Friday Free-for-All | September 07, 2018 | AskHistorians Archive Observer

Well I've made a list of about 50 of my personal favorite historical films regardless of accuracy and I've tried to comment a little bit on the accuracy and plot to the best of my knowledge.

EUROPE:

1050s:

Macbeth (2015): One of my favorite versions of the Shakespeare play. The battles in this are a bit stylized but most of it seems believable. It has great acting and a very dark and evocative setting.

1200s:

Pilgrimage (2017): Set in medieval Ireland in 1209 I think this is a really unique and gritty movie that feels very realistic. It's actually in English except for some Norman knights who speak French with subtitles, but oddly the first time I watched it I came away thinking the majority of the movie had been in Gaelic. I feel like that says something.

1290s:

Braveheart (1995): Yes, I know people love to complain about the historical inaccuracy of this film and especially the costumes, but I think it does follow the overall life of William Wallace better than a lot of people give it credit for if you can overlook some things that are frankly not very relevant (like the lack of a bridge in an eponymous battle; they at least did get right that the Scots won that battle partly by repelling the English heavy cavalry charge with schiltrons). I'd say most historical movies and TV shows set before the modern era play looser with the facts.

1340s:

Black Death (2010): Starring the legendary Sean Bean in an awesome role as a hellbent inquisitor in the midst of the Black Death in England who is sent to investigate an isolated village where there are reports of necromancy and which has reportedly not been infected with the plague. It's such a shame that this movie only has 70% on Rotten Tomatoes and less than 50% of audiences liked it. It's definitely not your typical medieval action adventure movie and it really took me completely by surprise in the way it defied all the tropes and expectations I had for it. It's R-rated and hardly even seems like an adventure film. It has the gritty, realistic feel you would expect from a modern crime thriller. Without giving away too much it has some similarities to The Wicker Man.

1350s:

Flukt (2012): Set in Norway during the Black Death, I think this is just a really cool action chase film about a girl who has to escape from a gang of psychopathic bandits amidst the chaos and lawlessness that followed the plague.

1380s:

The Reckoning (2003): Starring Willem Dafoe and set in England the year before the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 this is a dark and disturbing medieval murder mystery and a very unique and interesting film.

1410s:

Henry V (1989): Obviously set during the Hundred Years' War about the Battle of Agincourt, I think Kenneth Branagh's is by far the best version of Henry V and it has a very gritty feel to it with everyone covered in mud during the battle as I think they should be.

1570s:

Kenau (2014): A Dutch film about the woman Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer who helped defend the city of Haarlem during its siege by the Spanish in 1572. According to legend she led a group of women who armed themselves and helped defend the city itself which probably isn't quite true as there are no contemporary accounts of it, but it grew into a national legend over the following decades and centuries. In actuality Kenau along with other women probably just helped carry dirt to built earthworks during the siege. The movie goes with something closer to the legend but does it in a surprisingly believable way and overall I think this is a really good movie.

1750s-1770s:

Barry Lyndon (1975): Basically the story of the rise and fall of an emotionless, sociopathic man in the 18th century who goes through life recklessly trying different things but always behaving like a coward and exploiting people, loosely based on some real Irish soldiers of fortune and rakes like Tiger Roche and Andrew Robinson Stoney. Dueling is a motif in the film and it begins and ends with a duel. Really though I'd say the movie is only half about the main character who doesn't have a lot of depth to him emotionally or otherwise. It's directed by Stanley Kubrick has a very sterile, unique feel to it but I think it's very interesting.

1780s-1790s:

Amadeus (1984): Based on the relationship between Mozart and his envious fellow composer Antonio Salieri. Very fictionalized but a great and hilarious movie nonetheless.

1870s:

The Dark Valley (2014): Set in a small village in the Austrian alps in the 1870s, about a mysterious man who arrives from America although he has a German name and speaks German. It is slowly revealed that things are not all as they should be in this village to say the least, but I won't say anymore. It's one of the most suspenseful movies I've ever watched but I haven't been able to find whether its story is based on any actual historical incident.

1920s:

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006): About the Irish Civil War in the 1920s. It's a gritty and violent film that I don't think romanticizes either side.

1940s:

Saving Private Ryan (1998): No need to explain the plot of this. Great war movie.

1960s:

The Magdalene Sisters (2002): About the Magdalene Laundries/Asylums that were run by Catholic nuns in Ireland who forcibly took in young women who were said to be "fallen" either through getting pregnant out of wedlock or being raped or even being too flirtatious and whose families put them there. It was run like a prison and the nuns horribly tortured and abused them for decades, even worse than is shown in the film. It's not just torture porn though. I think there is actually a lot of depth to the characters and it's a good movie.

