LITTLE ROCK — The King’s Speech might take home the Oscar for Best Picture tonight, but judging from the criticisms it’s receiving, it won’t win any awards for historical accuracy.
King George VI didn’t really stammer that badly, we’ve been told. Critics have also pointed out that Winston Churchill didn’t actually think it necessary for the king’s brother, Edward VIII, to abdicate the throne before marrying a divorced woman.
The criticisms are right-but they nitpick a good story to death.
The Oscar voters have often favored historically faulty movies, with the inaccuracies ranging from minor details to outright fiction. In Patton, 1970’s Best Picture, Axis and Allied powers fought each other in the same kind of tanks-American ones. Braveheart in 1995 put Mel Gibson in a kilt, even though his character, William Wallace, was a lowland Scot (and only highlanders wore kilts). Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, honored by the Academy in 2000, killed the Emperor Commodus in the gladiatorial arena, when in fact he was offed in his bath.
And, though it will break the hearts of Julie Andrews fans, the real Maria von Trapp of 1965’s Best Picture winner, The Sound of Music, freely admitted that she was not in love with Georg von Trapp when she married him-a full 11 years before the Nazi invasion of Austria.
The 1981 Best Picture winner, Chariots of Fire, really asked for trouble. Presented as a true story, the film nonetheless took many liberties to create a dramatic arc for the track-and-fieldcompetition in the 1924 Olympics. For example, England’s Harold Abrahams, a Jew, in reality ran first in the 100 meters and won a gold medal, then came in last in the 200-meter race. The movie had him lose the 200 meters first, then win redemption in the 100-meter contest, capturing the gold and striking a blow against anti-Semitism.
Of course, there are some things filmmakers know they can’t get away with. Titanic, which won Best Picture in 1997, had to sink the ship.
But history-whether in books, lectures or movies-is always someone’s story. Every movie based on a true story has condensed, simplified, telescoped, created explanatory characters, eliminated facts, introduced political significance, altered timelines and omitted details. It’s part of the craft.
Audiences would do well to remember Lawrence of Arabia (Best Picture, 1962). The movie absolved itself of responsibility to history by recycling an old disclaimer near the end of its long credit scroll:
“This story is based on actual events, however, some of the characters and incidents portrayed and the names herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person, living or dead, or any actual eventis entirely coincidental and unintentional.”
That’s enough historical accuracy for me.
Jeanine Basinger is the Corwin-Fuller professor of film studies at Wesleyan University and the author of American Cinema: One Hundred Years of Filmmaking and The Star Machine.
Editorial, Pages 74 on 02/27/2011