of the murders of six people and the wounding of seven more. Berkowitz later claimed the howling of dogs was a signal from demons, telling him to kill. The film portrays this so well that you may wish it would spend more time on its compelling portrait of this real-life monster, and less on its fictional characters, who are still hanging around, repeating their favourite word.</p><h2>Culture</h2><p>The fictional-character focus allows Summer of Sam to build up a detailed social and cultural history of New York City. There is a brilliant recreation of the notorious blackout of 13-14 July 1977, and its associated crimewave. It's a striking reminder of the bitingly tense atmosphere in which the Son of Sam killings took place. Much of the film is devoted to music: Vinny is into disco and aspires to dance at the brand-new Studio 54, while his old friend Ritchie (Adrien Brody) becomes a punk and plays at CBGB. At one point, they're both in a cafe when Talking Heads' Psycho Killer comes on the radio. An irresistible addition to the soundtrack, no doubt, but the scene is set in late July or early August 1977. Psycho Killer was first released on the album 77, which wasn't available until 16 September that year. Since it's almost the only blooper in an otherwise immaculately recreated historical setting, we can probably let Spike Lee get away with that one.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>A skillfully made and evocative portrait of New York City in the summer of 1977, but it feels like a more coherent ? and more interesting ? story is hovering just out of reach.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/spikelee">Spike Lee</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/crime">Crime</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/thriller">Thriller</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Centurion has a familiar ring about it, but it's not because it sticks to the facts
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/27392?ns=guardian&pageName=Centurion+has+a+familiar+ring+about+it%2C+but+it%27s+not+because+it+sticks+t%3AArticle%3A1733095&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Action+and+adventure+%28Film+genre%29%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CMichael+Fassbender%2CDominic+West%2CFilm%2CRussell+Crowe+%28Film%29&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews%2CTV&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Apr-19&c8=1733095&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FAction+and+adventure" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">No one knows what really happened to the Ninth Legion, and with its demise early in the movie the film-makers lost the plot</p><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/135626/centurion" title=""><strong>Centurion (2010)</strong></a><br /><strong>Director: Neil Marshall</strong><br /><strong>Entertainment grade: C-</strong><br /><strong>History grade: E+</strong></p><p>The Roman army's Legio IX Hispana, known in English as the Ninth Legion, mysteriously ceased to exist at some point in the second century AD.</p><h2>Tribes</h2><p>The film is set in AD117. Its fictional centurion, Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender), is kidnapped by warrior Picts from his camp on the frontier of Caledonia (now Scotland). It's a worrying start: Picts aren't identified in the historical record until AD297, when they crop up in a panegyric by the Roman orator Eumenius. This lot could perhaps be Caledones, who may have been Pictish ancestors or proto-Picts. History and archaeology know little about the Caledones or the Picts, so there's plenty of scope to make stuff up. Not that Centurion needs any encouragement.</p><h2>People</h2><p>The governor of Britain, Julius Agricola, summons the Ninth Legion. This is very impressive of him, considering that by AD117 he had been dead for 24 years. It is true, as this film suggests, that Agricola invaded Caledonia, but that was between AD80 and 84. Anyway, Centurion's Agricola is sprightly for a zombie. He orders the commander of the Ninth, General Virilus (Dominic West), to subdue the Picts. He also gives him a Pictish scout, Etain (Olga Kurylenko), a kind of gothic ninja Barbie who comes complete with eyeliner, wolfskin accessories and a big trident thingy for spearing people's heads. Fortunately, the film has designated her mute, so it doesn't have to go to the trouble of giving her an actual character.</p><h2>Battle</h2><p>The legion heads north, deep into a Caledonian forest. Somebody has been going crazy with a second-century smoke machine. It's supposed to be mist, but it looks more like the industrial revolution has started just around the corner. The soldiers realise they're being followed, and gather into a defensive formation. "Whatever comes out of that mist, lads, you will hold the line," says Virilus. Like many things in this movie, this appears to be a homage to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/83550/gladiator" title="">Gladiator</a>, in which Maximus (Russell Crowe) says: "Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together." The gladiators in Gladiator got the warriors of Scipio Africanus. The centurions in Centurion get giant rolling fireballs, a weapon probably unknown to second-century Caledones. Of course, there are quite a lot of fireballs in Gladiator too, during the opening battle in Germania. There are some things Gladiator had that Centurion doesn't: a great screenplay, original vision, and a massive budget. The Ninth Legion would have comprised about 4,000 men. In Centurion it's more like 200 who are attacked by the Picts.</p><h2>Mystery</h2><p>We're less than 30 minutes into the film, and already the Ninth Legion has been massacred. That doesn't leave much plot for the remaining hour. To be fair, there isn't a straightforward historical answer to the question of what happened to the Ninth Legion. It was last spotted in Eboracum (York) in AD108. After that, it disappeared from the record, though some of its officers and detachments popped up again here and there. There are various theories about its disappearance. If they weren't massacred in Caledonia, the bulk of the legion's men might have copped it in Parthia or Judaea.</p><h2>Cosmetics</h2><p>Quintus joins up with the few remaining men of the Ninth to fight their way back to safe Roman territory. Gothic Ninja Barbie turns out to be a Pict agent. "I knew we should never have trusted the bitch," someone snarls. Well, duh. She and her chums smear blue Adam Ant stripes across their faces. They may not get away with it stylistically, but historically they can. Julius Caesar, in <a href="http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Caesar/CaesarGal05.html" title="">De Bello Gallico</a>, said that British tribes painted themselves blue to fight. He also noted that they "have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip", that each British woman married 10-12 men simultaneously, and that the most civilised Britons "are they who inhabit Kent". Sounds about right.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>Note to film-makers: watching Gladiator does not count as historical research.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/actionandadventure">Action and adventure</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/michael-fassbender">Michael Fassbender</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/dominic-west">Dominic West</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/russellcrowe">Russell Crowe</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Ironclad's historical credentials are made of mulch