AMERICAS:

1500s:

Apocalypto (2006): Filmed with entirely native actors in the original Mayan language, I think this is just a really incredible and unique film that there is literally nothing else like. It might not be 100% historically accurate and apparently it combines aspects of Mayan and Aztec civilization and exaggerates some aspects of it, but I certainly don't think that's anything movies about other civilizations don't do.

1560s:

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972): About an ill-fated expedition down the Amazon River in 1560-61 ostensibly to find El Dorado, but which quickly descends into a murderous hell voyage as the psychopathic conquistador Lope de Aguirre took control and eventually decided to lead the remaining members in an impossible revolt against the Spanish empire in the Americas. It was filmed entirely on location in the Amazon and the direction of Werner Herzog and the German actor Klaus Kinski who star as Aguirre make it really incredible. It also does a pretty decent job of following the historical facts of the real expedition, although it does combine some aspects of the 1560-61 expedition with an earlier 1542 expedition down the Amazon by Francisco Orellana.

1680s:

Captain Blood (1935): Based on Rafael Sabatini's highly romanticized 1922 novel which was loosely based on the career of the buccaneer Henry Morgan and an English doctor named Henry Pitman who was sold as an indentured servant to Barbados in 1685 after being accused of complicity in the Monmouth Rebellion against James II and published an account of his escape. The movie is not realistic but it stars Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and Olivia de Havilland in basically the original swashbuckler film and I think it's really fun. Great sword fighting.

Early 18th century

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest (2003/2006): I think these are really great action adventure comedy films up there with Indiana Jones, but they're obviously not "historical" except in the loosest sense... undead pirates being the tip of the iceberg. The films bear so little resemblance to history I can't even narrow down exactly what decade they're supposed to be set in but they're not even trying to be historically accurate and it doesn't ruin it at all for me.

1750s:

Treasure Island (1990): I think this is a really overlooked version which stars none other than Charlton Heston as Long John Silver, a young Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins and Christopher Lee in a small role. The book and movie are supposed to be set about thirty years after the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy" that ended in the 1720s and I think neither the book or movie are very "unrealistic" even if the plot is a little implausible. Even with that said, real pirates actually did sometimes bury treasure in secret places with the intention of coming back. The acting is obviously great in this and I think the accents and characters all seem pretty realistic. I haven't met a real pirate but I feel like this is the closest movie depiction of what they were actually like.

Seen this runestone? No one living has. The stone in question is U51, once located near Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm, Sweden. The 17th century drawing is from Upplands Runinskrifter (Part of the 'Runic inscriptions of Sweden' series which is free online) According to that, it was last recorded being seen in 1851, at which point it'd toppled over and was being used as a makeshift bridge over a ditch next to the avenue of trees next to Drottningholm Kungsgård. Using the National Survey's archive of historical maps we find a map from 1811 which features it and confirms the location, which would be about here on Google Maps. Needless to say, the stone's not there. (unless buried)

Alas, we find this article, in a digitized copy of the journal of the local historical association from 1872 which states very curtly that he stone was "Blasted apart, according to the inspektor at Drottningholm". Unfortunately it gives no further details. But at least that's a terminus ante quem for the disappearance.

As you can tell, nothing's been built on that precise location, but the buildings across the street are not there in current form in the 1811 map. Wikipedia tells me the red wooden buildings were built in 1914. The light pinkish stable buildings (seen here) are older, and built out of stuccoed brick. However it turns out those stables were built for the Royal Guard's dragoons, and therefore the original plans are online in the War Archives. And they date from .. 1851 - the very same year as the last time the stone is recorded! In the same archival volume we also found a projected list of required building materials (and their costs), including "570 cubic alns of blasted greystone" for the foundation. Now if you're a manual laborer in the early 1850s and need some rock, why wouldn't you grab that big slab in the ditch only 50 meters away? Odds are they didn't even know it was a runestone, as they can be very difficult to spot when not filled in, especially if the surface is worn. They're a component of many walls (like this).

I poked around outside there last summer, but you can't really see much due to the stucco. Maybe I'll ask the palace Bailiff if I can look indoors, they're empty at the moment (the demand for stables not being what it was in 1851). But I thought I'd share it anyway, because it does illustrate what's possible these days with all the digitized information online. You can do real historic research easily and at no cost. This is what we invented the web for, kids!