It’s quite rare for a movie about a person’s life to be 100 percent correct. Dramatic flavor, poetic license, romanticization, sugar coating, and other means to create entertainment out of real life understandably causes the occasional fact to go out the window. Although it’s sometimes just a matter of accidental fallacy, people tend to have a field day with biographical blunders. (We will likely soon be hearing about inaccuracies in the new Jackie Robinson biopic “42,” opening this weekend.)
Granted, many wrongs are pointed out only through those who experienced the events first hand, and a lot of these are subjective offenses about how persons are portrayed or characterized. There’s also great issue taken with whitewashed depictions, as well. Then there are the easily provable errors, like when Congressman Joe Courtney made a big deal earlier this year about an incorrect vote count spotted in “Lincoln” regarding Connecticut’s approval of the 13th Amendment.
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‘Braveheart’
Inaccuracy: William Wallace’s Affair With Isabella
There is not a lot that is empirically provable or disprovable about events that happened more than 700 years ago. Anyway, you can’t get too picky about the truthfulness of something like the life of William Wallace (Mel Gibson). He’s the dictionary definition of the word legend, and appropriately this movie is filled with folklore carried through the centuries not only in historical records but in stories and songs and poems and plays. Nevertheless, one major aspect of “Braveheart” is completely erroneous and that’s Wallace’s affair with Princess Isabella of France (Sophie Marceau), who was a wee child at the time she was supposed to have met the Scottish hero, and still an adolescent when Wallace was killed.
‘My Week With Marilyn’
Inaccuracy: Marilyn’s Film Performance of ‘Heat Wave’
It’s not good to kick off a movie with a glaring error, but this film does just that -- sort of. The opening scene has Eddie Redmayne’s character in a theater watching a movie starring Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams). But what movie is it? She’s singing “Heat Wave,” which is from “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” But it’s definitely not the scene from that movie. Everything about it -- costumes, sets, props, dance routine -- are not right. It kind of looks like her performance of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” in “Let’s Make Love” (which came out after “My Week With Marilyn” is set), but it’s probably really just supposed to be a composite -- a nonexistent musical film scene representing all her musical film scenes. That’s fine if that’s the intention. It’s also probable that the filmmakers weren’t legally able to reenact Fox’s movie and thought nobody would notice.
‘Great Balls of Fire!’
Inaccuracy: “Great Balls of Fire” Topping the Pop Charts
It’s one thing to make changes here and there, but it’s another thing to outright lie the way “Great Balls of Fire!” does. The film about early rock and roll star Jerry Lee Lewis is as cartoonish as biopics get. There are inaccuracies abound. But it goes too far, literally, with a montage illustrating Lewis’s title tune climbing all the way up the Billboard charts. In reality it peaked at #2. So what’s the shame in pretending it grabbed the #1 spot? Well, dumping this documented fact, easily found in print, shows either laziness or total disregard for truth.
‘Hitchcock’
Inaccuracy: Alfred Hitchcock Signs Off By Saying “Good Evening”
The recent dramatic film about the making of “Psycho” opens with Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience by saying, “Good evening.” (The clip isn't available online.) This is obviously inspired by the director’s television series, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” But then Hitch also closes out by again saying, “Good evening.” However, he always bid farewell (till next time) on the show by saying “goodnight.” Sure, it’s hard to “prove” he wouldn’t have said “good evening” in this made up situation, but it wouldn’t make sense anyway. “Good evening” is technically a greeting rather than a term for goodbye.
‘Ray’
Inaccuracy: Della Bea’s Presence in the Final Scene
The very end of “Ray” takes place in 1979, when Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx) is being honored by the State of Georgia, which has selected “Georgia On My Mind” as their official song. He’s joined at the occasion by his wife Della Rae (Kerry Washington) and their three sons. But in actuality Ray and Della divorced in 1976. This isn’t to say she couldn’t have been present at the event, but it’s very unlikely. And the main issue here is that the movie implies the couple was not only still together at the time but that they’d lived happily ever after.
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