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/54677?ns=guardian&pageName=Ironclad%27s+historical+credentials+are+made+of+mulch%3AArticle%3A1729624&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Drama+%28Film+genre%29%2CFilm%2CCulture%2CWar+films+%28Film+genre%29%2CPaul+Giamatti&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Apr-12&c8=1729624&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FDrama" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The inaccuracies pile up higher than the severed limbs in this muddy, bloody reimagining of events. And as for the pig-bomb ?</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/140392/ironclad">Ironclad (2011)</a><br />Director: Jonathan English<br />Entertainment grade: D+<br />History grade: Fail</strong></p><p>In 1215, King John of England was forced by his barons to sign a charter of liberties, Magna Carta. Afterwards, civil war broke out.</p><h2>Military orders</h2><p> King John (Paul Giamatti) arrives at a castle in which fictional Templar knight Thomas Marshall (James Purefoy) is staying. The film makes a big deal out of the supposedly deathly rivalry between John and the Templars. There wasn't one. The real John awarded the Templars special privileges, including exemption from all taxation and extraordinary protection of their property. In 1215, when this movie is set, the Templars let John use their headquarters, the New Temple in London, as a treasury. He stayed there often, and stored the crown jewels and his top-secret documents there. Ironclad has this entirely wrong. Perhaps you can't have a medieval movie these days without a badass Templar. Blame The Da Vinci Code.</p><h2>Violence </h2><p> After John murders his companions, Marshall hooks up with real-life rebel William d'Aubigny, Lord of Belvoir (Brian Cox). They assemble a posse of earthy vagrants to stop John at Rochester Castle on the Medway. Royal forces attack. Somebody gets sliced in half from shoulder to navel. Somebody else gets whacked with the soggy end of a severed arm. Elbows, legs and heads spray blood. It splatters across the camera lens ? which would be fine in a computer game, but is weird in a feature film. Is the viewer supposed to mistake Ironclad for a documentary? </p><p>Unlikely, seeing as it can't get even the basic facts right. When the royal forces are beaten back, John hisses: "What I am having trouble with is how 1,000 men could have failed so miserably against 20." They didn't. There were at least 95 knights and 45 men-at-arms defending Rochester Castle, not 20 vagrants.</p><h2>People </h2><p> John attacks with a siege tower, which the rebels blow up by firing back with a flame-throwing trebuchet. "Do not record that!" the king screams, ripping pages out of the royal chronicler's hands. Possibly, this is a feeble attempt to excuse Ironclad's inaccuracies. They're piling up higher than the battlements. </p><p>John's forces break through the outer castle wall, driving the rebels into the keep. Aubigny is captured. John hacks off his hands and feet, before strapping him into the trebuchet and flinging him against the castle wall. Utter nonsense. In real life, Aubigny survived the siege of Rochester Castle with his life and all appendages intact. He was imprisoned, then ransomed out for 6,000 marks. By 1217 he fought for John's son and heir, Henry III. He died two decades later of non-trebuchet-related causes.</p><h2>Warfare</h2><p> John's engineers dig a mine beneath the rebel-held castle keep and herd fatted pigs into it. Then they set a fire. The pigs squeal and burn, fuelling the flames that incinerate the wooden struts holding up the mine. It collapses ? as does the stone keep wall above. Behold: the castle-busting medieval pig-bomb. Seems crazy? Actually, this bit is true. Almost. John did order "40 fat bacon-pigs, the least good for eating" for the mine, but the chronicles say only that the fat from the pigs was used to lard the mine's wooden struts ? not that live pigs were set on fire.</p><h2>Victory</h2><p> Royal forces storm the keep. Just as the rebels' last stand is about to fall, reinforcements gallop to their rescue. It's Prince Louis of France, come to claim victory for the rebels! Not a moment too soon! Except, in real life, it is about six months too soon. The siege of Rochester ended with a rebel surrender on 30 November 1215. Prince Louis did not land in Kent until 21 May 1216. But Ironclad wants a happy ending, so its siege of Rochester ends ? with the defeat of King John. </p><p>What? It can't do that! As historian Alan Lloyd commented, King John's famous <em>victory</em> at Rochester "ranked with the relief of Mirebeau among his more spectacular military achievements". Next, from the team that brought you Ironclad: 1815 ? Napoleon's glorious triumph at Waterloo; 1942 ? Hitler conquers the Soviet Union; 1973 ? the Americans win in Vietnam.</p><h2>Verdict </h2><p>Somebody should have exploded a pig-bomb beneath this catastrophic movie.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/war-films">War films</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/paul-giamatti">Paul Giamatti</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Wyatt Earp: where the west seems so wild the shootouts become tiresome
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/88560?ns=guardian&pageName=Wyatt+Earp%3A+where+the+west+seems+so+wild+the+shootouts+become+tiresome%3AArticle%3A1724742&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CCulture%2CKevin+Costner%2CIsabella+Rossellini%2CWesterns+%28Film+genre%29&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Mar-30&c8=1724742&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FKevin+Costner" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The west runs wild in Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp, but did we really need so much gunslinging action?</p><p><strong>Wyatt Earp (1994)</strong></p><p><strong>Director: Lawrence Kasdan</strong></p><p><strong>Entertainment grade: D?</strong></p><p><strong>History grade: B</strong></p><p>Wyatt Earp was a legendary wild west lawman. He is remembered particularly for his role in the 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral.</p><h2><strong>Romance</strong> </h2><p>Trainee lawyer Wyatt Earp (Kevin Costner) marries his sweetheart, Urilla Sutherland. Historians know almost nothing about her, so the lovey-dovey perfect marriage shown here is mostly made up. It is true that she died the following year, though the film shows her at a middling stage of pregnancy and claims typhoid fever as the cause. In real life, she was ill, but may have died in childbirth. Devastated, Earp sits on his front lawn and drinks most of a bottle of booze. Then he makes the rest into a Molotov cocktail and lobs it through his own window to burn down his lovey-dovey perfect house. The real Earp merely sold the land he and Urilla had purchased.</p><h2><strong>Crime</strong> </h2><p>Earp staggers off into a downward spiral of drinking, fighting and crime. While, again, this has been dressed up for the screen, it is true that he was arrested for stealing horses. He washes up in Wichita, Kansas, and switches sides to become an officer of the law. According to Earp himself, who provided material just before his death for his 1931 biography, Frontier Marshal, he got the job after apprehending notorious outlaw Ben Thompson. The film steers clear of that story, described by more recent Earp biographer Allen Barra as "the most colossal whopper in all of Frontier Marshal". That's some claim: there are a lot of colossal whoppers in Frontier Marshal. But the reality, according to a more reliable friend of Earp's, was that the Wichita marshal saw Earp in the street and asked him nicely to join up. That is hardly dramatic. So the film invents a shootout which has some of the features of the Thompson tale, and others from a separate incident in which Earp claimed to have arrested cattle baron Shanghai Pierce, and calls its fictional varmint Rowdy Dubbs. Of course, this attempt at a reality-legend compromise effectively creates a new legend.</p><h2><strong>Details</strong> </h2><p>A tremendous effort has been made with the production design of this film, and it is both gorgeous and accurate ? though in one 1878 scene there's a telegram that looks suspiciously like it has been written with a ballpoint pen (first invented in 1888; not commonly available in the United States until the Biro was marketed in 1945). Unfortunately, much less attention seems to have been paid to the film's pace. At times, it feels like a minute-by-minute reenactment of Earp's entire 80-year life, complete with such a profusion of shootouts that the gunslinging action eventually becomes dull.