On Art Hill in St. Louis, the hill ascending to the art museum, a flag was planted for every victim of the attacks on 9-11. Boy, it was moving.Facts and Fiction
We have several friends that allow tiny things to bother them in movies. Once in a while it happens to me, something seems anachronistic or wrong for an era and I am taken out of the story while I mull it over. For instance, in MONEY BALL Billy Beane asks his assistant to text him the game details. Did texting take place in 2001? ( I guess it did but I wasn't aware of it yet). That bothered me for a long time. Also the eye glasses seemed wrong for that era too. But on the whole, these things roll off of me. I am not looking for complete historical accuracy or a complete understanding of the plot while watching or reading something.
But for some of my friends, everything must make complete sense and be historically accurate. If they don't understand a character's actions, they are nonplussed. If a baseball team's exercise room looks too 2011 for 2001, they can't get past it.
What about you? And not just in movies, but in books. If something is clearly not right--for instance characters go to see a movie made in 1964 in 1963-- does it make you crazy? How much accuracy do you require? How often do the small things become big? Can you wait for the story to explain itself--and if small things don't quite make sense, does it ruin the story?
19 comments:
Yes, or no. It depends.
If a movie is set in a specific year and they play a song I know came out one or two or ten years later, then yes it drives me nuts.
Does it ruin the story? It depends on the rest of the movie. If it is all that sloppy, then yes. I mean, if you are making a point of saying "This is 1958" or "this is 1964" then why would you throw in a song from 1970? It says to me you just don't care enough to do it right, have contempt for the audience, and feel that you don't need to make the small extra effort to get it right.
So yeah, I guess I do care.
Jeff M.
I can live with small oversights like eyeglasses, or the famous glitch in DIE HARD 2 where Bruce Willis uses a Pac Bell phone to place a call from what it supposed to be Dulles Airport. These things happen.
What can get me out of a movie or TV show is when something important is obviously wrong, either because they didn't care, or because the wrongness is necessary for the plot to work. I can't watch CSI at all for this reason. Pump-action shotguns that fire repeatedly will make my mind wander. People who get themselves into situation they can't possibly get out of, but do because the person with the advantage inexplicably gives it away. Stuff like that.
Now on the other hand, if it is a silly, casual movie we're not supposed to take seriously - ANIMAL HOUSE comes to mind - I'm not bothered that "Louie Louie" was used a year before it actually was released.
Jeff M.
I can still roll with the story, but it leaves me disappointed more than anything else. If I could catch a mistake simply by watching the movie or reading the book, why couldn't whoever wrote or produced it do the same?
Hopefully the movie/book/TV show is entertaining enough to have you totally involved with the story.
Minor stuff such as being a few years off on when something existed would not bother me unless it was a major plot point.
I am a tough critic. There are countless things that can pull me out of the story. But I am usually gone before I notice the small stuff.
It depends on how emotionally interested I am in the topic. If I were watching a movie about baseball I probably wouldn't care about much of anything they got wrong. If I were watching a movie featuring chess games and moves I'd be pretty put off if they got it wrong.
The only time(s) this makes me a little crazy is when the original story is dramatically changed -- as in Troy. I do like as many authentic details as possible, but Patton was still effective despite post-WWII tanks, etc. Then again, in The Deer Hunter we see the Rockies standing in for the Alleghenies, if memory serves. Why?
I'm more put off if it's words in a book than something visual that flashes on the screen and is gone. For instance if I were reading a book and a trucker was said to use a cell phone when it was obviously the CB radio era, that would bother me, or someone "dialing" a digital phone, mistakes with computer use or software, that sort of thing.
Perhaps it's because I generally bring more commitment to reading than to things in a visual medium, but I'm usually not put off by obvious anachronisms in movies or TV shows, but I get really bugged by them in books. I especially dislike what I think of as "cultural anachronisms"--not so much objects but customs and beliefs that are absolutely wrong for the era. I'm in my early 50s and I still remember when it was a shame (and something to be kept quiet) when a girl "got into trouble." I read so many books set in the past where women have babies out of wedlock and everyone is wonderfully understanding and supportive. No, honey, it didn't happen that way.
For this same reason, I can't make it through THE HELP. No black woman in the south who relied on a white family (and the white power structure) for her employment and means of support would have confided negative details of her job to a white woman, no matter how understanding or sympathetic the white woman appeared to be. It just wouldn't have happened. That to me is another example of cultural anachronism and is far worse than a mistake in what year a song was popular or when a certain brand of cereal was first available.
/Dismounting soapbox now.
There were so many things in THE HELP that bugged me I can't even list them here. But I saw the movie anyway and thought that at least I was supporting roles for black actresses, and the dialect sounded a lot less patronizing come out of the mouths of African-American actresses.
There is some implication there that Stockett showed some sort of bravery in writing the book in 2009 that her character wrote in the sixties. And her character in the book shared royalties with the maids-wonder if she did.
Some things bother me. Like: wrong hairdos for the era (M*A*S*H was a constant culprit there, but other examples abound); saloons in the Old West allowing all races to enter; modern dialogue in period pieces; cars exploding they they held 500 gallons of gas; stunts that defy the laws of physics; skinny little actresses beating up beefy Mafia killers.
Jeff: is that the Kingsmen version of "Louie, Louie" you're talking about? There was an earlier recording by The Wailers that was a modest success.
Just saw the pilot of MASH last night and Hawkeye's hair was way too sixties instead of fifties.
I could care less about these kinds of details in terms of believability. What's more important to me is psychological or behavioral believability.
Though I guess there are some glaring examples that are annoying -- like Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear attack by jumping in a fridge!
It was the Kingsmen's version, Cap'n.
Jeff M.
Patti - Oh, that is an interesting question. I have to admit I notice those things. I won't say I can't possibly enjoy a book or movie with some anachronisms, but I notice them, and I don't like them.
I practically got thrown out of an adult ed. writing class because I kept pulling apart other people's pop cultural references. It does bug me and for no real reason. I never bothered to watch Mad Men again after the first episode I saw had a paperback cover on a novel that wasn't printed until many years later.
The little things me perhaps because my memory is too focussed on trivia.
I think Dana King expresses it well.
Small things are just fun which you can laugh at, such as when they refer to numbers from our new hymn book in a brilliant Danish TV series where they should have used the old one from 1948, but if I have a feeling the instructor, producer or whatever didn´t know or care about the period, it bothers me a lot.
The film CADILLAC RECORDS, which came out a few years ago, was filled with mistakes ABOUT THE MUSIC! Songs were coming out in the wrong year, ahead of songs which actually preceded them, and so on.
If you're going to do a movie about an important record company (Chess Records in Chicago), at least get your chronology straight concerning the records they released.
Also, cars from future decades showing up in period films bothers me. It's no problem at all to get the proper period cars, but laziness on the part of the filmmakers dictates otherwise.
It is especially irritating when it's an area of expertise for you. My son, a prosecutor, can not watch anything with trials in it.
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