Real vs Reel
August 28, 2015 5:39 AM   Subscribe

History vs Hollywood fact-checks "based on a true story/inspired by true events" popular movies, and tries to match faces and events with their real-life counterparts.
posted by elgilito (4 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Why yes, this is relevant to my interests. I immediately went looking for Hidalgo and was a little sad (if not entirely surprised, since it's ten years old now) to find it not listed, since it's one of my favorites of these kinds of "based on a true story" claims. Turns out the "true story" it's based off of is that Frank Hopkins did wander around the US claiming to have won an endurance race with a mustang... although there's not really any evidence that the race existed, let alone that he won it or that it happened as claimed.

I'm going to be wallowing in pedantic glee all day as I read these, aren't I...
posted by sciatrix at 5:57 AM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


When I watch historical and biographical films where I'm not familiar with the subject matter I'll pretty much always check the Wikipedia page after to see how much was made up, which is usual a lot because films are films and I guess it's all fair play as long as it's in line with the spirit of the thing.

When I *do* know something about the subject matter, like The Immitation Game, I'll mostly just sit and fume.
posted by Artw at 7:28 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Alex von Tunzelmann writes a similar column in the guardian, marking films on both historical accuracy and entertainment value.
posted by dng at 7:38 AM on August 28, 2015


There will probably be a bunch of columns like that come Oscar season, it's sort of a tradition.
posted by Artw at 7:41 AM on August 28, 2015


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