</p><h2><strong>People</strong> </h2><p>The excess of plot leaves little room for character. Costner's Earp is stolid and unentrancing: even <a href="http://libnews.lib.csusb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/wyatt-earp-in-1887.jpg" title="">Earp's whiskers</a> have been toned down. The film invents a motive for him ? he follows his father (Gene Hackman) as a patriarch, building the Earp family as he builds the west ? but that's neither accurate nor engaging. It's a cliche of Wyatt Earp movies that Doc Holliday (played here by Dennis Quaid) steals the show. He tries, but the film won't give him and his resplendent floozy, Big Nose Kate (Isabella Rossellini), enough screentime. More's the pity.</p><h2><strong>Violence</strong> </h2><p>In real life, the gunfight at the OK Corral is said to have lasted for just 30 seconds. The film takes that up to 42 seconds, for which it may be forgiven. What happened in that half minute or so, as well as the background to the incident, is disputed. Like many of the gunfights in Wyatt Earp, it's brilliantly staged, and the events around it have been thoughtfully researched. Had the film been an hour shorter, the audience might still have been interested enough by this point to care.</p><h2><strong>Verdict</strong> </h2><p>A handsome but turgid biopic which bites off more of the old west than it can chew.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/kevin-costner">Kevin Costner</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/isabella-rossellini">Isabella Rossellini</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/westerns">Westerns</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Black Death should be burned at the stake
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/87122?ns=guardian&pageName=Black+Death+should+be+burned+at+the+stake%3AArticle%3A1721311&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CHorror+%28Film+genre%29%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29%2CCulture&c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Mar-22&c8=1721311&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FHorror" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Walking corpses and mass witch-hunting in 1348 ... this uneven and silly film is plagued by historical inaccuracies</p><p><strong>Black Death (2010)</strong><br /><strong>Director:</strong> <strong>Christopher Smith</strong><br /><strong>Entertainment grade:</strong> <strong>C</strong><br /><strong>History grade: E+</strong></p><p>The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that struck Europe between 1347 and 1350.</p><h2>Disease</h2><p>The film begins in England in the winter of 1348. A victim is laid out on a table, blood pouring from his armpits. Gross, but accurate: plague buboes are usually found in the neck, groin or armpit. An early symptom of plague is painful armpits. If your armpits are hurting right now, bear in mind that in the 21st century a more common cause of armpit pain is reading the sentence: "An early symptom of plague is painful armpits." The film's characters are short on medical knowledge, and think God is punishing them for sin.</p><h2>Medicine</h2><p>A gang of mercenaries led by Ulric (Sean Bean) roam the countryside looking for sinners. They're all black leather trousers and greasy hair, and when they stand together in a windswept landscape they look just like a 1990s Depeche Mode video. Instead of serenading the sinners with moody electronica, though, they're going to kill them. Because what Europe needed during the Black Death was more dead people. Killing them quickly wouldn't be fun, so they bring along a portable torture cart. It's sort of like a malignant ice-cream van covered in spikes. Best not to ask for a Mr Whippy.</p><h2>Religion</h2><p>Ulric ropes in clueless monk Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) to lead him to the village of his secret girlfriend, Averill (Kimberley Nixon). The village has escaped the plague ? therefore, Ulric deduces, it must be a den of sorcery. The inhabitants appear to be cuddly, nature-worshipping pagans. If you've seen The Wicker Man, you'll guess what happens next: the pagans turn out not to be so cuddly. The difference is that The Wicker Man (the original 1973 version, not the egregious 2006 remake) is enthralling and imaginative, whereas Black Death is uneven and silly.</p><h2>Folklore</h2><p>Black Death approaches the height of its silliness when a witch fakes Averill's death with poison, then revives her as a zombie. There were stories of "revenants" ? walking corpses ? in medieval England, notably those told by William of Newburgh in his 12th century <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-five.asp#22" title="">Historia rerum Anglicarum</a>. But William was writing two centuries before the Black Death, and zombie revivification by magic is associated with west African Vodou ? which was not a common religion in 14th-century England. Not even among fashionable people who dressed like 1990s Depeche Mode.</p><h2>Witches</h2><p>One of the mercenaries tells horrid stories. "There's a village in the north that burned 128 witches in one night," he says. "By the time that night was through, they'd killed every woman in the village. By the end of that week, the men were shagging pigs." How quaint. It's unlikely, though, that 128 witches were burned anywhere in northern England one night in 1348. Witches were not systematically hunted in 14th-century England. Pagan practices were not considered anti-Christian, and indeed were commonly carried out by Christians. Except in cases of murder or treason, witchcraft was rarely taken seriously by English courts before the 16th century. Furthermore, the idea that witches were mostly female originated 138 years after this film is set, with the inquisitional treatise Malleus Maleficarum. So the premise of this movie ? that the Black Death produced a woman-murdering witch craze ? is cobblers.</p><h2>Vengeance</h2><p>Nevertheless, it's all been a bit much for Osmund. He ends up galloping round the country burning random women at the stake to make himself feel better. At this point the film changes tack from The Wicker Man to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/25/1" title="">Witchfinder General</a>, which is correctly set in the real English witch craze of the 1640s. In these closing scenes, Osmund's tonsure has grown back. That doesn't entirely convey that he would have had to wait almost 300 years to become a freelance witch-hunter.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>Turning the Black Death into an action movie sounds interesting, but ripping off other movies when you run out of plot suggests it's not interesting enough.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/horror">Horror</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Spielberg's Munich: earnestly searching for truths that refuse to be found
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/38632?ns=guardian&pageName=Spielberg%27s+Munich%3A+earnestly+searching+for+truths+that+refuse+to+be+fou%3AArticle%3A1718109&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CThriller+%28Film+genre%29%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CCulture%2CMossad+%28World+News%29%2CIsrael+%28News%29%2CPalestinian+territories+%28News%29%2CMiddle+East+and+North+Africa+%28News%29+MENA%2CSteven+Spielberg+%28Film%29%2CDaniel+Craig+%28Film%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CWorld+news&c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Mar-15&c8=1718109&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FThriller" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The contentious story of the Mossad cell searching for perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972 is stylish and well acted, but the subject is nearly impossible to scale</p><p><strong>Munich (2005)</strong></p><p><strong>Director: Steven Spielberg</strong></p><p><strong>Entertainment grade: C+</strong></p><p><strong>History grade: C+</strong></p><p>In 1972, the terrorist group <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_%28group%29" title="">Black September</a> kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes, officials and trainers at the Munich Olympics.</p><h2>Media</h2><p>In the early hours of 5 September 1972, eight armed men sneak into the Olympic village in Munich, break into the Israeli team's headquarters and take 11 hostages. These tense opening sequences are brilliantly and accurately done, intercutting TV reports with documentary footage and meticulous recreation. The Munich hostage drama, lasting 20 hours, was the first time a major terrorist attack became a live television event. This film captures that with great skill.