Spartacus, Goran Visnjic, historical research and the hand that feeds.
I watched the TV version of Spartacus the other night. Ancient Rome and Greece are my brain's research playground. Which means just about any movie set in that time period is going to make me grind my teeth from stereotypes and historical inaccuracy, and I went into this movie expecting to maintain my temper by virtue of 2.5 hours of shirtless Goran Visnjic alone. I was pleasantly surprised. This movie actually nailed the timeline of the slave revolt accurately. I'd have to go read Howard Fast's novel to find out who the kudos go to, but I was strongly impressed by how well it was put together. Knowing the actual history of the revolt, I was sitting there skeptically saying, "If they maintain accuracy, (event) will be the next thing that happens", expecting to be disappointed and laughing in delight when they nailed it every single time.
Granted, it's a love story with a female lead character that made me do a headtilt - the real Spartacus was sold into slavery with his wife, who was a prophetess and priestess of Dionysus, and much more interesting a character than the one in the movie. I loved counting the Plutarch quotes. I had a brilliant time with this.
As much as historical inaccuracies in movies cause me to froth at the mouth, I'm glad there's been a resurgence in history-based movie popularity in the last few years. Even bad, horribly inaccurate, anachronistic, fictional movies can inspire people to go look up the real story, do some research into the story behind the movie. Real history is stronger fuel for the imagination and it only takes one person saying "I want to write this story" to bring it to life for hundreds or thousands of other people.
I so much prefer stories that fictionalize a real bit of history than stories that fictionalize another story. Example: Alexandre Dumas, pere - Three Muskateers or Man in the Iron Mask. Anyone who's read the book would barely recognize the story in the movies, because every one since the 30's has been based off the prior movies and not off the actual story at all. But the stories are what make people go read the books. That, I believe, will in turn eventually result in someone who wants to tell the story correctly.
Nice how that works.
Granted, it's a love story with a female lead character that made me do a headtilt - the real Spartacus was sold into slavery with his wife, who was a prophetess and priestess of Dionysus, and much more interesting a character than the one in the movie. I loved counting the Plutarch quotes. I had a brilliant time with this.
As much as historical inaccuracies in movies cause me to froth at the mouth, I'm glad there's been a resurgence in history-based movie popularity in the last few years. Even bad, horribly inaccurate, anachronistic, fictional movies can inspire people to go look up the real story, do some research into the story behind the movie. Real history is stronger fuel for the imagination and it only takes one person saying "I want to write this story" to bring it to life for hundreds or thousands of other people.
I so much prefer stories that fictionalize a real bit of history than stories that fictionalize another story. Example: Alexandre Dumas, pere - Three Muskateers or Man in the Iron Mask. Anyone who's read the book would barely recognize the story in the movies, because every one since the 30's has been based off the prior movies and not off the actual story at all. But the stories are what make people go read the books. That, I believe, will in turn eventually result in someone who wants to tell the story correctly.
Nice how that works.
posted by Peregrine at 2:30 PM
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