There is a lot of discussion about Ridley Scott’s new historical drama, Napoleon, about the historical accuracy of the film. According to director and screenwriter Ilmar Raag, tracing historical details with your finger is a fairly new phenomenon in art criticism, and the main thing is that historical errors should not be too big for the viewer.
According to Raag, those who find fault with films and rejoice in them are a completely different kind of viewers. “It’s posted on the forums. People are very happy when they find something wrong in the movie, which shows how the filmmakers have gone astray. Everyone praises it, but I know it’s not a good movie, because the watch was seen in the medieval battle scene,” Raag said.
From the filmmakers’ point of view, according to Raag, this is trivial. “The most famous example for me was during the filming of the film “The Name of the Rose”. /…/ The best connoisseur of the French Middle Ages of the time was invited to the set. The professor came to the set and caused a scandal because he saw that the soldiers’ armor had been worn for a century. He would later say that these monks were eating at that time of day. On the third day the director simply sent him off the set. Who cares that the fashion has moved on or back a century, when the film is actually about philosophical issues,” Raag said.
For centuries, historical accuracy did not particularly interest artists or filmmakers. “If we remember Shakespeare, the imprint he left on the history of England is still terrible, because Richard III was not the kind of monster he portrayed in his tragedy,” Raag said. He also emphasized the same in the case of Antony and Cleopatra, the image created later by Hollywood.
“In the end, history is always a story we tell in the present. Perhaps the way we understand the past is also continually changing. There is nothing we can do about it. On the other hand, from the filmmakers’ point of view, yes they’re less and less concerned with critics and more and more about whether or not the viewer watches the film,” Raag explained.
According to Raag, the historical contradiction can also be highlighted in “The Last Relic”, which has become a classic of Estonian cinema. “From the point of view of Estonians, Ivo Schenkenberg is a man who deserves a film of his own. All in all, he was one of the most powerful figures of the Estonian resistance movement. At the same time, the unfortunate Gabriel was rather a treacherous opportunist and a man who allegedly sold Estonia to the Russians,” he said.
According to Raag, the role of the critic is also at issue here. “One of the possible roles of a critic is simply to interpret the meaning of a film. Because the meaning of a film becomes what it is. Ultimately, we have to see how people react. If they feel that these flaws are too big for them to understand, then the film will simply fail,” Raag said.
Raag also recalled an example from the late 1950s, when the plan and script to make a film on the Mahtra War was ready. However, the film was not confirmed in Moscow because it was discovered that in the film Russian soldiers beat Estonian farmers. “After all, the proletariat has a deep alliance with the peasants. This is not possible. But it really was like that. Russian soldiers came and punished according to the law,” Raag explained.
2023-12-08 14:54:00
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