</p><h2>Spies</h2><p>Israeli prime minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golda_Meir" title="">Golda Meir</a> (Lynn Cohen) orders the country's security agency, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mossad" title="">the Mossad</a>, to track down and kill the perpetrators of the attack. Agent Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) is given a deathlist of names. Kaufman is a fictional character, but approximates to Juval Aviv, who claims to have been a similarly-tasked agent in the 1970s. His claims informed the book Vengeance, by George Jonas, on which Munich is partly based. It <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/jan/17/israelandthepalestinians.world" title="">has been disputed</a>. Fictionalising the character to some extent allows Munich to dodge the thorny problem of Aviv's veracity.</p><h2>Politics</h2><p>"This is a very, very tough subject, and we've tried to approach it honestly and fairly," said director Steven Spielberg in an introductory talk. With a context as likely to upset people as the Israel-Palestinian situation, and a murky story full of contradictory and mostly unverifiable allegations, the film steers a careful political course towards something like balance. Even so, it has been beset by criticism that it is either pro- or anti-Israel. As usual, much of the fuss was made before its release by people who hadn't actually seen the film ? allegedly including Israel's then <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/olympics-massacre-munich--the-real-story-524011.html" title="">prime minister, Ariel Sharon</a>.</p><h2>People</h2><p>The movie's Avner is a family man, tormented by doubts about the moral and political value of his assassination work. His supporting cast of fellow agents has been conveniently designed to act out the big questions for the audience's benefit. So Carl (Ciaran Hinds) is the "good" one, arguing that the Israeli state hasn't always been perfect: "How do you think we got control of the land? By being nice?" Meanwhile, Steve (Daniel Craig) is the "bad" one, seething with sadistic revenge fantasies: "The only blood that matters to me is Jewish blood." Think Predator in a yarmulke. The reality is difficult to establish, but it probably wasn't like this. "In interviewing more than 50 veterans of the Mossad and military intelligence, I found not a single trace of remorse," <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/life_and_art/2005/12/the_history_behind_munich.html" title="">wrote Aaron J Klein</a>, author of a book about the operation. "On the contrary, the Mossad combatants thought they were doing holy work." This would, of course, have made for a much less sympathetic film.</p><h2>Mistakes</h2><p>Avner begins to doubt whether the names on his list were accurate. "I want you to give me proof that everyone we killed had a hand in [the Munich massacre]," he tells his case officer (Geoffrey Rush). It's incongruous in this context that Spielberg leaves out the most famous blunder. On 21 July 1973, Israeli gunmen shot and killed a Moroccan waiter called Ahmed Bouchiki in Lillehammer, Norway. They had mistaken him for Black September mastermind Ali Hassan Salameh. Six Israelis were arrested for their involvement. Five were convicted. In Jonas's book, the Lillehammer affair is attributed not to Aviv but to a different cell. Perhaps that is the reason it isn't here. Also, the film is already half an hour too long. It's a pity, though. This stark real-life example would have added weight to Munich's theme of the uncertainties of spycraft ? and to the story of Salameh (Mehdi Nebbou), who is a substantial character in the movie.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>A stylish and well-intentioned action thriller that tries to ask big questions, but is stumped for answers.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/thriller">Thriller</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mossad">The Mossad</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel">Israel</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestinian-territories">Palestinian territories</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast">Middle East and North Africa</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/stevenspielberg">Steven Spielberg</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/danielcraig">Daniel Craig</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism">Global terrorism</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
The Special Relationship: a truthful, if dull, tale of Tony and Bill
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/7272?ns=guardian&pageName=The+Special+Relationship%3A+a+truthful%2C+if+dull%2C+tale+of+Tony+and+Bill%3AArticle%3A1714631&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Bill+Clinton+%28News%29%2CTony+Blair%2CFilm%2CCulture&c5=Not+commercially+useful&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Mar-08&c8=1714631&c9=Article&c10=&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FBill+Clinton" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">This HBO/BBC co-production accurately depicts the good relationship between Clinton and Blair. It's just a shame that their congeniality makes for boring viewing</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117646/">The Special Relationship (2010)</a><br />Director: Richard Loncraine<br />Entertainment grade: C<br />History grade: A?</strong></p><p>Bill Clinton's second term as US president coincided approximately with Tony Blair's first term as British prime minister.</p><h2>Space</h2><p> It's 1996, and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, as ever), leader of the Labour party, meets President Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid). Blair is all nerves as he tiptoes into the Oval Office. He needn't be. "I believe you're going to win by a landslide," purrs Clinton. The president shows Blair one of the nick-nacks of state: a lump of moon rock. "Sometimes," he says, "when things get stressful around here, I shut that door, sit on that couch and hold that rock, and think: we all just got to chill a little". You may have been under the impression that Bill Clinton's preferred form of relaxation in the Oval Office took a rather different form. In real life, though, he does seem to have been partial to moon rock. Thirty years ago, a lump of the stuff brought back by the Apollo 17 mission, valued at $10m, went missing from the governor's office in Arkansas. In 2011, it was found by an archivist ? <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/ 9860278">among Bill Clinton's papers</a>. Whoops! Butterfingers.</p><h2>Dialogue</h2><p> Clinton wins his second term, and Blair his first. The president visits London for a second date. "I suppose you know the awful term 'special relationship'?" stammers Blair. Awful? The term was coined by Winston Churchill, who was certainly a superior orator to Blair. "Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples", <a href="http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1946/s460305a_e.htm">Churchill told an audience in 1946</a>. "This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States." Surely, in real life, both Blair and Clinton would know that.</p><h2>Drama</h2><p>Blair and Clinton's friendship grows against the backdrop of their big "legacy" events: the peace process in Northern Ireland, intervention in Kosovo. Historically, the film is well researched. Dramatically, it feels episodic, and keeps losing its narrative footing under fire from these big stories. From a cinematic point of view, it might actually have helped had it been less historically accurate. There would be more tension if the two men were trapped in some kind of intense, exclusive partnership, burgeoning with homoerotically suggestive undercurrents, on which their fates depended. Like Butch and Sundance. Frodo and Sam. Bert and Ernie. Instead, the film sticks to the facts ? but those don't amount to much.