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Both Centurion and the Eagle featured the on screen killing of a child.
Gladiator showed the General's small son's feet twisting in the wind.
The Rome series did show the body of Cleopatra's brother but not the act and it was a necessary historical element of the story.
So is on screen child killing now a requirement for Roman era movies? Will a new Sparticus
movie feature 11 year old gladiators fighting to the death or revolting slaves killing the master's kids?
I object when it is not a necessary historical element of the story.
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Many things get stuck into "historical" movies and programs which are not necessary to the story, either to titillate the baser senses (e.g. the continued sex scenes in "Rome: HBO" which added little except perhaps to document the weight gain of Attia over the seasons) or to evoke some deep emotion. Dead children seem to be the vogue right now. In times past, there was nearly none of that (that I remember).
Not long ago, in Dances With Wolves there was some outcry over the killing of a camp dog and Dunbar's "pet wolf". It was clear that no animals were really harmed, but the animal rights folks still put up a fuss.
No doubt there were children killed in all wars, present and past. Some were probably deliberate, especially in older times, but I don't get why filmwriters see the need for gratuitous violence or other images as discussed before. If it's part of the story, fine, but it can still be done tastefully. We don't need to see infants' intestines spilled out to know they killed a baby...even a shadow image gets the point across.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
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If you would film the Jewish war by Josephus you would have to put in the ballista foetus launch for sure...
Historical correctnes if it ads to the story is ok in my book, that is why Spielberg went with HBO on his BoB and the Pacific series.
M.VIB.M.
(PS: I wonder which moron will have the guts to make the Utoya massacre into a film, mark my words, it will happen.)
Bushido wa watashi no shuukyou de gozaru.
Katte Kabuto no O wo shimeyo!
H.J.Vrielink.
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The ancient world did not care for children so much as we do today, just look at the practices of dumping your just born infants on the dumpster in the Roman world.
Secondly in antiquity, when you conquered a people or a town, it depended partly on the ram having touched the wall if there would be a massacre or not. To massacre a people in stead of sell them into slavery was always a highly debated issue, not because of morals but because of finance.
M.VIB.M.
Bushido wa watashi no shuukyou de gozaru.
Katte Kabuto no O wo shimeyo!
H.J.Vrielink.
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Killing children is a shorthand way of telling the audience how bad the bad guy is. The New Testament begins with the Nativity immediately followed by the Massacre of the Innocents, a favorite theme of early church art and one with its own feast day. Babies-on-bayonets propaganda dates from a time before there were bayonets. Your enemy might have a good reason for killing adults, but killing children proves that he is a mindless, vicious brute.
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The "innocents in peril" (in most cases represented by children) is a trope as old as Hollywood itself. It is a way of "upping the ante" in an effort to make this year's films more meaningful and important than last year's films. One might think there is a limit beyond which films can not pass, but ... :?
In most films it is unnecessary, and in films like The Eagle it is completely gratuitous. Nowhere does this appear in the book (Eagle Of The Ninth) and it seems added in by the film's director to reassure the audience that Jamie Bell's character is not a traitor for siding with the Roman invaders against the native Britons. These child killers are not worthy of his loyalty.
Of course, children have always been victims in war throughout history and it would be impossible to remain historically honest while excising this element from stories about the Siege of Jerusalem or the Holocaust (to name just two examples of many).
The Eagle was not a very good film for several reasons, but the scene of the Seal People killing the child was a particularly low point for that film.
:|
Narukami
David Reinke
Burbank CA
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I would change that into: The scenes of the Seal People were a particularly low point for the film....
M.VIB.M.
Bushido wa watashi no shuukyou de gozaru.
Katte Kabuto no O wo shimeyo!
H.J.Vrielink.
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You mean the SmurfIndians?
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
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Yup ! the last of the Sealhikans indeed....
M.VIB.M.
Bushido wa watashi no shuukyou de gozaru.
Katte Kabuto no O wo shimeyo!
H.J.Vrielink.
