I wrote a little while ago about how suspicious I am concerning “true stories” that make it to the big screen. Truth be told, life doesn’t exactly fit into the three act structure or one-hundred-and-twenty minutes of screen time – I understand that changes need to be made. Real life characters are often boiled down or reduced to mere collections of quirks, the hero faces a more streamlined obstacle than they did in real life and sometimes even ends up a far better person for it. However, I was sitting down watching The King’s Speech at the weekend and I couldn’t help wondering if we really needed for Albert’s elder brother David and his American fiancée Wallis to be portrayed as nothing more than scheming villains, just because we needed to root for Albert a little more.
The Simpsons?
Note: The ever-wonderful TV Tropes describe this as a “Historical Villain Upgrade” if you’re looking for more examples of what I am talking about…
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alan rickman, Éamon de Valera, Easter Rising, Fianna Fáil, film, historical villain upgrade, history, Ireland, Irish Civil War, king george vi, liam neeson, List of political parties in the Republic of Ireland, michael collins, Movies, prince albert, prince david, United States, w.e. simpson, wallis simpson, we simpson | 7 Comments »
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