</p><h2>Scandal</h2><p> During the Kosovo crisis, that relationship sours. It's not helped by Clinton's notorious troubles with a former intern, Monica Lewinsky. "He's lied to everybody else," Blair snaps. "Why should he tell me the truth?" According to Blair's biographer Anthony Seldon, the Lewinsky affair did rattle Blair's faith in Clinton. On the other hand, Seldon also says "the relationship [between Blair and Clinton], for all its undoubted importance particularly early on, turns out to have amounted to less than is widely believed." Which again begs the question: why did anyone make a film about this? Early drafts of Peter Morgan's screenplay covered the Blair-George W Bush relationship as well. Ultimately, historians may find that bizarre and consequential partnership more intriguing.</p><h2>Elections</h2><p> Clinton visits Blair at Chequers after the end of his presidency, just as the Supreme Court <a href="http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore">decides Bush v Gore</a> in favour of Bush. Blair seems open to the new guy. "The question you need to ask yourself is: what business does a progressive centre-left politician from a tiny island in Europe have, making friends with folks like that?" asks Clinton. "But then again, I'm not sure whether you are a progressive centre-left politician any more. Or if you ever were." This sounds like a disillusioned former Labour voter speaking, not Clinton. Reportedly, Clinton's real words to Blair on this occasion were: "Don't screw up your election like Al did."</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>The Special Relationship is a smart, well-researched depiction of relations between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. There's just not much of a story to tell.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/clinton">Bill Clinton</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tonyblair">Tony Blair</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Luther doesn't try to reform church history
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/18006?ns=guardian&pageName=Luther+doesn%27t+try+to+reform+church+history%3AArticle%3A1710886&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CCulture%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CChristianity+%28News%29&c5=Not+commercially+useful&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Mar-01&c8=1710886&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FPeriod+and+historical" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Eric Till's take on the 16th century's angriest monk is historically respectable ? but suffers from rabid anti-Catholic bias</p><p><strong>Director: Eric Till<br />Entertainment grade: D<br />History grade: B?</strong></p><p>Martin Luther was a leading figure of the Protestant reformation in Europe in the early 16th century.</p><h2>Religion</h2><p>Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes) is a monk, but not a happy one. He spills communion wine, hurls himself into the mud, and shouts things like "I wish there were no God!" His superior, Johann von Staupitz (Bruno Ganz), sends him to Rome to cheer him up. There, he finds stalls selling religious nick-nacks, priests canoodling with strumpets, and Pope Julius II blinging around town in shiny gold armour. All of this would doubtless cheer most people up ? but not Luther. It makes him even grumpier. Julius II, known as the "Warrior Pope", did wear full armour (though gold armour is too soft for a battlefield, unless you're hoping to impress your enemies to death). The depiction of him here is influenced by one of the real Luther's favourite pamphlets, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Excluded_from_Heaven">Julius Excluded from Heaven</a>, probably written by Erasmus. Among other things, it mocked the Pope for his belching ? but mostly for his warmongering, corruption and enormous wealth.</p><h2>Science</h2><p>Next, Staupitz sends Luther to university in Wittenberg. He's bored in class. Instead of making notes on his vellum, he doodles a picture of a dinosaur. Wait, what? Luther was a radical, but not that radical. Anyway, dinosaur remains were first identified as such in the early 19th century. Hold on, I'm rewinding the film for another look? OK, it might be a dragon. In Luther's German New Testament of 1522, he published a highly controversial woodcut of a <a href="http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Das_Neue_Testament_deutsch.jpg">dragon wearing a papal tiara</a> which was supposed to represent the Beast from the Book of Revelation. All right, then. The film can have that.</p><h2>Controversy</h2><p>Luther preaches fiery sermons against church practices. "For a silver florin I freed my grandfather from purgatory," he says. "For twice that, I could have sprung Grandma and Uncle Marcus too." His audience is in hysterics. Hey, it's the 16th century. Life expectancy is roughly 30, everyone's covered in boils, and no one has told a joke for about a millennium. They must be desperate for a laugh. The Catholic church doesn't find him funny, though. The local prince, Elector Frederick of Saxony, is ordered to arrest him. "No, I'm not going to send my monk to Rome," says Frederick (played by Peter Ustinov, who camps it up to the max). "They'll only kill him. It's so irritating."</p><h2>Trials</h2><p>Instead, Luther is subjected to the Diet of Worms, which wasn't as disgusting as it sounds (a diet was an imperial assembly, and Worms is a place). Presiding is the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, looking like a lost contestant from RuPaul's Drag Race in his flamboyant silks, velvets and jewels, his hair cut in a sharp Vidal Sassoon bob. Glam, yes, but a dead ringer <a href="http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/image/journal/article?img_id=SZEPMUVESZETI.EN.119.kep&version=1.0">for the real thing</a>. The bizarre incident afterwards, in which Luther is fake-kidnapped by agents of his protector Frederick, is also real. </p><h2>Health</h2><p>As the film shows, Luther spent his subsequent exile translating the New Testament into German and having visions of the devil. The film shows him ranting rhetorically at thin air. In real life, it was weirder than that: Luther believed poltergeists were attacking his ceiling with walnuts, and once threw a dog out of a window because he thought it was Satan. He also suffered physically. "The Lord has struck me in the rear end with terrible pain," he complained to a friend. To another, more prosaically: "My arse has gone bad." This does at least explain why he was so grumpy. </p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>Luther scores respectably for the facts it chooses to show, but it's so pro-Luther and rabidly anti-Catholic that it's bound to upset a few people. Meanwhile, the history of the 16th century might have been different had someone come up with a cure for a bad arse.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/christianity">Christianity</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
Zodiac shows all the vital signs of historical accuracy
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/40316?ns=guardian&pageName=Zodiac+shows+all+the+vital+signs+of+historical+accuracy%3AArticle%3A1707907&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=David+Fincher%2CJake+Gyllenhaal%2CCrime+%28Film+genre%29%2CThriller+%28Film+genre%29%2CRobert+Downey+Jr+%28Film%29%2CFilm%2CCulture%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Feb-23&c8=1707907&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FDavid+Fincher" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">David Fincher's thriller about a serial killer who terrorised northern California in the late 60s and 70s manages to remain both faithful to history and gripping at the same time</p><p><strong>Zodiac (2007)</strong><br /><strong>Director: David Fincher</strong><br /><strong>Entertainment grade: A?</strong><br /><strong>History grade: A</strong></p><p>In the late 1960s and 1970s, a serial killer calling himself Zodiac terrorised northern California. Though he repeatedly corresponded with police, press and public, he was never caught.</p><h2>Murder</h2><p>A young couple park their car in a quiet spot after dark. Meanwhile, someone else is watching ? and waiting. It's a classic horror film set-up, except this really happened on 4 July 1969 in Vallejo, California. It was the second confirmed double shooting by the Zodiac killer (the female victim, Darlene Ferrin, was killed; her companion, Mike Magneau, survived). The gunman called police just after midnight to report his own crime, and also claimed to have killed "those kids last year". The switchboard operator noted he seemed to be speaking from a script. On 1 August, letters from the killer containing details about the murder and mysterious cryptograms were received by three newspapers in the area. It's all brilliantly recreated in the movie, with exquisite attention to detail.