I’m not the only one
BBC November 20th, 2007
Following on from yesterday’s discussion, here are some of the feedback responses that the BBC did allow through the censorship:
Ah, but you are missing a vital part of the puzzle of ‘historical’ films. The problem now is that people take them as fact. They do not research, study and examine the evidence of the perios, they believe the film and consign it to memory. Your lovely illustration from Kenneth Baker: “And in the words of Henry V at Agincourt – ‘He that hath no stomach for the fight, let him depart’” is key. You say that it is obvious that Henry V never said these words. Of course it is, to you or I. But to the millions of not so educated persons. I think not.
Richard Holloway, London
This one is from a fellow historian:
Shocked and surprised is my reaction. I am a historian writing a biography at the present time and uncovering mistake after mistake, where other historians have copied one another without checking the source or applying that most basic of instincts, common sense. Now I find that directors and scriptwriters can follow in the dreaded Shakespeare’s footsteps and throw facts to the wind to make a good story. Much damage has been done over the years to the reputations of many fine people by this attitude, especially from Shakespeare, and now it is being advocated as a Good Thing by another writer.May we please, please, return to the FACTS and build a story around them! There is hardly a period of history that does not have first rate action in it, without recourse to throwing the facts out of the window. The current Tudor series is a case in point, starting with a black haired Henry when he was blonde … and that’s without the endless stupid errors of radiators and the like. If this is the attitude of script writers, why am I bothering to check the minutest detail of the movements of the Earl of which I write, to get it right for others to use? But then again, what novel has not been wrecked by translating it to the so-called ’silver screen’ with its characters maligned and the story bent out of all recognition? Why then should I think they would not do the same with history. I despair. Literally.
Dorothy Davies, Ryde, IOW UK
A short response:
Propaganda – History is thy name!!
Stephen
And feedback to Dorothy Davies:
I’m in much the same situation as Dorothy Davies and agree with her. There is surely an ethical issue here, involving fictional treatments of real people, past or present. Peddling propaganda and myth at the expense of accuracy is as dangerous (politically and culturally) as it is dishonest and dishonourable.
Dr M M Gilchrist, Glasgow, Scotland