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Thread: What I've learned after seeing the movie Flyboys

  1. #1

    Thumbs down What I've learned after seeing the movie Flyboys

    Yesterday along with Inęs I finally saw Flyboys.
    Inęs fell asleep during one of the romantic interludes.
    I suffered the movie to the end. This is what I've learned from the movie:

    The Germans only had Fokker triplanes. All of them red with the exception of one who was Black and evil.
    I can't understand the Red Baron nickname since they were all red...
    The Nieuports 17 were as maneuverable (if not more) as the Fokkers.
    Training was a fast thing. Walk over some boards after a chair spin and you were good to go alone on a trainer.
    There was a method, even better than radar to know where Zeppelins were going and what they were doing to do.
    Jean Reno is America's best friend. He's always there to help with Godzilla or to save the ass of someone who uses trainers without permission.
    You can use a trainer for personal matter when you need it, but never at night. At night you might get court martial-ed.
    French girls learn English faster if they are kissed.
    Why have synchronized machine-guns firing through a propeller if you can shoot an enemy ace with your sidearm?
    Why have synchronized machine-guns firing through a propeller if you can, with a quick calculation, make two Fokkers crash against each other?
    You can improve someone's gunnery skill by cutting his hand.
    We are playing Wings of Glory wrong since WW1 planes climb faster than they dive...

  2. #2

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    I like this. It could be kicking off further reviews in same tone...

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    What?!

    Joaquim, don't you appreciate artistic license? I know that facts and historical accuracy may, at times, be "slightly" altered for a more dramatic story, but it is supposed to make the story more interesting.

    Wasn't the story better?

    Mike

    PS: I think a movie reviewer said it best once, although I can't remember the movie, "It's one thing to ask audiences to suspend disbelief. It is another thing entirely to put it in a car and drive it off a cliff."

  4. #4

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    Very droll Quim.

    That's film directors for you all over.
    Rob.
    "Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackronin View Post
    The Germans only had Fokker triplanes. All of them red with the exception of one who was Black and evil..
    I saw an interview with (I think) the director who said that they were well aware that the German planes should be (a) Albatrii and (b) not red but the target audience (nationality withheld to avoid embarrasment) "knew" that all German WW1 aircraft were red triplanes so thats why they did what they did

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by OldGuy59 View Post
    What?!

    Joaquim, don't you appreciate artistic license? I know that facts and historical accuracy may, at times, be "slightly" altered for a more dramatic story, but it is supposed to make the story more interesting.

    Wasn't the story better?

    Mike

    PS: I think a movie reviewer said it best once, although I can't remember the movie, "It's one thing to ask audiences to suspend disbelief. It is another thing entirely to put it in a car and drive it off a cliff."
    I'm a RPG keeper so I work very well with suspension of disbelief. You can insert something out of fantasy and everybody goes along if the rest is very well anchored in logic or reality.
    In the case of this movie I wouldn't be more annoyed if a flying disk went by and destroyed a plane or two...

    The sadder is that the dialogue was so childish that it didn't even had that feel that some movies have that they are so terrible that become sort of good...

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Manley View Post
    I saw an interview with (I think) the director who said that they were well aware that the German planes should be (a) Albatrii and (b) not red but the target audience (nationality withheld to avoid embarrasment) "knew" that all German WW1 aircraft were red triplanes so thats why they did what they did
    No need--to most Americans "ancient history" is anything before they were born, and History class is just a mid-day nap time in between mindless twaddle about "feelings" and "self-esteem" and "fill-in-the-blank cause/group-du-jour studies". (Right along with basic spelling and grammar, I'm alarmed by how fast the US is devolving into a nation of functional illiterates--it is truly disturbing to note that comparing my elementary and high schools' libraries, the FORMER had a higher average reading level. How could we LOSE so much ground in as little as five years with the same group of students? Would that be termed DE-education? O.O )

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blauer Baron View Post
    I like this. It could be kicking off further reviews in same tone...
    Kevin, there's a lot of choices to pick from.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Manley View Post
    I saw an interview with (I think) the director who said that they were well aware that the German planes should be (a) Albatrii and (b) not red but the target audience (nationality withheld to avoid embarrasment) "knew" that all German WW1 aircraft were red triplanes so thats why they did what they did
    And nobody kicked him in the head?!

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    No need--to most Americans "ancient history" is anything before they were born, and History class is just a mid-day nap time in between mindless twaddle about "feelings" and "self-esteem" and "fill-in-the-blank cause/group-du-jour studies". (Right along with basic spelling and grammar, I'm alarmed by how fast the US is devolving into a nation of functional illiterates--it is truly disturbing to note that comparing my elementary and high schools' libraries, the FORMER had a higher average reading level. How could we LOSE so much ground in as little as five years with the same group of students? Would that be termed DE-education? O.O )
    I wish all teachers in the world were like the one in this poem:


  11. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Flying Officer Kyte View Post
    Very droll Quim.

    That's film directors for you all over.
    Rob.
    Film directors should - like all artists - have a moral code, like doctors have. We would still have junk movies but probably people would be more aware of whats good and whats bad.

  12. #12

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    Main point in my comment re ed being that both system and culture are broken here in the US, and it doesn't help that a typical history teacher here comes off as marginally less lifeless than the people they talk about. (I DID have a couple of good ones, so I've seen the contrast. ) Some really good ones, some really bad ones, and most just trying to get through things the best way they can figure out how after being served a turdburger of a situation.

