22 - 28 March 2001
Issue No.526
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 March 2001 Issue No.526 |
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Plain talk
I have just read an interesting article with the most intriguing title: "Is this the Past as we know it?" The topic, not surprisingly, concerned TV period dramas and films dealing with historical figures and events. The furor surrounding The Patriot -- a Hollywood hit about the American War of Independence, which I must confess I haven't seen -- centres on the film's portrayal of British colonials in the New World. The article was written by Richard J Evans, a modern history professor at Cambridge. Evans is the author of a book, In Defence of History, a historian and an expert on the subject under review. He wrote the article to demonstrate how recent media accounts of British figures and events "did not happen that way at all."
Evans refers to a number of films, pointing out many (purposeful?) misinterpretations of historical facts. Among the manipulative tactics he reviews: the writer or the filmmaker might invent characters that have no basis in reality; they might imbue their versions of historical figures with (positive or negative) qualities that could not in any sense be attributed to the figures in question; and they might change the order of events, disrupting causal chains that would otherwise alter the historian's grasp of the plot. Even if the artist has the right to depart from factual information, according to Bertrand Russel, history should still be controlled by "the attempt to be true to fact" -- for as long as it presents itself as history, at least. Yet Hollywood has evidently, effortlessly bypassed this imperative.
In Gladiator, which failed to receive an Oscar, Emperor Commodus dies fighting in the arena, whereas historical evidence suggests that he was poisoned by his mistress. In Enemy at the Gates, a film that focuses on the Eastern Front in World War II, the Enigma machine is captured by the Americans; actually it was captured by the British. "Do people want to see these films actually taken as truth about the past, or in a slightly more up front admission of their distance from historical reality?" Evans asks. "Is it enough to re-create the feel of past epochs of human history, regardless of historical accuracy? Can telling a good story," the professor goes on, "win over historical facts?"
This article made me go back to a number of historical films, both Egyptian and foreign, and question their factual authority. Does Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra bear even the slightest resemblance to the renowned queen? The movie version of Nelson's love for Emma Hamilton, which brought tears to my eyes: it was shocking to find out, in David Constanine's subsequently published book, Fields of Fire: A Life of Sir William Hamilton, that the two heroes' illicit affair was to all intents and purposes a "menage a trois". Though they often solicit the help of professional historians, Evans points out, filmmakers seldom listen to their advice. One historian attempted to correct a few historical mistakes in a TV episode Evens refers to: not only did she fail, she was told that her name -- the film's only claim to historical authority -- would not be removed from the credits. The film came across as historically accurate despite its faults.
On the Egyptian front, one must conclude, we suffer from the same predicament. Popular TV dramas like Layali Al-Hilmiya, Bawabat, Al-Halawani and Umm-Kulthoum, for three obvious examples, contain glaring historical mistakes. But this has not stopped people from enjoying them and in doing so condoning the practice of factual sleight of hand. People everywhere seem to accept the accuracy of what they see as given, even if the historical issues at stake appear to concern them. Yet it is ultimately the story, and how it is told, that grips the audience regardless of the work's relation to reality. Such, one might content, is fiction's paradoxical truth.
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