History Goes to the Movies

In the book ‘History Goes to the Movies’, the author Joseph Roquemore gives films stars according to their historical accuracy on a one-to-five scale - five stars means a film's very accurate, and no stars means it's very inaccurate. I'm going to look at the best- known films that Roquemore features in his book. The first film is the Oscar-winning movie ‘Titanic’, which was directed by James Cameron in 1997. The film is historically accurate as regards the events leading up to the collision with the iceberg - the Titanic was sailing too fast and the captain ignored warnings about ice. The collision and sinking are also very accurately portrayed with amazing special effects.

However, where the film falls down is in its characterization. I must say I entirely agree with Roquemore when he criticizes director James Cameron for what he calls 'class-conscious overkill'. What he means by that is Cameron depicts all the third-class passengers in the film as brave and good, and all the first- class passengers as selfish, stupid, cowardly, or downright evil. And this can't have been the case. Then a large part of the film centres on the love story between Jack, a third class passenger, played by Leo DiCaprio, and Rose, a first-class passenger, played by Kate Winslet. Obviously, these characters and their story are fictitious and were just added, presumably to sell the film to a younger audience. But many historians have pointed out that a romance between Jack and Rose is totally improbable, because at that time there was complete class segregation on board ship.

Roquemore also criticizes the film's portrayal of the ship's First Officer, William Murdoch. On the night of the sinking he behaved heroically. In his home town in Scotland there's even a memorial to him, but in the film he's shown taking a bribe from a passenger (in exchange for a place in a lifeboat), shooting passengers dead, and finally shooting himself in the head. In fact, the film company 20th Century Fox, who produced Titanic, were eventually forced to admit that there was no historical evidence that Murdoch did any of these things, and that they'd included these details purely and simply to make the story more interesting. Roquemore gives Titanic three stars, describing it as 'Great pyrotechnics - mediocre history'. All in all, I think his assessment is about right. The main events are true but the characterization is definitely the weak point in the film.

T. 20

Alternative medicine

Interviewer Have you ever used alternative medicine?

Speaker A Yes.

Interviewer What did you use?

Speaker A Acupuncture.

Interviewer And did it work?

Speaker A Well, it did actually. I had a terrible time of, I lost my sense of taste and smell... which started off with a cold and then I completely lost my sense of taste and smell for about three or four months, and it was very debilitating, and it was really quite frightening.

You suddenly realize that there is no point in eating at all because it's just fodder, and all the beauty of life kind of goes, it's an extraordinary thing of not having one of your senses. And somebody recommended to me acupuncture, and I went along and I said, 'Do you think you can do anything about it?' and she said, 'Yes, I think I can.' She said, 'So, here's a rose', which was in her room.