WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
History is made of significant events, whether they be political, forming a part of a war that rocked the world or even just a simple natural disaster that rocked a small town. Below are 6 of these kind of events that have been committed to film over the years – that dates back to as early as the 1800s up the 11 years ago…
Peterloo
It’s very rare that you’ll find me writing about a film based around an event that took place back in the 1800s but here you are. Of course, it’s usually hard to tell how accurate films like this will be as most of the sources you will read to gain the information are written by people who wouldn’t have been there. For example, it is unclear whether a meeting transpired between Bagguley and Wainwright that seems to deliberately insight the common people in order to find if they were armed. What I enjoyed about this film, and it’s the reason that it is 2 and a half hours, is that they set the scene perfectly – outlining the economic issues that caused the riot to take place, including the rise in taxes and punishment by transportation. Of course this means that the actual riot doesn’t take up much of screen time, which may be a disappointment to some, but I think it helped the viewer to empathise with those characters set before them. Funny part of it all is, that Henry Hunt requests no weapons at the meeting meaning it is a peaceful protest – which says that the violence that takes place, is instigated by those in power all because of their fears. I’ll be honest, the last 20 minutes were actually heart-breaking to watch.
Valkyrie
I’m sure many of you are thinking that this may have been better placed in my article regarding war however, this isn’t actually regarding World War II itself. This is specifically focused on the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler during the Second World War, Operation Valkyrie. Well, it’s more accurate that Operation Valkyrie is the coup d’état that took place AFTER the attempted assassination. This was led by Claus von Stauffenberg, Erwin von Witzleberg and Freidrich Olbricht (portrayed by Tom Cruise, David Schofield and Bill Nighy respectively). This film actually documents several of the attempts made on Hitler’s life including the July 20th plot with the bomb at his desk (possibly the most well-known as it is the one that led to the coup d’etat). It may be confusing to some because no one has a German accent or speaks German other than right at the beginning but this was a plot by his own men. I actually think this film spilt rather evenly between the lead up to 20th July and the events that take place afterwards and definitely does not feel like a 2 hour film.
Detroit
Some might think that this film wouldn’t have looked out of place if this was a Will Poulter or Anthony Mackie article, however this is the exact reason why I haven’t used this for either of them. I wanted to discuss the film for a more serious reason as it depicts the events of the 1967 Detroit riots, better known as ‘The 12th Street Riots’ or ‘Detroit Uprising’. It’s amazing to think that one incident, the raiding of the Blind Pig on July 23rd, sparked a five day riot! But living in an area with aggressive white police officers, I can only imagine that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The beauty of this film is in Kathryn Bigelow’s use of genuine footage alongside cinematography. There are moments in this film that breaks my heart as much as when I watched Hotel Rwanda, especially when the National Guard somehow mistake a child for a sniper! Unfortunately I can’t find anywhere if that genuinely happened or if this was artistic licence but then if it happened, would you really want that publicised? However, it has been stated by Melvin Dismukes, who was the Security Guard of the Algiers during this period (portrayed by John Boyega in this film), that this is 99.5% accurate to true events.
Frost/Nixon
I love the fact that this film sets the scene for the following events with the genuine footage from the actual Watergate trial that this interview with David Frost followed. What I didn’t realise is that Frost was actually British, I always believed that the interview was done by an American journalist. It’s also amazing to see how good the likenesses are between David Frost and Michael Sheen as well as Richard Nixon and Frank Langella. I tried to take a look to see if part of Frost’s motivation for these interviews was for him to be able to personally “break” America from his presenting career, as Michael Sheen’s portrayal of him states, but there is understandably no mention of this. For me, Frost making this comment in the film takes away from the fact that he mentions earlier that he wanted to do it to have Nixon confess to being involved in Watergate, something he hadn’t done in court. What I did find however was the transcript from the original interview and realised the interview featured is different in main places.
United 93
Everybody knows there was at least two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers on September 11th 2001. Well, little did I know, and I don’t know how many other people were aware, but there were 2 more flights that day – one that crashed in to the Pentagon and another that made its way safely to the ground. This film is about the latter and how those passengers on board saved their flight. I was little confused why we focused so hard on the names on the passengers tickets but it is revealed at the end that these were all genuine passengers on Flight 93 to San Francisco. I have mixed feelings about the way this was filmed. On the one hand it does feel quite realistic but on the other, it also feels a little bit like an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Even though we are focusing specifically on one of the flights, the others are referenced along with the events that followed the first planes hitting the World Trade Centre. So much so that it seems we hear the call from one of the passengers that crashed into the Towers as it happened.
Only The Brave
Now, here we are at the most recent of all our true events committed to film – the Yarnell Hill blaze in 2013, only 4 years before the film was made documenting the events. Most of the time when you hear people discussing wild fires – it’s usually in Australia due to the hot climate. Well, it’s much the same in Arizona where this film takes place. From what I can find, what is shown in Only the Brave isn’t too far from the truth – including them ending the incident with Brendan McDonough (played by Miles Teller) being the sole survivor because he was stationed as a lookout. Part of me wondered originally that they had only written this into the film make sure he survives or that he was perfectly positioned to save people. However, there is at least one thing that may or may not be accurate and that is the fact that McDonough is portrayed as being a heroin addict but I would probably only discover if this is true or not by reading his book. Most of the film is actually set around the birth of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, getting them certified and officially becoming a crew. The fire itself and its disastrous outcome, only takes up around 30 minutes at the end of the film.
