Films about history and/or historical events:

Zulu is a good film, although it plays pretty loose with with the historic battle of Rourke's Drift and the earlier Zulu massacre of a larger British force (dramatized in the movie Zulu Dawn). If you are interested in the real story of the Zulu wars, I suggest you read the definitive history of that era, "The Washing of the Spears," by my friend and coworker the late Donald Morris. One thing you'll learn is that there were no native residents of South Africa when the British began colonizing that areas. The warlike Zulus had decimated most of the local tribes and chased after the fleeing survivors of the rest, so that even the Zulu were gone when the British came.

Remember the scene early in the film where the minister and his daughter are visiting the Zulu camp and conferring with the Zulu king? The man playing the king was the blood descendent of the real king from that period and became prime minister of the Zulu tribe. I interviewed him on a visit to Kwa-Zulu, the designated Zulu homeland within South Africa.

Soldier of Orange is an excellent pick--almost no one in the US knows about the Dutch resistence under the Nazis in World War II.

I have mixed feelings about Das Boot, having read the novel and its ending before seeing the movie. The film is the usual mix of reality and Hollywood hokum, but it does bring home how small and crowded submarines really are. They didn't call them "pig-boats" for nothing.

To really put Das Boot in perspective, you should keep in mind an item I read years ago when the film first hit US screens. You remember the statement at the start of the film about how many thousands of Germans served in U-boats during WWII and that something like 95% of them died? Well, it was reported that when the movie had its US premier in New York and that message flashed on the screen, the audience broke into applause! Really floored the German director who was in the theater--said he never got such a response in any of the other countries where the film showed.

Your comment about Caine being a "national" embarassment suggests you likely are from the UK. But as for Zulu being a "revisionist, semi-glorifying version of a Spartan 300," I'd like to speak up for your countrymen who fought and died at Roarke's Drift. Ruyard Kipling said it best in a poem about "Tommy," the British soldier who is slighted and looked down on and pushed into the street during peacetime but who the public cheers when they send him off to war. The soldiers at Roarke's Drift were just the 30-year men of their time, little education, no social standing, no families or life outside the army who weren't making a dime off the colonization of Africa or any other country. Most of them were there to build a bridge, and as it shows in the film, it was a very small detachment under the command of an officer of engineers with no battle experience. They were a long way from the larger column that had been massacred by the Zulus. (I think they may even have been just outside the Zulu territory, but I can't say for sure.) Anyway, the head of one Zulu army (as I recall, a relative--brother or brother-in-law to the king) had not been in the earlier bigger battle and so decided to take his army and attack this small garrison at Roarke's Drift. They outnumbered the British by a large number, and the British survived only because they had some buildings and walls to fight behind and, unlike the British general who died with his troops in the earlier battle, the engineer was smart enough to concentrate his small force rather than trying to defend too large a perimeter that would spread his forces too then and allow the Zulu to break through. It was a hell of a battle, the sort of thing they still study in the military, but the British managed to fight off a much superior force (without the help of a cattle stampede as in the movie). It was such an outstanding battle that well over 100 years later it still holds the record for the most Victoria Crosses (about the equivalent of the US Medal of Honor) ever awarded for a single battle. They were a brave group of soldiers who managed to fend off an attack by an enemy of major superior numbers, and I admire their ability and courage.

I'm gonna go with Oliver Stone's "Heaven and Earth" with Tommy Lee Jones and Joan Chen; "The Last King of Scotland" directed by Forest Whitaker--both based on actual accounts, although Scotland was more creative non-fiction. *The dvd extras are loaded with info.

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~~More DVD extras, please. Thank you.

Indeed i am ruf, and thank you for the learning you have given me here I have looked into the history of Rourke's Drift a little as a result of the film, but clearly nothing on your scale

The Caine quote was of course tongue-in-cheek (although he has done some awful wage-padding films amongst the gems ) and was intended to echo the reservations many Brits have about the more scurrilous aspects of imperialism (opium pushing, massacres & the like, divide-&-conquer arrogance, casual shelling of cities for slurs cast on a single half-citizen, etc etc). Not that I think we were all bad. We never quite achieved the astounding inhumanity of creating a brand new bloody 'racial' schism (IE the apparent German/Belgium role in fostering/inventing the Tutsi/Hutu physiognomy-based divide). For example.

