Swords and Cinema: Hollywood vs the reality of ancient warfare, by Jeremiah McCall
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Swords and Cinema: Hollywood vs the reality of ancient warfare, by Jeremiah McCall
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The battles and sieges of the Classical world have been a rich source of inspiration to film makers since the beginning of cinema and the 60s and 70s saw the golden age of the ‘swords and sandals’ epic, with films such as Spartacus. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator led a modern revival that has continued with the release of films like 300, The Eagle and Centurion and HBO’s mini-series Rome. While Hollywood interpretations of Classical battle continue to spark interest in ancient warfare, to casual viewers and serious enthusiasts alike they also spark a host of questions about authenticity. What does Hollywood get right and wrong about weapons, organization, tactics and the experience of combat? Did the Spartans really fight clad only in their underpants and did the Persians have mysterious, silver-masked assassins in their armies? This original book discusses the merits of battle scenes in selected movies and along the way gives the reader an interesting overview of ancient battle. It should appeal to the serious student of ancient warfare, movie buffs and everyone in between.
Swords and Cinema: Hollywood vs the reality of ancient warfare, by Jeremiah McCall- Amazon Sales Rank: #1847926 in Books
- Published on: 2015-03-19
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 6.25" w x .75" l, .84 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 224 pages
About the Author Jeremiah B McCall is a school teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a pioneering advocate of the use of video games as teaching aids and has a PhD in Classical History. His previous works include much-praised The Cavalry of the Roman Republic (2002) and The Sword of Rome (Pen & Sword, 2012) He is now working on his next work for Pen & Sword, which assesses the portrayals of ancient warfare and empire building in video games.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Did that really happen? Did they look like that? By JPS These are two of the most frequent questions that we tend to ask ourselves, and two of the questions that Jeremiah McCall, among others, seeks to address in his original and fascinating latest book “Swords and Cinema”. In this book, he compares the reality of ancient warfare, as far as historians can determine it, with how it is presented and rendering by the film industry (mostly Hollywood, although at least one old Italian “peplum” is also included). The films (or series such as HBO’s Rome) are mostly recent, although, here again, there is a major exception (Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus).The author’s selection of films starts with Troy and warfare in Archaic Greece. It includes the film 300 for the hoplite phalanx, Oliver Stone’s Alexander for the Macedonians, Spartacus and Rome for the end of the Roman Republic, and, of course, Ridley Scot’s Gladiator, but also Centurion and The Eagle, for Imperial Rome and the late 1970s Masada series (with Peter O’Toole in the role of Silva, the bitter, disgruntled, homesick and cynical legionary commander) for siege warfare.There are six main chapters, each corresponding to a specific period and focusing on specific battle scenes. To quote the author’s introduction, “if you have ever watched a film set ion the ancient world, wondering about historical accuracy while enjoying the spectacle, this book is for you.” Having seen just about all of the films and battle scenes analysed by the author, and being a bit of an “Ancient history buff”, I simply loved every page of this book. It is also very accessible, written in simple and plain English by someone who also happens to be a teacher and manages to get the main messages across in a clear and concise way.One of the main points made is that a film, and a dramatic epic film in particular, is not history because it is all about drama, as opposed to being a documentary which just reports what historical written sources say about specific events or periods. The author draws a number of consequences from this. One of them is that a film – and the images that it conveys - is a much more powerful tool to play on impressions, feelings and emotions, that any written account which requires a lot of imagination for a similar result to be approached. A second conclusion is that films are ideally suited to convey the experience of battle (or, to use Keegan’s term, “the face of battle”) with all of its grim, gritty and possibly also gory aspects and its climatic emotions. Another is that a film director, precisely because he is focusing on dramatic effects, has to make choices. He will tend to take short-cuts and emphasise specific points while toning down or even entirely omitting others.I will not review each of the nine or ten films analysed within this book’s six chapters. Suffice is to say that some films were clearly better than others in reconstituting historical costumes, with Oliver Stone’s battle of Gaugamela being probably the most accurate, thanks to the help of Robin L. Fox who was the historical consultant for the film. One of the worse with regards to the appearance of the soldiers was 300 (but, as you will see, the author finds it other qualities).One of the elements that Jeremiah McCall emphasises in a film’s need to be dramatic is the tendency of film directors to sometimes misrepresent the commanders of the time. For instance, while Alexander was notorious for “leading from the front”, charging at the head of his Companion cavalry and taking such insane risks that he could (and, often, nearly did) get himself killed in just about every of his battles and sieges, this kind of behaviour was not really what was expected from a Roman general during the Empire (so much for Russell Crowe leading the victorious cavalry charge in Gladiator, even if the scene is quite superb!). Another type of misrepresentation or, at least interpretation, is to make the “heroes” nicer and more sympathetic than they were likely to have been, precisely because the film director wants the public to emphasise with them. So you kind a killer like Achilles wondering about his fate and all the people he has put to death over the years and a hard as nails veteran Roman general such as Silva having feelings for the besieged Jews in Masada and wanting to save them despite themselves.And I could go on, and on and on, at the risk of boring just about everyone, but I will stop here because I have no intention of paraphrasing this superb book (and making a mess of it in the process!) and because, by now, I hope to have explained why I am rating this book five stars without the slightest hesitation.
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