For my Communication and Memory paper, which I will discribe in full detail later, I’m analyzing the film representations of the Charge of the Light Brigade. To this end, I procured a copy of the two films about this event, the 1936 version and the 1968 version. I’m writing about the older movie tomorrow, so I watched it tonight.
Well, I just watched a movie called The Charge of the Light Brigade. There even was eventaully a charge, made by a brigade … with about nine minutes left to go in the film. The first two hours were about some love affair in India and some evil sheik that massacred a bunch of people. With 15 minutes to go no one had uttered the words “Light Brigade,” and I wasn’t convinced I was actually watching the right movie. I’m not entirely sure this evil person actually existed, but even if he did … wow. My brain is trying to escape out my ears. This movie is represented as being “a historically-inspired fictionalization.” I’ve researched the actual event thoroughly, and I can say with certainty that it would have been better known as presenting an “alternate reality.”
The good news? I planned to slam the movie as being historically inaccurate, so that’s not going to be a problem. It’s going to be easier than I ever imagined.
The bad news? I’m terrified that people will watch this movie and think they’ve got some idea of what happened in the Crimean War. Every historical aspect of this movie, save the fact that the British Empire ruled India and participated in the Crimean War and the Battle of Balaclava specifically, is as far as I can tell completely wrong. Even the uniforms were out of whack.
If you watch this movie, be aware that everything you see is basically fiction. It does not reflect recorded history in any meaningful way. It does not reflect reality in any meaningful way. You’re better off looking at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, including Ann Coulter.
New life goal: Invent time machine for the sole purpose of going back in time and taking vengence upon everyone involved in this film, for the sake of the entire human race. Yes. Good plan. I hear that such a device may have other applications, like settling once and for all what killed the dinosaurs, or who killed JFK, but these queries surely pale in comparison to the vital importance of erasing The Charge of the Light Brigade from existence.
The fact that Warner Brothers had a Research Department whose sole purpose was to come up with historical background information for films and they … excreted … this thing is quite frankly terrifying.
My brain is litterally hurting after the epic struggle between the part of me that knows what really happened and the part desperately trying to pay attention to the film enough to write about it. I’m going to bed now, before my brain starts analyzing the myriad plotholes and implodes.