Tutankhamun.

[Nearly Sane]

I think if you are referring to an historical figure or incident then it should be factually accurate - otherwise base the story on someone or something made up. In your example why base the story of a Queen having a lesbian affair on a real life Queen rather than a fictitious one? Even if people are told that the story is not accurate a proportion of people will think it is.

So if a character is played by an actor that is too tall, it is somehow flawed in your view?

[wigginhall]

I think if you are referring to an historical figure or incident then it should be factually accurate - otherwise base the story on someone or something made up. In your example why base the story of a Queen having a lesbian affair on a real life Queen rather than a fictitious one? Even if people are told that the story is not accurate a proportion of people will think it is.

It doesn't matter why someone might write a drama about a lesbian Victoria.  Fact is different from fiction.    Another example: there are novels and films which describe Germany winning the war.   Hint: they're not documentaries.

[Maeght]

So if a character is played by an actor that is too tall, it is somehow flawed in your view?

In my view a story about an actual historical figure should not misrepresent the facts about that individual. If someone wants to tell a different story then don't base it on an historical figure. In most cases I doubt the actors height is a factor in the story being told but if it is it shouldn't be misrepresented.

[Nearly Sane]

In my view a story about an actual historical figure should not misrepresent the facts about that individual. If someone wants to tell a different story then don't base it on an historical figure. In most cases I doubt the actors height is a factor in the story being told but if it is it shouldn't be misrepresented.

Any story involving an actual historical figure will be inaccurate to some extent. Your position is that you cannot use history in drama at all. I don't think you understand drama.

[Maeght]

Any story involving an actual historical figure will be inaccurate to some extent. Your position is that you cannot use history in drama at all.

No its not.

I don't think you understand drama.

Think what you like.

[wigginhall]

Famous modern example: "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter", (film), oh hell, someone might think that Lincoln really was a vampire hunter. 

I don't really understand the 'should' in all this.   Why should novels, films and dramas be accurate?   Is this a moral should?

[Nearly Sane]

No its not.

Think what you like.

Well it certainly seems to be that, you seem to have no understanding for what drama might try to achieve, and you want it to be historically accurate if it mentions anyone who exists. To take the earlier example of MacBeth, any conversations would be inaccurate, even if there were eye witness accounts, what is your reason for thinking it should not be a drama?

[Maeght]

The examples are not attempts to tell an historical story - they are pure fiction. This Tutankhamun program is presented as telling the story of Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamum's tomb - it doesn't. I don't like that approach and would prefer that if such a story is to be told that it is not based on historical figures but on made up characters - you obviously don't mind about that so we won't agree. That's life.

[wigginhall]

It's an approach that kills the imagination, basically.   And as NS indicates, it would invalidate anything, since we can't reproduce conversations, or scenes between people.   Did Lady Macbeth really wash her hands to get the blood off?

[Maeght]

Well it certainly seems to be that, you seem to have no understanding for what drama might try to achieve, and you want it to be historically accurate if it mentions anyone who exists. To take the earlier example of MacBeth, any conversations would be inaccurate, even if there were eye witness accounts, what is your reason for thinking it should not be a drama?

For you to ask that question suggests you don't understand my point.

[Maeght]

It's an approach that kills the imagination, basically.

No it wouldn't. Imagination could be used just as much but without attaching the story to a real historical figure or event.

And as NS indicates, it would invalidate anything, since we can't reproduce conversations, or scenes between people.   Did Lady Macbeth really wash her hands to get the blood off?

Not the point I'm making.

[Nearly Sane]

The examples are not attempts to tell an historical story - they are pure fiction. This Tutankhamun program is presented as telling the story of Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamum's tomb - it doesn't. I don't like that approach and would prefer that if such a story is to be told that it is not based on historical figures but on made up characters - you obviously don't mind about that so we won't agree. That's life.

So actually you don't take the position that you were stating that earlier

'I think if you are referring to an historical figure or incident then it should be factually accurate - otherwise base the story on someone or something made up. In your example why base the story of a Queen having a lesbian affair on a real life Queen rather than a fictitious one?'

as the above is a major qualification to that. Further as already noted by making it drama it is already a fiction. It is not a documentary.

[Nearly Sane]

I think it would be helpful to wigginhall and myself if Maeght were to outline the reasoning for their position.

[wigginhall]

'Pure fiction' is an interesting category, used by Maeght.  It suggests that writers should either write completely made up stuff, which no historical connections, and this is pure fiction, or factually based stuff, which should be accurate.   This leaves no room for hybrids, of which there is a lot today, but then Shakespeare also wrote hybrids.   I think writers can do whatever they want.

[Nearly Sane]

'Pure fiction' is an interesting category, used by Maeght.  It suggests that writers should either write completely made up stuff, which no historical connections, and this is pure fiction, or factually based stuff, which should be accurate.   This leaves no room for hybrids, of which there is a lot today, but then Shakespeare also wrote hybrids.   I think writers can do whatever they want.

