Historical Movies

Why historical?

Well, one of the constant battles I have in being a parent is trying to broaden the intellectual scope of my (now teenage) children and part of that is an understanding of History, what happened and why. When told through the prism of a movie (with a romance usually thrown in), that can be difficult but it is, at least, a starting point for discussion, a reference point, a hook for some parallel with the modern world.

My kids seem to live in a world that has no wish to understand Cause & Effect, no wish to join the dots and little capacity to learn from the past. That's fine for day to day living but in the long term, it's fraught with danger. These movies are little time capsules from different eras, treasure troves of research, fashion and deeper implications.

As of now, I've only "shared" a few of them with my kids but hope to be able to watch more together as they mature and with any luck, you may enjoy them, too:

Cry Freedom

Cry Freedom was Sir Richard Attenborough's follow-up to Gandhi, a well-meaning attempt to dramatise the despicable Apartheid situation in South Africa, centering around the killing (murder?) of charismatic black leader Steve Biko (Denzel Washington) by State Security forces.

Driving Miss Daisy

Winner of 4 Academy Awards, Driving Miss Daisy is a love story of sorts, set in the American South between a black chauffeur Hoke (Morgan Freeman), and his boss, cantankerous Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy), over a period of 40 years.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Another love story set in the American South, this time between two young women who would have been lesbians...if they knew such things existed. Friendship, Love, Female Empowerment, Racism & bbq-s, all explored interestingly in a modest "let me tell you a story" series of flashbacks between an old woman (Jessica Tandy) and her younger friend (Kathy Bates).

Gandhi

Winner of 8 Academy Awards (including Best Picture), Richard Attenborough's Gandhi is movie-making on a massive scale. Excellent introduction to the life-time struggle of India's inspirational "spiritual" father, Mahatma Gandhi (Ben Kingsley), to bring independence to his homeland.

Gladiator

Coming soon

Kingdom Of Heaven

Ridley Scott's visually stunning look at The Crusades...and the political similarities with today. Very much a Humanist post 9/11 film with pretty-boy Orlando Bloom playing the man in the middle.

Munich

Stephen Spielberg's dramatisation of how an Israeli hit-squad carried out retailation killings after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Munich is certainly not easy viewing...and its humanist "message" is frustratingly inapplicable to The Middle East (or any hot-point, for that matter)...nevertheless, it's still worth catching.

The Name Of The Rose

Medieval whodunit with only the barest connection to Umberto Eco's dense, provocative original novel, The Name Of The Rose is, nevertheless, still enjoyable. Sean Connery is William of Baskerville, a rational monk living in irrational times, who's visiting a monastery where monks are dropping like flies. Dark Powers are thought responsible...but William believes the killer is one of the monks. Who...and why?

Troy

Troy is a guilty pleasure in this souvlaki beefcake $200 million epic. It's no Gladiator...but it's certainly worth seeing, if only to see how the money was spent with Brad Pitt surprisingly good as he-man Achilles, on a quest for immortality.