Most of What Follows Is True
One of my graduate courses last spring was a seminar in what’s currently called “public history,” which pretty much covers any historically-grounded work that’s produced by and/or intended for an audience consisting of people outside the academic historical community. Museums, monuments, and commemorative memorabilia all fall into this category; so do many forms of historically-derived entertainment, from docudramas and documentary programs like Biography, Behind the Music, or Ken Burns’ documentary films to memoirs and biographies to films and programs that claim to be ‘based on a true story.’ It’s a very wide and varied field, and while the labeling of it as ‘public history’ is something of an attempt to maintain the perceived purity of the academic discipline, it’s also a recognition that these works are more accessible to the public than many of the texts and articles that attract the attention of ‘professional’ scholars. One of the challenging questions we grappled with throughout the term was how far one can go in trying to attract the public to a historical work while still maintaining the work’s integrity. This was very clear on the first night of the seminar, as we discussed what an ‘ideal’ public history project would look like, and whether any of the historically-inspired blockbuster motion pictures had a place in serious public history.
I was seriously torn on the issue. We’ve discussed the presence of cultural myths several times on the forums; I believe that these distorted views of our own history are one of the most serious problems we face in society, because they form the bedrock of many people’s resistance to the social changes needed to address our problems. (The myth of rugged individualism, for example, is one of the reasons why reforming our school funding systems is such a challenge.) Any form of popular entertainment that perpetuates these myths — such as the historical exhibits at the Disney theme parks described in Mickey Mouse History — has something to answer for, in my opinion. I think shows like Behind the Music and Biography can be dangerous in the way they transform history into entertainment by playing up certain emotional themes and restructuring a person’s life into a relatively brief narrative; the fact that many of these programs occur with the cooperation of their subjects is another cause for skepticism.
Furthermore, I am worried that many people will see that a film is based on true events and assume — consciously or unconsciously — that what they see on the screen is what “really happened.” I love Apollo 13, for example, but the filmmakers apparently chose to play up the tension between Bill Paxon’s and Kevin Bacon’s character in a way that did not really reflect what happened during the mission. Oskar Schindler’s breakdown at the end of Schindler’s List was also a Hollywood creation, and the writers chose to create composite characters for the sake of the storyline. Dramatically, I think the former worked much better than the latter. But both films are compromised as historical works.
I find this to be less of a problem for Apollo 13 than for Schindler’s List; the former movie did not promote itself as a significant historical or cultural work while the latter did. Apollo 13 said, “Hey, we’re entertainment, but if we inspire you to go read Jim Lovell’s book or watch HBO’s From Earth to the Moon series or learn more about space exploration, so much the better.” Schindler’s List said, “We are going to tell the story of the Holocaust to an audience that hasn’t heard enough about it.” Once a filmmaker does that, he assumes a higher responsibility to be true to the source material, and I do not believe Steven Spielberg upheld that responsibility when he made Schindler. (While I haven’t seen it yet, from my research it seems he has done a better job with Saving Private Ryan, working with historian Steven Ambrose to keep the overall historical details straight while making an obviously fictional story the film’s dramatic lynchpin.)
With all these reservations, I couldn’t help but argue that a well-done blockbuster crowd-pleaser of a film might be the best way to launch a public history project. Schindler’s List got people talking about the Holocaust; Saving Private Ryan helped fuel the interest in World War II that has brought the WWII memorial project to the forefront of popular attention. Glory called attention to the efforts of black soldiers in the Civil War, and the professor of my Civil War seminar (a leading expert in Civil War history) praised and referred to the film throughout the seminar. These are good things; all the historical research and understanding in the world isn’t going to do any good if no one wants to absorb it, and films like this capture an audience’s attention like nothing else can. The problem is that rather than a beginning, these works tend to be ends in themselves. In an ideal world, an audience would file out of the theater after seeing Glory and check a book like Battle Cry of Freedom out of the library, but that is probably unrealistic.
I wonder, however, if it may be somewhat more realistic to demand of filmmakers who want to graft emotional resonance to their narratives through references to real events that they provide audiences with the resources to properly interpret those narratives. What if everyone who bought a ticket to Pearl Harbor were given a booklet that explained some of the changes made to historical events for dramatic purposes, perhaps with an essay or two written for a general audience by a leading historian and a bibliography of other respected sources? What if the giant theater displays that promoted the movie included actual photos or eyewitness testimony of the event? There’s no way to compel any filmmaker to do this, of course, but I wonder if a letter writing campaign might not convince a savvy marketer that an approach like this would generate some positive press and earn some community goodwill. I suppose stranger things have happened.
(By the way, the title of this article is taken from William Goldman’s script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which is based on the real lives of two famous Western outlaws but which takes major liberties with the source material. The phrase appears at the very beginning of the film, and tells the audience what to expect and sets the tone of the story to follow. Now, that’s good writing.)
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.