How do you guys feel about historical accuracy in films?

reposting from the /tv/ thread

My friend served as a historical consultant for an episode of a historical tv show a couple of years ago. They sent her a script about an episode involving a bunch of Catholics holding witch trial and asked her if what they had written more or less lined up with what would've happened historically.

She told them the last witch trial in that particular country happened about 150 years before the episode was set and that every single one on legal record had been carried out by Protestants, and that they'd also got the proceedings of the trial and the method of execution wrong.

I think after her advice, all that they changed was adding a line that said something like "this hasn't happened in these parts for a very long time".

Historical accuracy is an uphill battle, no point in trying to campaign for it, it's just not something viewers or producers care about.

your friend doesn't know what shes talking about. Multiple popes declared public witch hunts and innocentious 1

>reading comprehension

user she meant in that specific country.

At least they bothered to pay lip service.

i think that's called sarcasm, not bait

I'm glad a historical film is being made at all and enjoy it as a film

sure you do faggot

I always wondered how historically accurate is Kingdom of Heaven (not concerning the story and characters of course)
Seems a lot of people here have strong feelings about it and i can't seem to figure out whether they are negative or positive

You ain't baiting me, user. Here's your (You).

see, this is exactly what i mean, i can't get an opinion about it

The best way is to have history nerds in the producers/directors chair. I've seen comics with 'historical consultants' and it was still 60% fantasy.

It is the worst sort of historical inaccuracy because it tries to play itself off as being historically accurate while being horrendously straight up wrong about a lot of things. I don't care if some blockbuster or fantasy romp is historically inaccurate, who gives a fuck really, but shit like KoH boils my blood because it's basically propaganda.

even the directors cut?

Outside of Alien and Blade Runner, Ridley Scott is probably the worst thing to ever happen to cinema. Literally a Michael Bay tier director who's still considered a good filmmaker just because he made Alien (a film he didn't even like himself).

Apparently there were a lot of secular humanists in 12th century Jerusalem

Historical Accuracy = Immersion

Realism provides immersion, HA provides deeper nuance and characterization, thus the public become not only immersed; but invested in the world/lore.

The extra layer of realism that HA provides makes the movie not only good, but believable.

Waterloo is an excellent example.

>Historical Accuracy = Immersion
Exactly this.

user here.

Oh really? Have you seen The Duelists by the same Ridley Scott?

hey man legend was cool

If you don't know any of the actual history as long as there aren't fucking cellphones the accuracy doesn't affect the immersion

early seasons are okay, like it's cool to see Ragnar doing his shit and raiding, but then we get to later seasons with an entire cult of woman ninja warriors in Viking Denmark and I just can't help but want to complain about sjw's

>literally first episode
>supposed to be in Denmark
>fuckhuge mountains everywhere
Didn't watch any further.

see I got past that bc I thought they were supposed to be in Norway, and this was before I even knew much about that period in history

Thelma and Louise are my first loves.

I have no idea what that was supposed to convey, but yes, I do.

More to the point, if the audience doesn't know if its HA or not, the integrity and nuance of realism in film is well translated by facts.

Kingdom of Heaven is an example of a movie that could have been better with HA as a backbone to the script.

To people who recognize HA in a film, like us /h/istorians, it's not only a treat; but piece of art.

Having cellphones is but one factor that breaks realism. HA in movies is often overlooked simply because this concept is not respected or recognized by movie makers.

There's a reason why:
The Duelists > The Three Musketeers
Barry Lyndon > The Patriot

These directors understand that implementing HA makes stories come to life!!

I think HBO's Rome is the most historically accurate thing to hit television, even if they do make some really insignificant mistakes here and there, and make some changes to the story to make the plot more interesting. They were able to bring the setting to life, the way the characters spoke, the costumes, the decor, the obscene paintings on the walls and so on, all of that tied together by great writing.

But they managed to do that because they had all of the information necessary to make it happen, when you have written records that go in detail about every aspect of that setting you don't really need to fill gaps. But if they had to make a show set in 8th century Romania it would be much harder to represent everything since there's so little known about it. And when they have to write the gaps they get overconfident and replace what they know is historically accurate with fan pandering bullshit.

Are there any kind of like Band of Brothers style show or movie with Roman legions?

HBO's Rome is the closest thing

The Duelists had some pretty legit combat scenes, sans unrealistic Hollywood embellishment.

>very historically accurate
>it's a boring shitfest