Lies, camera, action...
From dubious scots to a drama Queen, here’s titanic film errors
Jim Sheridan’s story of The Guildford Four was lambasted for its inaccuracies when it was released.
These included showing Gerry Conlon and his father Mary and Elizabeth never met Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe in action Giuseppe sharing a cell (they never did), courtroom scenes that strayed from Hugh Jackman
reality and showing human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce representing Giuseppe (she didn’t).
A crack squad of American sailors capture an Enigma codemaking machine from a German submarine.
It’s so historically inaccurate that then-prime Minister Tony Blair called it “an affront to the real sailors”, who were British and captured the sub before the US had even entered the war.
Woolly mammoths living in the desert help build the pyramids. No, they didn’t.
Another Mel Gibson fantasy in which an American dad defeats his son’s killer, the evil British Colonel Tarleton, in the final battle of Guilford Court House during the US War of Independence. In real life the Americans lost.
Explorer Captain John Smith is saved from being skewered by Native Americans in the New World by brave Pocahontas, who then falls in love with him.
They sing many romantic songs together.
Trouble is, Pocahontas was only 10 at the time. And she fell in love with someone else.
And the whole story probably a lie anyway. Matthew Mcconaughey in U571 was
Big-hearted PT Barnum befriends society’s outcasts and encourages them to be themselves.
In reality, he was a conman who exploited people and turned them into a freak show while playing on racism to get the crowds.
The songs are nice, though.
At my command, unleash lies... Apparently at least one consultant on Roman history quit working on the film because of its inaccuracies.
They include Marcus Aurelius being killed by his son Commodus (he wasn’t) and Commodus himself being murdered in the gladiatorial arena – he wasn’t, he was killed in the bath.
There are also battles that never happened – and the film’s Latin grammar is atrocious.