 |
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
||
Egypt Elections Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Books Interview Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Take two
By Mustafa Darwish
Thanks to a forward-thinking undertaking of Hollywood's, World War II beacons again in the glitter of the silver screen. Just prior to the winding century's ultimate departure, two huge war dramas were produced: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (set on the shores of Normandy in northern France); and Terence Malik's debut, The Thin Red Line (set on the Pacific island where the American army fought against a Japanese occupation army). Both films were nominated for the Academy best director award, but it was Spielberg who came out the winner, making his second Oscar (after Schindler's List). Both films were nominated for other Academy awards as well, some of which were gleaned by Saving Private Ryan.
Prior to these two productions, U-571 by Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown) was the last instance of this genre. Unlike that of Spielberg or Malik, Mostow's contribution is set in the ocean depths, however, where an American submarine is carrying out a top-secret World War II mission integral to Allied success: a Nazi secret communications transmitter happens to be inside a lone German submarine, and the Allies must overtake the transmitter, arrest the crew and destroy the submarine, so that Nazi headquarters would remain unaware and thus fail to alter the code in time. Submarines were the Allied navy's most powerful tool. But what the film ignores is that the operation was in fact carried out by the British navy; the American Submarine 571 could have had but a very minor part to play in the actual takeover of the Nazi submarine in question and the Allies' consequent feat of destroying a substantial part of the Nazi navy.
The same distortion of historical fact occurs clearly in Saving Private Ryan, which gives the American army exclusive credit for the Allies' victorious arrival on the Normandy shores, thus failing to acknowledge the British army's crucial role.
Saving Private Ryan
photo: Ayman Ibrahim
Coming from Hollywood, however, historical misinformation is hardly surprising; the world's greatest studios evidently became addicted to it at a very early stage. In fact the celebrated film-maker Cecil B. De Mille's two versions of The Ten Commandments of 1923 (silent) and 1956 alone are sufficient to demonstrate that point. De Mille's depiction of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, rather than drawing on historical fact or making even the slightest attempt at conveying the complexity of the ancient world, relies instead on a commonplace, partisan piece of folk wisdom, maintaining that Egyptians had neither power nor discernment and were merely tools in the hands of despotic pharaohs. Regarding Charlton Heston's role as a composite of Nefertari and Nefertiti, De Mille could care less that neither princess was contemporaneous with Moses. De Mille would have none of it, and did not bother to do his research.
More recently Roland Emerish (Independence Day) played a similar role in distorting history. Emerish's predilection for glorifying all that is American, even at the expense of historical fact, is well known. In his last film, The Patriot, he depicts the events of the war that broke out between the British army and North American settlers two centuries and a quarter ago. The Patriot overemphasises the crimes of the British, an obvious example being the scene in which the residents of an entire village, trapped in a church, are left to burn to death, a scene to which there is not the slightest reference in history books dealing with the American Revolution. It is worth noting, finally, that despite the fact that many British critics voiced complaints about the ways in which the film distorts history, no one in Britain has attempted to censor the movie on the grounds that it has tarnished Britain's reputation.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
