Pic from movie "Centurion", what say the experts?

[Narukami]

300 wasn't a film version of historical events, it was the film version of a graphic novel. You might as well have expected realism from 'Sin City'.

Even ,more pointedly, Zak Snyder's 300 was a film based upon a Graphic Novel which was itself based upon a film (1962's The 300 Spartans) thus removing it even further from history.

As a piece of cinema, 300 is certainly interesting and pushed several technological innovations pioneered by Lucas and his ILM. However, as history it is worthless. Of course, that wasn't the point was it...

As film maker John Sayles points out, "If historical accuracy were the thing people went to the movies for, historians would be vice presidents of studios. Every studio would have two or three historians." (Past Imperfect, c1995, p22)

Unfortunately this applies to Centurion as well.

The director, Neil Marshall, has already said that his film is a commentary on the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Q. It’s also a very interesting film in that there’s no clear good or bad side? Michael Fassbender is clearly the hero, but both the Romans and the Picts are as capable of acts of evil as they are good…
Neil Marshall: Yeah, I thought it was about shades of grey really. We’re telling the story from an invaders point of view. And yet, half the soldiers within that army basically just want to get home. They’ve had enough of this place and probably never wanted to be there in the first place. So, you root for them in the same way that you support our boys over in Iraq at the moment. If you want to make those comparisons, they’re just soldiers following their orders and they’re stuck in this really shit situation. But they’ve got these highly motivated Picts who are totally justified in wanting to get them out of their country. So, that makes the edges very blurred, which I love about this kind of genre.

Likewise the influences on this film are as much Hollywood as History:

Q. Talking of that jump, as well as the obvious nod to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, Centurion is as much an homage to the Westerns as it is a swords and sandals chase movie…
Neil Marshall: Butch Cassidy definitely, pretty much all of John Ford’s cavalry movies… She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache. The Romans are the cavalry and The Picts are the Apaches. The comparisons are pretty obvious but, to me, Roman Britain was the equivalent of the Wild West. That was their wildest frontier, so the Western analogy works perfectly in that sort of sense.

Q. When did you first hear about the legend of the Ninth Legion?
Neil Marshall: It was a mate of mine told me in a pub in Newcastle one afternoon. He said: “Have you heard about this legend?” So, I asked him what it was and he said: “They marched into Scotland to deal with The Picts and they vanished without a trace.” I was intrigued. And I’d grown up surrounded by Roman history; I lived in the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall and such like, so I found it immediately compelling. I wanted to know more about it. But the more you research about it… that is the myth! There’s not much more to it. And the more you find out, the more historians have debunked it and spoiled everyone’s fun. The 9th didn’t really disappear. But I like the myth and I stuck with that.

Q. So, having been a fan of that period in history, was it fun to research further and get the detail right?
Neil Marshall: It was but there’s not a lot you can do because there isn’t anything to research about the myth. I did a lot of research about Romans in Britain, but the actual specifics of the 9th Legion once they set off to deal with The Picts are a bit vague. We know that they were attacked but probably not massacred. As for The Picts, there is no written history at all. So, what we do know about the Picts we then had to embellish, or conjure up some kind of realistic concept of what The Picts were. It’s great because it leaves a lot to the imagination. But I also tried to apply logic to it because I didn’t want to make them some kind of hackneyed bunch of bikini-wearing lunatics. I think I applied logic to it… it’s the middle of winter, we’re in Scotland, so what are you going to do? Are you going to run around half naked, or will you wrap yourself up in deer skins and wolf skins and try and keep warm.

See the Full Interview Here: http://www.indielondon.co.uk/Film-Revie ... -interview

Now, there is noting "wrong" or even new about any of this. Films, and indeed stage plays, have long used stories set in other time periods or worlds to make comments on contemporary times (The was an oft used device in the Kabuki and Puppet Theatres of Japan to avoid running afoul of the Shogun's censors.) and the Western has influenced and been influenced by other films since the very start of Hollywood. (Akira Kruosawa was a big fan of the John Ford Westerns -- at a dinner with film director here in the US one director commented that Kurosawa really liked horses to which Kurosawa replied "You really have watched my movies." -- and as we all know his Samurai films were the source for several great Westerns including Magnificent Seven, The Outrage, and A Fistful Of Dollars.)

From the perspective of Ancient History, it is unfortunate that in the case of almost all of these "Sword & Sandal"epics the directors feel the need to embellish the story, and so outrageously. What disappoints most is that they do not trust the history, for invariably the facts are far more fascinating than is the fiction.

I have my doubts that Eagle Of The Ninth will be markedly better, or more to the point, markedly more accurate than Centurion. Some stills from the film show the legionaries carrying pilum, which is a nice touch, but some of the armor details are "interesting" to say the least.

The real challenge: Will someone, can someone, produce a film or even limited TV series (ala HBO) that is not only dramatically interesting but also historically accurate? Is this a Mission Impossible? Is it a quest for the Holy Grail, or is it an attainable goal?

Saving private Ryan, despite its popularity, certainly had problems both dramatic and historical. (The film was riddled with standard issue Hollywood cliches and the 2nd SS Panzer Division was not at the Normandy Front when the events of the film took place.) However, Hanks and Spielberg made up for this with their excellent HBO series Band of Brothers. Indeed, BoB seems to achieve the twin goals of being both good drama and good history. (This despite the questioning Stephen Amborse as an honest historian.)

So, where is the Ancient Roman Band of Brothers?
Centurion is not it, and I fear neither is Eagle of the Ninth.
Perhaps it is out there yet... just over the horizon. As always, time will tell.

:|

Narukami