Never-the-less, i put Zulu forward as a 'revisionist' film precisely because it focuses on the working soldiers, defending themselves against partially unprovoked attack, in a way which leaves us with a rosy red-coated appraisal of pluck on display in this particular push through Africa. The point about the territory in question being 'unclaimed' seems moot - The Brits surely moved through and towards occupied lands to get there (and, according to Wikipedia anyway, were seeking local dominance over the Zulus). I totally get the bravery & resilience of the soldiers in question (& of course there's a doff of the hat to the ferocious Massai-style nuttiness of the Zulus), but I always walk away from the film with a 'glorified glow' - which I then come to analyze afterwards and somewhat regret (in terms of Empire-guilt etc). Taken in isolation their actions were heroic, no doubt, but I can't help but feel slightly amiss if I take glory-moments of history in isolation. (It's worth mentioning they had more than walls to defend themselves, no? They had guns . And that in some ways reflects the inequities of many Brit Empire expansions.)

That said, cool posts

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Thanks, honeykid. Never heard of the film Downfall, however.

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"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

I've never really gone for war movies, because most of them, with the exception of Saving Private Ryan, seem to glorify and romanticize war, which I don't like.

And that's exactly why I mentioned it WSS. Because it really is a film worth seeing.

In linear historical order ...

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Seriously? If I was to say any movie romanticzes war it's Saving Private Ryan. Not in the literal visual way (which might be what you meant) because there is some pretty horrific stuff. But all in all, it's a pretty "patriotic" movie because of the "bookends" at the beginning and the end. Also, it never gives any qualities to the enemy. They are just there. The story in itself is pretty American. Familial values comes before anything. The Army is willing to sacrafice other men to save a family? When does that actually happen?

Also, Downfall is an excellent movie. See it for sure, if you haven't.

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Casualties of War is actually a pretty realistic movie regarding some of the corruption with rape and whatever of Vietnamese women and civilians in the Vietnam war... but it's still very hollywood-ie.

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I've had the good fortune to visit the UK (mostly London and Aberdeen) on a few occasions and have always enjoyed the people I met over there. And I agree with you on Caine--he has given wonderful performances in top films and also showed up in some of the worst movies ever made. I think he's more concerned with a paycheck than the script.

Got a smile out of your statement "The point about the territory in question being 'unclaimed' seems moot - The Brits surely moved through and towards occupied lands to get there . . " Actually, they came by ship--South Africa has some of the world's best beaches and ocean resorts. As for guns against spears, the Zulu had a bunch of British Enfields taken from dead British soldiers in the earlier massacre. And as far as defensive walls, look what happened to a bunch of Texans at the Alamo in 1836. But I'm just tugging your chain, not nit-picking.

I'd be the first to acknowledge that British Imperialism has been a major pain in the butt to the occupied countries throughout history. After all, my US ancestors fought two wars just to get away from England. What England and others did in China up to and after the Opium War was indefensible. No thinking person can defend massacres of defenseless victims by anyone, even though on occasion it was ordered by British officers and executed by native troops. But to its credit the British public were just as angered by such injustice and often pushed its elected officials to do the right thing.

On the other hand, I don't know of any former colony that tore up the roads, railroads, hospitals, schools, dams, power plants, factories, and other public buildings and facilities that the Brits left behind when they moved out. And in most cases Britain remained the primary trading partner when former colonies became self-governing. That certainly was the case with the US for more than 100 years.

Now does that cancel out all of the bad things done by individual Brits or by government officials? Most likely not, because it's impossible to measure. Like one famous Brit once said, "The evil men do lives on, the good is interred with their bones." Or something to that effect.

And it certainly is no defense to say worse things happened in Belgium's Congo colony or that the Japanese occupation of China and Southeast Asia was more deadly than former British occupations. Evil cannot be excused by a bigger evil.

But if the people of the World War II Allied nations can praise Clint Eastwood's movie that humanizes the Japanese on Iwo Jima, then I think it's OK for you to take a bit of pride in a film about the fighting ability of the British army at Rourke's Gulf.

I think Zulu is best summed up by one line of dialogue in the film: It's in the scene where a frightened young soldier, certain that he's facing his doom in the coming battle, asks the grizzled veteran First Sergeant, "Why us?" To which the sergeant replies, "Because we're here, son, and no one else." I admire the pluck and ability of the British Tommy who has always been there on the front lines doing his duty through the bad wars as well as the good.

