a few minor revisions
I have promised to show why I think Nixon was the worst modern president, but I am not going to do it here. In part, because few of you care, in part because the project is too long to keep promising and I want to do it slowly, and in part because there is a better place to do it. So, go there if you care.
....But now, all this research into Nixon's past has me peeved.
I don't get even annoyed too often, but a few things do it.
It happened last night while I was watching the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie.
The movie is listed as "based on the incredible true story". The "story" is of the most famous plot to assassinate Hitler, known as the 20 July Plot.
It is a great story. The movie is a good movie. But the movie is not true to history. There is (or should I say should be) a significant lack of verisimilitude for the viewer. But there won't be that lack, because people won't know.
Factually, the movie was considerably truthful, although some of the events depicted happened out of sequence. As example, there is a meeting of the anti-Hitler "resistance" that occurs that did not happen, COULD NOT have happened in the latter part of the war, as suggested. That meeting MAY have happened in 1938, to a lesser extent. Maybe. It could not have happened in the '40s because, by then, there was way too much fear of the SS for the participants at that meeting to have been that outspoken (or have even gathered) in anything but the smallest of groups, let alone spouting treason so publicly. The movie's juxtaposition of these events (and many other liberties, especially around the logistics) make it not realistic for someone who knows what Hitler's Germany was like. It is basically wrong, because it suggests freedom that did NOT exist, could not exist. But now, 70 years later, to viewers who do not know, especially those who do not know oppression personally, it seems realistic. And thanks to the labeling as "true story", many of the previously ignorant viewers will now walk away from the film with a viewpoint of 1943 German life that is considerably softer than reality, a viewpoint that they now consider the reality, but a viewpoint more wrong than their previous general ignorance. Some few (hopefully rare) might even think that Hitler's brand of government DOES ALLOW a number of basic freedoms.
I am now speechless with disgust.
Did that make sense?
Poll does anybody really know what time it is?
....But now, all this research into Nixon's past has me peeved.
I don't get even annoyed too often, but a few things do it.
It happened last night while I was watching the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie.
The movie is listed as "based on the incredible true story". The "story" is of the most famous plot to assassinate Hitler, known as the 20 July Plot.
It is a great story. The movie is a good movie. But the movie is not true to history. There is (or should I say should be) a significant lack of verisimilitude for the viewer. But there won't be that lack, because people won't know.
Factually, the movie was considerably truthful, although some of the events depicted happened out of sequence. As example, there is a meeting of the anti-Hitler "resistance" that occurs that did not happen, COULD NOT have happened in the latter part of the war, as suggested. That meeting MAY have happened in 1938, to a lesser extent. Maybe. It could not have happened in the '40s because, by then, there was way too much fear of the SS for the participants at that meeting to have been that outspoken (or have even gathered) in anything but the smallest of groups, let alone spouting treason so publicly. The movie's juxtaposition of these events (and many other liberties, especially around the logistics) make it not realistic for someone who knows what Hitler's Germany was like. It is basically wrong, because it suggests freedom that did NOT exist, could not exist. But now, 70 years later, to viewers who do not know, especially those who do not know oppression personally, it seems realistic. And thanks to the labeling as "true story", many of the previously ignorant viewers will now walk away from the film with a viewpoint of 1943 German life that is considerably softer than reality, a viewpoint that they now consider the reality, but a viewpoint more wrong than their previous general ignorance. Some few (hopefully rare) might even think that Hitler's brand of government DOES ALLOW a number of basic freedoms.
I am now speechless with disgust.
Did that make sense?
Poll does anybody really know what time it is?