by Dr Shelley Anne Galpin
If the past is a foreign country, then it is, at least, one place that we can all visit with ease, if only for an hour or two at a time. Amongst the numerous films and television dramas available for consumption are many offering immersion into a past time, whether it is the hijinks of the Vikings or the polite Regency society of Jane Austen, and through this immersion we not only experience the pleasures of transportation to an unfamiliar world, but we are also promised the opportunity to learn about our past and the people that lived there.
There is no doubt that the opportunity to learn about historical periods is at the very least a significant bonus for many audiences, if not one of the main sources of pleasure. Research I carried out into teenage responses to period drama found that the period setting was one of the most enjoyable features of the dramas, even though many of them did not identify as particular fans of the period drama genre. Similarly, Claire Monk’s research into this genre, with participants drawn from a wider age range, also found that the ability to experience or learn about past times or events was a significant pleasure for many audiences. (1)
However, accompanying this seeming benefit arising from dramatic representations of the past are a significant number of pitfalls. Not least amongst these is the frequent tendency for both audience members and the media alike to complain loudly about any perceived departure from historical accuracy. Just think of the criticism attracted by the Damien Chazelle film First Man (2018) for failing to depict the first astronauts on the moon planting the stars and stripes on the lunar surface. (2) Whilst it is easy, particularly from a position on the other side of the Atlantic, to dismiss this as overly patriotic posturing on behalf of the US, it is in fact symptomatic of something far more central to the practice of depicting the past onscreen.
Although it is appealing to think of dramatic representations of the past as giving us a window into our history, the truth is clearly far more complex. All films and TV shows telling stories about the past, whether entirely fictional or purportedly based on ‘a true story’ are created with a contemporary audience in mind and are therefore required to connect with the emotional needs, ideologies, and pre-existing expectations of the projected audience. Hence, all depictions of history might be considered just as much mirror as window, telling us as much about the time of production as they do about the period in which they are set. At the very least the window to the past might be considered somewhat ‘frosted’, offering us vague impressions of what is going on behind it, but obscuring all detail, to the extent that we’re not truly sure what we’re looking at. Whilst this is an interesting direction of study, it also raises questions around the impact of this distortion and ‘presentism’ on collective memory, and our attitudes and beliefs about the past. How do representations of history alter ‘true’ history and shape beliefs about the past? More importantly, what are the impacts of these beliefs on collective identity more generally, and what, if any, responsibility do producers of drama have to show fidelity to historical fact?
The benefits of creating drama with a historical setting are manifest, with all such productions being built on a form of pre-sold material, even if they do not draw directly on published fiction or biography (which, of course, many of them do). The 2014 film The Imitation Game (dir. Morten Tyldum), starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley amongst a host of British acting talent, does an excellent job of dramatizing not only the breaking of the Enigma code and the development of ‘digital computers’, but also highlighting the appalling treatment of Alan Turing and many other men criminalised because of their homosexuality. By turns exciting, informative, and emotionally moving, The Imitation Game would seem to be close to a perfect example of the historical film. It deals with not one, but two, weighty subject matters, the process of breaking the seemingly impenetrably coded German communications and the ignominious treatment of Alan Turing, who by rights should have been a celebrated war hero, following his arrest for having sexual relationships with men.
Like many viewers, I find The Imitation Game to be a hugely enjoyable and engaging film. In my mind I silently punch the air when Keira Knightley’s Joan Clarke triumphs over a room full of men, having just been mansplained to by a smug civil servant who attempts to direct her to the secretarial room. My heart races as fast as the characters as they run through the grounds of Bletchley Park, after FINALLY realising how to break the Enigma code, and I wipe away a tear as the films closes with the characters reflecting on their achievements, the subtitles helpfully informing me of all the subsequent events that the film was unable to dramatize.
To what extent then, is the impact of this highly satisfying and pleasurable experience lessened by the fact that these moments are a distortion of history? My enjoyable but somewhat predictable reactions serving simply to demonstrate just how effectively history has been manipulated to show me what I never knew I wanted to see. Whilst Bletchley Park was undoubtedly home to many remarkably clever women during the war, the constructed scenario in which Joan Clarke must prove her worth in front of a room of doubting men, not simply by being as good as them, but by being better, is there to satisfy modern-day beliefs that women in the past must always have been discriminated against. In doing so, it contributes to a collective memory of historical misogyny that also supports our own awareness of the inequalities still present in society. I am, of course, by no means attempting to suggest that women were not discriminated against in the past. However, it is notable that the source biography by Andrew Hodges, which the film explicitly claims to be based on, makes very little mention of what life was like for Joan and other women at Bletchley, and certainly does not suggest the type of institutionalised misogyny that The Imitation Game implies through Joan’s struggle. (3) Thus, by choosing to dramatize Clarke’s life in this way, the film contributes to a feedback loop in which we are shown what we already believed we knew, thereby confirming that history was, indeed, just as we thought it was, and consequently explaining to us why the present is as we perceive it to be.