</p><h2>People</h2><p> One of the newspapers that receives a Zodiac letter is the San Francisco Chronicle, where reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) takes up the case. But it's the paper's cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), who really develops a fixation on it. Movies need heroes, and it's probably inevitable ? because Graysmith turned amateur sleuth and eventually wrote a bestselling book on the case ? that he becomes one here. Some Zodiac case enthusiasts won't like this. Graysmith's analysis is not universally accepted. What makes Zodiac unusual as a historical movie is that it doesn't try to pretend its hero is perfect. In fact, it deliberately includes a few of Graysmith's wackier moments, like trying to match the killings to lunar cycles, badgering witnesses, and getting carried away with his own fame. On the other hand, it has cast Jake Gyllenhaal, who is a fine actor but just can't help looking like an adorable puppy at all times. So he adorably becomes obsessed with a serial killer, and adorably neglects his wife and children, and adorably names suspects based on his own unorthodox investigations. Aww! So cute. He can't be a baddie.</p><h2>Crimes</h2><p>Though Zodiac claimed 37 killings, there were five canonical Zodiac murder victims and two survivors. The movie also brings in the possible additional Zodiac cases of Cheri Jo Bates, murdered in 1966, and Kathleen Johns, abducted along with her baby daughter in 1970, who managed to escape. Many directors would have been tempted to play up the Johns case for maximum horror-movie effect, perhaps showing her running through the woods while Zodiac chased her with a flashlight. Whether that happened or not is disputed. Initial police reports seem to disagree with Johns's later testimony. Director David Fincher charts a historically judicious course, and doesn't show her escape at all. He may have made Se7en, but with Zodiac he proves he's no sensationalist.</p><h2>Suspects</h2><p> Despite (or because of) its restraint, Zodiac remains utterly compelling. Few screenplays successfully weave into one narrative such a large ensemble of characters, as well as a series of events scattered over 23 years. This one does, and with style. Like Graysmith's book, it settles on one named suspect as the probable Zodiac. This is open to question: there were 2,500 suspects (including the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski) and at least half a dozen credible names. Even if you take issue with its theory, though, the film wins historical points for openly admitting that it's not watertight. As it says, all the evidence in favour of its suspect's candidacy was circumstantial. A handwriting test disqualified him (as did a DNA test in 2002, though that date is outside the purview of the movie). There was one piece of direct evidence ? but the movie finishes on it, so I'm not going to give it away.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>You may not agree with all of Zodiac's conclusions, but it makes its case credibly and allows space for disagreement. It's a perfect example of how a historical film can be accurate, balanced in opinion, and a gripping thriller ? all at the same time.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/david-fincher">David Fincher</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/jake-gyllenhaal">Jake Gyllenhaal</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/crime">Crime</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/thriller">Thriller</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/robertdowneyjr">Robert Downey Jr</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
A Dangerous Method whips up a fantasy with a female archetype
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/46515?ns=guardian&pageName=A+Dangerous+Method+whips+up+a+fantasy+with+a+female+archetype%3AArticle%3A1704685&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=David+Cronenberg+%28Film%29+%2CKeira+Knightley+%28Film%29%2CMichael+Fassbender%2CViggo+Mortensen%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CCulture%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29%2CFilm%2CCarl+Jung%2CSigmund+Freud+%28Author%29&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Feb-16&c8=1704685&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FDavid+Cronenberg" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">David Cronenberg's film about the pioneers of psychoanalysis digs deep into real events, but stretches the truth with its spanking scenes and Hollywood version of Sabina Spielrein</p><p><strong>A Dangerous Method (2012)</strong><br /><strong>Director: David Cronenberg</strong><br /><strong>Entertainment grade: B</strong><br /><strong>History grade: C</strong></p><p>Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were pioneers of psychoanalysis. In the 1970s and 1980s, papers discovered in Geneva revealed the extent to which Jung was involved with a patient, Sabina Spielrein, who herself became a noteworthy psychoanalyst.</p><h2>Mental health</h2><p>Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) is working at a clinic in Switzerland when a young Russian woman, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is brought in, screaming and writhing hysterically. Spielrein's problems are swiftly traced to sexual fixations on being beaten by her father and on defecation. Gross, but true. It's also true that, when she calmed down a bit, she turned out to have a brilliant analytical mind. Meanwhile, Jung meets his idol, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). The two hit it off, and discuss Spielrein's case. What Jung doesn't tell Freud is that he's having an affair with her. There's no doubt now about this once controversial historical claim: "you have vigorously taken my unconscious into your hands with your saucy letters", Jung wrote to Spielrein on 20 June 1908. Private meetings between the two were arranged in this and many similar notes, making it plausible that an unconscious wasn't the only thing vigorously taken in hand.</p><h2>Sex</h2><p>John Kerr, on whose biography of Freud, Jung and Spielrein this film is based, has noted of Jung's practice that "by investigating fantasies, and making the patients take them seriously and sexually, analysis raised the complexes to delusional intensity before dissolving them". It's perhaps on this basis that the film asserts Spielrein wanted Jung to beat her. It's certainly not on the basis of fact. While the investigation of fantasy probably was part of Jung and Spielrein's affair, by that time her fantasies took the form of obsession with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigurd" title="">Wagnerian hero Siegfried</a>. But the film wants to show you Keira Knightley's nipples popping out of a corset while Michael Fassbender whacks her bottom with a belt strap. There is no evidence that the two indulged in spanking or whipping. The letters between Spielrein and Jung say no such thing, and nor does her very intense diary. Still, they're dead and can't complain, and perhaps the producers hoped a few more of you might go and see their psychoanalysis movie if they bunged in some kinky stuff. To be fair, it's much more restrained than you might expect from director David Cronenberg. It's still made up, though.</p><h2>Relationships</h2><p>Jung tries to dump Spielrein. A Dangerous Method promptly turns her into the psychotic Alex from Fatal Attraction, dead set on either getting the hapless Jung back or ruining him. At least she stops short of boiling his bunny. Maybe because he doesn't have a bunny. The film shows correctly that Jung lied to Freud, portraying Spielrein as a fantasist when really he did have a long affair with her. But it doesn't get close to the reality that both he and Freud belittled her as a colleague throughout her career, while simultaneously incorporating ideas of hers such as the "death-instinct" into their own work. It's true that Spielrein had trouble accepting the breakup, but <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8718211/Jung-Love-Sabina-Spielrein-a-forgotten-pioneer-of-psychoanalysis.html" title="">Jung's real letters</a> to her make him sound like such a git that it's impossible to take his side. Unless, apparently, you're this film.