I also get a thrill in The Wind and the Lion in that scene where the US Marines in combat gear doubletime down a street in Morocco past the embassies of European nations, wheel onto the grounds of the local sultan, deploy in a combat formation, and on their officer's order open fire on the palace guards. No last minute warning, no plea for continued discussion, just blam! Sometimes at some point there's just no alternative to direct action.

I agree with you about Ryan. It's a sentimental nod to "the greatest generation," my parents and their peers who suffered through the Great Depression and then fought World War II. Too bad it's not a better movie. And it's not very realistic at all.

As for bringing a last son out of battle, the movie is very loosely based on a real event. But in reality, an Army chaplin went in, got the soldier, and brought out. No big battles and multiple losses; there probably wasn't a single shot fired. The government supposedly adopted a rule (don't know for sure, have never seen verification) that members of the same family were banned from serving in the same military unit together. That supposedly took place after the 5 Sullivan brothers aboard the Juno all died after that ship was torpedoed. They made a pretty sappy film about it during World War II--The Fighting Sullivans. One newly commissioned ship was named for them during WWII--The Sullivans. When it was retired, at least one more ship was commissioned as The Sullivans. I think there is still a ship named The Sullivans in the US Navy today.

Heh, it did occur to me i might've been off on that Cheers for the further facts with which your post is replete . (I'd argue that the subjection of the Zulu's entailed an invasion of spoken-for territory of sorts - but we already seem to agree on the premise that Imperialism historically comes hand-in-hand with nefarious deeds. Plus you'd just waylay me with more nuggets of truth if I were to try and take you on )

I agree also that the Brit empire left some decent legacies (infrastructure & continued trade definitely, & even beneficial law systems & democracy time to time - though not always course. Don't think Iraq or Iran see our fingerprints on their nations as anything other than incriminating evidence, for example. And they'd pretty much be right, from what i know. [EDIT - altho that's post-Imperial in many ways, now i think about - or at least in the dying pre-Suez embers - for what that's worth]).

I didn't want go all 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' though, so threw in the 'comparative-evil' bit instead. (Which, although impossible to really quantify or qualitatively compare, i sometimes get the impression applies a little across the board - IE I get the impression that the French, say, were more brutal while present, and more neglectful having left - but this could be bias in my history classes ). But as you say - I shouldn't attempt to overshadow evil acts with yet greater ones.

Wasn't aware that atrocities were met with outcry at home though (other than grass-roots religious opposition to latter-day slave-trading etc). That stirs a vague bit of patriotic pride i guess

Yes yes, apologies (You've only just stopped casting Brits as baddies as a result [Always loved that aspect of the Star Wars trilogy incidentally, to go all film-archetypal, as it was the first time someone pointed that trend out to me]). Glad you can get along with our modern incarnations anyway

Fair play. It is what the film does best. (And i do enjoy that aspect of it thoroughly, no doubt about that )

Cheers for the reco. Have added to me list. (Along with The Four Feathers, which an IMDb reviewer reco'd in the same vein)

I have to disagree somewhat, Dill-man. Unlike many, if not most other war movies, Saving Private Ryan, to me, immediately conveyed a certain message: That all wars, no matter how "just", (there's no such thing as a "just" war, really, imo), are screwed up. Unlike most war movies, which seem to glorify war by having all the soldiers just constantly drinking beer and chasing girls, and the cameradarie that soldiers often share in the battle field, Saving Private Ryan seemed to emphasize the loneliness and isolation and homesickness that soldiers often feel during war, and that it's not all girl-chasing and beer-drinking, if one gets the drift.

I think you may have watched The Blue Max too many times...
Hey, I like it too.

I also think you've missed a lot of war movies, but you said that earlier.

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To be honest, I've never seen or even heard of The Blue Max.

It's true that I have missed a lot of war movies.

Red Cliff. About the Three Kingdoms period in China. Really long but it's worth every minute.

incredible...nuff said!

I used look up the endings to historical mini-series in my parents Durant books. It drove my sister crazy! I would know the ending and she wanted to watch it unfold on the tv screen but she couldn't resist asking me how it ended. Sometimes I would refuse to tell her. This sent her into a spiral of frustration that more than made up for the fact that she could move faster than me when I wanted to kick her ass. Ah good times!

Downfall was excellent. I think it was one of the last movies I saw with my dad before his stroke.

Red Cliff sounds interesting. Thanks for the recommendation Treycool. I am not a John Woo fan but I might give this a shot.

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