The invention of scenarios for dramatic effect may not, in itself, be particularly problematic. Indeed, many people would probably say that they would expect this of dramatic representations of history even while they choose not to probe too deeply into any details of films they have particularly enjoyed. However, the underlying effect of these narratives can be somewhat more significant, particularly when the stories represent conflict between countries. The Imitation Game features a highly effective sequence in which an innocuous remark inspires Turing to realise how exactly to get his digital computer to crack the Enigma code. This prompts a night-time run through a deserted Bletchley Park, followed by a suitably tense moment in which the theory is tested, and culminates in an emotional outpouring from the characters, as they realise the magnitude of what they have just accomplished. As my previously described response to this demonstrates, this scene is hugely satisfying. Easy to understand, yet not so much as to be obvious, and stretched over several minutes, so the final moment of realisation produces an emotional release in the audience that the characters’ own reactions mirror and heighten. However, whilst this sequence functions very well as a piece of filmmaking, its purpose in educating about history, should it be presumed to have one, is decidedly less well met.
That this film provides an overly-dramatised account of the past is unlikely to surprise any but the most naïve of viewers. However, in altering the story of how Enigma was broken The Imitation Game not only obfuscates the contributions of anyone but Alan Turing, but also implies that the breaking of Enigma, and by extension the development of computer technology more generally, was the work one man, and one nation. Hodges’ biography, in contrast, demonstrates the range of work, from multiple countries, which Turing both built on and contributed to, perhaps most notably for this example the work of Polish cryptanalysts, whom Hodges notes as having made significant strides towards the breakthrough that this scene depicts. (4) Whilst, like First Man’s failure to depict the planting of the stars and stripes on the moon, these alterations may seem to be harmless, they raise questions around the ethics of using biopics, and particularly those made with the expectation of wide distribution, to tell stories which exaggerate the contributions of one nation (or individual) towards significant global events, whilst obscuring those of another.
The need for creative licence in the process of creating entertainment out of history is clear; entertainment, after all, does need to be entertaining. However, there is also no doubt that many such films are explicit in their attempts to be seen as a representation of history, and rely on this for, at least part of, their specific appeal. The practice of ending films based on historical figures or events with captions informing the audience ‘what happened next’ is highly familiar to any viewer with a passing familiarity with the genre. This relating of information confers an authority on a given film in its totality, implying what has gone before is as reliable as the facts provided at the film’s end. As noted, The Imitation Game employs this technique, as does Amma Asante’s Belle (2013), a representation of the biracial eighteenth-century woman Dido Elizabeth Belle. This latter film, which is an undoubtedly significant and very enjoyable piece of filmmaking, features two central plotlines, one of which is an alteration of historical fact, in a similar manner to the approach taken by The Imitation Game, and the other of which is entirely fictionalised. However, the film still ends by telling the viewer what the characters ‘did next’, despite that fact that they had not done much of what the preceding two hours suggests that they did.
The tension between historical fidelity and commercial imperatives is unlikely to be easily resolved. Whilst there are obvious reasons why filmmakers adapt stories into dramatic narratives when producing film and television works purportedly based on historical fact, the impact that these alterations can have are not insignificant. Ib Bondebjerg et al note that controversy around the Danish historical series 1864 led some critics to call for dramas produced by public service broadcasters in the country to be fact-checked by historians due to the series’ perceived potential to significantly impact Danish national identity. (5) The way we present history for mass consumption has the power to colour how we think about the past, and how we view our culture in the present. Asante’s Belle, a rare example (particularly at time of release) of a period drama featuring an ethnic minority actor in an aristocratic role is in part a response to what Bourne identifies as the ‘generic whiteness’ of British period drama, (6) a phenomenon which not only inaccurately represented the British past but contributes to potentially dangerous notions about what ‘Britishness’ is.
Memories are not static phenomena that accumulate like cast-off items in an attic. They build on each other, making us who we are, and influencing the choices we make. Collective, cultural memories are no different, and however inconvenient it may be to those for whom commercial interests outweigh cultural ones, films and television shows play a significant role in this process. Whether it be a seemingly innocent piece of dramatic licence like altering the sequence of historical events, or a more significant choice, such as claiming too much credit for important global achievements, or denying others their due, the ways we represent the past have power to influence collective memory. Thus, the choices we make about how we holiday in the ‘foreign country’ of the past are also likely to impact our attitudes and choices once we return home to the present.
References
(1) Claire Monk, Heritage Film Audiences: Period Films and Contemporary Audiences in the UK (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), p. 120.
(2) See for example Rachel Yang, ‘First Man Director, Screenwriter Defend Film After Flag Controversy’, Variety, 10 September 2018. Available at https://variety.com/2018/film/news/first-man-director-screenwriter-defend-movie-flag-controversy-1202935170/ [accessed 14/05/2021]
(3) Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma, rev. edn (London: Vintage, 2014).
(4) See Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma, pp. 214-22.
(5) Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, Rasmus Helles, Signe Sophus Lai, Henrik Søndergaard and Cecilie Astrupgaard, Transnational European Television Drama: Production, Genres and Audiences (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 287.
(6) Stephen Bourne, ‘Secrets and Lies: Black Histories and Black Historical Films’, in British Historical Cinema: The History, Heritage and Costume Film, ed. by Claire Monk and Amy Sargeant (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 47-65.