</p><h2>Character</h2><p>Appropriately enough, A Dangerous Method develops a sort of personality disorder (the subject of Spielrein's study). The scenes with Freud and Jung are clever, unexpectedly funny and thoroughly enjoyable. The portrayal of their paternalistic and troubled relationship is spot on, both historically and cinematically. The scenes with Spielrein fall flat. Partly, this is because Mortensen and Fassbender play their parts brilliantly, with commendable subtlety and easy wit. While this isn't Knightley's worst performance, as an actor she is not in their class. But it's also the fault of a screenplay which allows Freud and Jung substance while fobbing Spielrein off with an archetype. Not even a Jungian archetype. Just a Hollywood one.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>A Dangerous Method is great on the guys, but maybe David Cronenberg needs to work on his underdeveloped <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus" title="">anima</a>.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/davidcronenberg">David Cronenberg</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/keiraknightley">Keira Knightley</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/michael-fassbender">Michael Fassbender</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/viggo-mortensen">Viggo Mortensen</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/carl-jung">Carl Jung</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/sigmundfreud">Sigmund Freud</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
The New World: a gap-year fantasy that doesn't trip up on talking raccoons
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/42222?ns=guardian&pageName=The+New+World%3A+a+gap-year+fantasy+that+doesn%27t+trip+up+on+talking+raccoo%3AArticle%3A1701486&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Film%2CCulture%2CTerrence+Malick%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Feb-09&c8=1701486&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FTerrence+Malick" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Terrence Malick's take on the Pocahontas tale is un-Disneyfied in every way</p><p><strong>Director: Terrence Malick</strong></p><p><strong>Entertainment grade: B</strong></p><p><strong>History grade: B+</strong></p><p>In 1607, 104 Englishmen and boys established Jamestown. It would become the first permanent English settlement in the territory that is now the United States.</p><h2>Colonialism</h2><p>Grudgingly, Captain Newport (Christopher Plummer) frees John Smith (Colin Farrell) on his arrival in Virginia. Smith was condemned to death during the voyage for being annoying. Oh, all right: formally, for concealing a mutiny. He's still annoying. Soon he's wandering moodily around the forests and fields, shirt open to show off his pecs, wearing feathers and beads like he's on some kind of gap year, and banging on about what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage" title="">noble savages</a> the local <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powhatan" title="">Powhatan</a> people are. "They are gentle, loving, faithful; lacking in all guile and trickery," he burbles. "They have no jealousy; no sense of possession." Fortunately, director Terrence Malick clearly realises this is patronising tosh. He juxtaposes Smith's airy-fairy voiceover with striking visuals of brutality, and with the Powhatan people's firm resolution (which Smith does not understand) to drive the Europeans into the sea. It's subtly done, but the film accurately sets Smith up as a fantasist. </p><h2>Violence</h2><p>Smith's most famous story, recounted in his 1624 book <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/lhbcb:@field(DOCID+@lit(lhbcb0262adiv12)):" title="">The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles</a>, is of being saved from execution by Pocahontas. Smith was captured by the Powhatan, and said they were "ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines," when "Pocahontas the King's dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death." Some historians think what Smith interpreted as an execution was actually a ritual of welcome. Others point out that there are no known Algonquin rituals of welcome which involve pretending to beat out someone's brains with a club. Everyone agrees that Smith's account is unreliable. The scene in The New World shows ritualistic behaviour of some sort going on, but it's all cut together as confusingly as possible. You're left unsure of what really happened. This is, in fact, the most historically accurate way they could have done it.</p><h2>Romance</h2><p>As Disney's Pocahontas and the song Fever tell us, "Captain Smith and Pocahontas had a very mad affair." Except they didn't, because she was 10 years old at the time. The New World ages her up to 14 (though actor Q'Orianka Kilcher looks like a fully-grown adult) and gives in to the myth. A historian could get cross, because it just isn't true. On the other hand, The New World is considerably more intelligent than the Disney's Pocahontas. She doesn't even have a cuddly raccoon sidekick or a talking tree. Malick uses the "mad affair" as an allegory for the takeover of America by the Europeans. While her fellow Powhatan people resist the Europeans fiercely, young Pocahontas is seduced because she does not realise the more experienced Smith is a scrub. And still really annoying.</p><h2>More romance</h2><p>Pocahontas marries another settler, John Rolfe (Christian Bale). Their relationship and journey to England is beautifully done, but it's also where The New World does verge on Disneyfication. Contemporary evidence hints that Mrs Rolfe may not have been quite so easily accepted and serenely happy as she seems in this movie. A letter from an acquaintance of the Rolfes says she was being dragged around by her husband "sore against her will". When she met John Smith at an inn in Brentford, she angrily upbraided him, saying "your Countriemen will lie much". Rolfe's own priority appears to have been to use his wife's image to sell tobacco, a branding opportunity he seized upon after her death from a lung illness at the age of just 20 or 22.</p><h2>Verdict</h2><p>Historians and film critics argue over whether or not The New World ends up perpetrating the idea of the noble savage itself. It does a bit. Even so, it's a far more thoughtful take on the legend than most fictionalisations, and gorgeous to watch.</p><p>? This article was amended on Friday 10 February. The original stated that Jamestown was the first European settlement in the territory that is now the United States. In fact that was St Augustine in Florida. This has been corrected. </p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/terrence-malick">Terrence Malick</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
J Edgar Hoover as a visionary vigilante? Don't believe this unreliable narrative