It also seems to put an idea of some kind of moral position into drama that by its nature it is unable to support.

[wigginhall]

It also seems to put an idea of some kind of moral position into drama that by its nature it is unable to support.

Yes, there's a whopping great 'should' lurking around.   

I was thinking of Amadeus, play and film, supposed to be highly inaccurate, but that's not its intent. 

[Anchorman]

given his likely 'sources' some of the differences from actual history were already inbuilt. We are talking about Holinshed here which wouldn't really be a proper historical source.
[/quote




Shakespear was trying to curry favour with the Stewart - hence the drivel about a nasty royal couple murdering a saintly old king in bed - when Duncan was actually uyounger than Macbeth, whose rule in early medieval Alba was reasonably stable - an exception.
That the wholly imaginary Banquo was a supposed ancestor of the Stewarts was telling.
It's a nice story spoilt by political kowtowing.

[Anchorman]

It's an approach that kills the imagination, basically.   And as NS indicates, it would invalidate anything, since we can't reproduce conversations, or scenes between people.   Did Lady Macbeth really wash her hands to get the blood off?

It's an approach that kills the imagination, basically.   And as NS indicates, it would invalidate anything, since we can't reproduce conversations, or scenes between people.   Did Lady Macbeth really wash her hands to get the blood off?

Not unless she was a damn good soldier: Duncan I was killed in battle. Whether Macbeth was actually married to Grouoch at the time is less well known. Probably not, though, since he married her to legitimise his claim to power, since she was part of the 'derbfine'.

[Nearly Sane]

given his likely 'sources' some of the differences from actual history were already inbuilt. We are talking about Holinshed here which wouldn't really be a proper historical source.

Shakespear was trying to curry favour with the Stewart - hence the drivel about a nasty royal couple murdering a saintly old king in bed - when Duncan was actually uyounger than Macbeth, whose rule in early medieval Alba was reasonably stable - an exception.
That the wholly imaginary Banquo was a supposed ancestor of the Stewarts was telling.
It's a nice story spoilt by political kowtowing.

Again we are back at some of the inaccuracies coming from Holinshed e.g. Banquo and the motivation not being of any impact in this being a good or bad play. It is not history.

[Maeght]

In all my posts I have said 'In my view ...', 'I think ...', 'I don't like ....', 'Why ....' never 'Shouldn't ...'

I was expressing my preference - which others clearly don't share. I don't intend wasting any great time on going in to minutiae or 'defending' my preference I'm afraid.

[wigginhall]

In all my posts I have said 'In my view ...', 'I think ...', 'I don't like ....', 'Why ....' never 'Shouldn't ...'

I was expressing my preference - which others clearly don't share. I don't intend wasting any great time on going in to minutiae or 'defending' my preference I'm afraid.

But your post #24 did strike me: "I think if you are referring to an historical figure or incident then it should be factually accurate."

I actually did ask in #30, why the should?

[Nearly Sane]

In all my posts I have said 'In my view ...', 'I think ...', 'I don't like ....', 'Why ....' never 'Shouldn't ...'

I was expressing my preference - which others clearly don't share. I don't intend wasting any great time on going in to minutiae or 'defending' my preference I'm afraid.

I don't really see any difference between 'I think it shouldn't' and 'it shouldn't' on a message board. I read the second as a mere contraction of the first. I don't understand why asking you to explain what your reasoning is for thinking something is problematic.

[Anchorman]

Getting back to the 'Tutankhamun' thing. The facts are very well known; Carter's journals from 1898 (Griffiths Institute), Carnarvon's diaries - and letters to Carter, all in the public archive, Lady Evlyn's diaries, Maspero's notes and many, many Egyptologists, from Weighall onwards, opinions on Davies And literally thousands of articles, journals, notes and papers from the great W.M Flinders Petrie. You'd have thought the writers could have hit SOME truth in the show, if even by accident.

[Nearly Sane]

Getting back to the 'Tutankhamun' thing. The facts are very well known; Carter's journals from 1898 (Griffiths Institute), Carnarvon's diaries - and letters to Carter, all in the public archive, Lady Evlyn's diaries, Maspero's notes and many, many Egyptologists, from Weighall onwards, opinions on Davies And literally thousands of articles, journals, notes and papers from the great W.M Flinders Petrie. You'd have thought the writers could have hit SOME truth in the show, if even by accident.

Again this seems to miss that people make choices in drama that are not about factual accuracy. Further documentation is itself an edited fiction when  comes to actual fact. Obviously more recent stuff we might get closer buy even that isn't guaranteed.

[Anchorman]

The show was billed as a historical drama, NS. 'Hysterical', might have been a better word.