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/88015?ns=guardian&pageName=J+Edgar+Hoover+as+a+visionary+vigilante%3F+Don%27t+believe+this+unreliable+n%3AArticle%3A1698257&ch=Film&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Drama+%28Film+genre%29%2CPeriod+and+historical+%28Film+genre%29%2CCrime+%28Film+genre%29%2CClint+Eastwood+%28Film%29%2CLeonardo+DiCaprio+%28Film%29%2CCulture%2CUS+politics%2CWorld+news&c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Elections%2CFilm+Reviews&c6=Alex+von+Tunzelmann&c7=12-Feb-02&c8=1698257&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Film&c13=Reel+history+%28Film+series%29&c25=&c30=content&c42=Culture&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FFilm%2FDrama" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">DiCaprio's Hoover is presented as the misguided hero of his anti-communist FBI empire but the film omits vital episodes such as the McCarthy witch-hunts</p><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/142807/j-edgar" title=""><strong>J Edgar </strong></a><strong>(2011)</strong></p><p><strong>Director: </strong><a href="www.guardian.co.uk/film/clinteastwood" title=""><strong>Clint Eastwood</strong></a></p><p><strong>Entertainment grade: C+</strong></p><p><strong>History grade: C? </strong></p><p>J Edgar Hoover founded the FBI in 1935, and remained its director until his death in 1972.</p><h2>Politics </h2><p>"Communism is not a political party; it is a disease," hisses the elderly J Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio). It's in that context that the action flashes back to the red scare of 1919-20: a bomb explodes outside the Washington home of anti-radical crusader Mitchell Palmer. The film elides all American protest movements into communism and depicts Hoover as a visionary vigilante, standing almost alone against the reds. This is justifiable only on the grounds that the film is narrated by him. Hoover himself elided everything into communism, and believed himself to be a visionary vigilante. Ultimately, the film shows him to be an unreliable narrator ? but most of the audience, especially outside the US, will probably not know enough about Hoover or early 20th century American politics to spot how much of it is true. Answer: not much. In reality, Hoover's targets during the red scare went beyond communists and anarchists to include prominent liberals, unprominent liberals, federal judges, senators, anyone who belonged to any union, the American Civil Liberties Union in particular, and black nationalists including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey" title="">Marcus Garvey</a>. Ultimately, his investigation created files on more than 200,000 people and organisations.</p><h2>Crime</h2><p>Weirdly, J Edgar settles on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping" title="">Lindbergh kidnapping</a> of 1932 as the watershed event in Hoover's career. In real life, the Lindbergh case merits little more than a couple of pages in any Hoover biographies ? some pointing out that the FBI tried to steal credit for solving it from the Treasury Department. Instead of the truth, the film gives us what it thinks would be Hoover's own unhistorical narrative, putting him right at the centre of the investigation and subsequent trial. Unfortunately, this means it spends a huge chunk of its runtime on Lindbergh and none on episodes of considerably greater significance, most obviously McCarthyism. The name of Joseph McCarthy is mentioned only once, in passing. Documents available since the 1970s show that the muscle behind McCarthy's witch-hunt was always Hoover and his FBI.</p><h2>Opinions</h2><p>"The nitwit Kennedy child rang his baby buzzer again," Hoover complains to his secretary. "Perhaps he needs a fresh diaper." He is blackmailing attorney general Robert F Kennedy with secret sex tapes of his brother, President John F Kennedy. The movie is correct in saying that Hoover compiled extensive files on the sex lives of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Eleanor Roosevelt, all of whom he detested. It is also correct in implying that he managed to stay at the head of the FBI for so long simply by having so much dirt on everyone that no one could risk firing him ? though it could have made this point even more strongly.</p><h2>Romance </h2><p>Hoover's relationship with his deputy at the FBI, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), has been gossiped about since the 1940s. The two were rumoured to be in a homosexual relationship, and were certainly in an exclusively homosocial one: they always dined together, holidayed together and were even buried together. Whether or not the relationship was sexual was much debated by their associates. The film's version is as fair as any historian could hope for. Hoover and Tolson are shown in a heated but unconsummated bromance, Hoover held back by his mother's dire warnings against becoming a "daffodil". The notorious rumour that Hoover was a closet transvestite comes from just one unreliable source, and the film ? while nodding to it ? sensibly doesn't ham this up. Indeed, the onscreen relationship between Hoover and Tolson is both historically feasible and unexpectedly moving. It is spoiled only by the overcooked old-man latex prosthetics DiCaprio and Hammer wear in the 1970s scenes, which obstruct any attempt by either actor to perform sincerely, and make poor Hammer look and move like The Thing from The Fantastic Four.</p><h2>Verdict </h2><p>Though screenwriter Dustin Lance Black has clearly done solid research, it's the choice to show so much of Hoover's life from his own skewed perspective that drags J Edgar's historical grade down.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama">Drama</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/periodandhistorical">Period and historical</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/crime">Crime</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/clinteastwood">Clint Eastwood</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/leonardodicaprio">Leonardo DiCaprio</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-politics">US politics</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alexvontunzelmann">Alex von Tunzelmann</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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Wrist Watches On Ebay
There seem to be a lot of wrist watches on eBay that have starting bids of one penny. Sellers that start watches at one penny usually have high shipping prices to make their profits and lower their eBay fees.
Shipping charges for the wrist watches that start at a penny look like they average fifteen or sixteen dollars. I think that if I were looking to buy wrist watches, I would search eBay Stores to find one.
When I did a search for wrist watches in the eBay Stores, I found Greg’s Pocket Watches and Books. It was far and away the biggest eBay store for wrist watches.
Greg’s Pocket Watches and Books have more than six hundred wrist watches in his eBay store. The highest priced wrist watches are all $24.99. I know that he picked this price, instead of $25 because that is the line of demarcation for a higher listing fee.
My search for wrist watches in Greg’s Pocket Watches and Books store turned up something unusual. There seems to be an entire market devoted to advertising. Somehow, I’m not surprised because the almighty dollar and products are both things to worship.
The vintage advertising for wrist watches is really very interesting. I saw a cool magazine ad for sale that depicted a Captain Marvel wrist watch from 1949. Greg has this for sale at a price of $24.99.
I’m really not sure what you are supposed to do with ads for wrist watches. The only thing that I can imagine is that they are put into protective pages and inserted into an album. Maybe the advertisements get framed, I don’t know.
I went back to the original eBay Stores search page
and found a store named Bel-Mart that sells new wrist watches. The first few wrist watches on the list of items in his store are Russian. I do think that the oddest wrist watch in his store has a hammer and sickle for the hour and minute hands.
I also visited the eBay store that was last on the search result list for wrist watches. Tashi Tai Treasures 4 Pets or Women have brand new purple suede wrist watches. Nothing says classy like a purple suede wrist watch.
It is interesting the diversity of items in a store that sells wrist watches. Tashi Tai Treasures 4 Pets or Women sell some really strange things for dogs. The oddest thing that I saw for sale in their eBay store was the extra small pink and yellow ruffle sun dress for dogs.
Here are some more watches articles...
Rolex Watches On Ebay
When you do a search for Rolex watches in eBay Stores, forty one stores come up. The store with the most matching items for my Rolex watches search was Raffles Time.Raffles Time came Read more...
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Sports Watches On Ebay
Sports watches apparently can be either watches that feature a sports team or a watch that can be worn while playing sports. This is what I have gathered by searching for sports watches in Read more...
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Sports Watches On Ebay
Sports watches apparently can be either watches that feature a sports team or a watch that can be worn while playing sports. This is what I have gathered by searching for sports watches in Read more...
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