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    Losing perspective is a terrible thing for a culture or nation. And it seems that we're at the verge of a worldwide loss of perspective...

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    True... OTOH aggression unpunished is aggression rewarded, and the Russian (whether direct or by proxy through their sponsored guerrillas) shootdown of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine is looking more and more like this century's Franz Ferdinand moment.

  15. #15

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    "French girls learn English faster if they are kissed."

    I seem to recall being inspired to learn French after being French kissed......................................... LOL! Can't remember much of it nowadays though!

  16. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    True... OTOH aggression unpunished is aggression rewarded, and the Russian (whether direct or by proxy through their sponsored guerrillas) shootdown of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine is looking more and more like this century's Franz Ferdinand moment.
    What a terrible irony it would be...
    I shiver just with the thought of it...

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    My daughter doing a piece on history of film came across an interview with a well known American Director. When asked why a certain film was so innaccurate (I think it was the Patriot - the bit about burning the civilians in the church) he replied, I make movies to make money. If I have to change history to do this then I will.

    On the other hand is history not written by the winners, never the losers? Does this make directors the winner?
    See you on the Dark Side......

  18. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    My daughter doing a piece on history of film came across an interview with a well known American Director. When asked why a certain film was so innaccurate (I think it was the Patriot - the bit about burning the civilians in the church) he replied, I make movies to make money. If I have to change history to do this then I will.

    On the other hand is history not written by the winners, never the losers? Does this make directors the winner?
    And nobody kicked him in the head?!

  19. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    True... OTOH aggression unpunished is aggression rewarded, and the Russian (whether direct or by proxy through their sponsored guerrillas) shootdown of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine is looking more and more like this century's Franz Ferdinand moment.
    1) Unlikely (there are too many "murky" aspects to this event) and;

    2) does that really have a place in a thread like this? honestly? or are we OK to link atrocities to wargaming threads at our leisure now?

  20. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    When asked why a certain film was so innaccurate (I think it was the Patriot - the bit about burning the civilians in the church)...
    Yup, saw something like that. interviewer asks him what event he was recreating there and he said it was an incident in France in WW2 with the Gestapo burning the church.

  21. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by James Denberger View Post
    "French girls learn English faster if they are kissed."

    I seem to recall being inspired to learn French after being French kissed......................................... LOL! Can't remember much of it nowadays though!
    My first girlfriend was half Portuguese half Belgian. We did French kissed a lot. I already knew French from School.
    I had a American girlfriend when I was at faculty. She always wanted to speak Portuguese. She wanted to learn, she said. We did French kissed a lot. I already knew English from School.
    I never learned properly Italian. She was in Lisbon just for three weeks. She spoke English and we did a lot of French.
    I never learned Polish. But one of the most beautiful woman I ever met was in Warsaw in 1994. She spoke not English. French? I'll never know.

  22. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Manley View Post
    1) Unlikely (there are too many "murky" aspects to this event) and;

    2) does that really have a place in a thread like this? honestly? or are we OK to link atrocities to wargaming threads at our leisure now?
    So... Better not answer to 1) and 2) seems out of proportion about what we were doing, but okay, let's gey back to atrocities before 1946.

  23. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    No need--to most Americans "ancient history" is anything before they were born, and History class is just a mid-day nap time in between mindless twaddle about "feelings" and "self-esteem" and "fill-in-the-blank cause/group-du-jour studies". (Right along with basic spelling and grammar, I'm alarmed by how fast the US is devolving into a nation of functional illiterates--it is truly disturbing to note that comparing my elementary and high schools' libraries, the FORMER had a higher average reading level. How could we LOSE so much ground in as little as five years with the same group of students? Would that be termed DE-education? O.O )
    welcome to the idiocracy

  24. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackronin View Post
    What I learned after seeing the film Flyboys ...
    That it's still a better than the film The Red Baron ?

  25. #25

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    No Dave, it's worst. Worst acting, worst "history", worst combat scenes, worst romance... Not even Jean Reno saves the day...

  26. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackronin View Post
    My first girlfriend was half Portuguese half Belgian. We did French kissed a lot. I already knew French from School.
    I had a American girlfriend when I was at faculty. She always wanted to speak Portuguese. She wanted to learn, she said. We did French kissed a lot. I already knew English from School.
    I never learned properly Italian. She was in Lisbon just for three weeks. She spoke English and we did a lot of French.
    I never learned Polish. But one of the most beautiful woman I ever met was in Warsaw in 1994. She spoke not English. French? I'll never know.
    Interesting, I shink I should make some notes.


    "Honey, what do you think about learning new languages?"

  27. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    No need--to most Americans "ancient history" is anything before they were born, and History class is just a mid-day nap time in between mindless twaddle about "feelings" and "self-esteem" and "fill-in-the-blank cause/group-du-jour studies". (Right along with basic spelling and grammar, I'm alarmed by how fast the US is devolving into a nation of functional illiterates--it is truly disturbing to note that comparing my elementary and high schools' libraries, the FORMER had a higher average reading level. How could we LOSE so much ground in as little as five years with the same group of students? Would that be termed DE-education? O.O )
    While I agree with what you write, I must say that because of my interaction with some of my daughters teachers in elementary and middle school, I have a poor outlook on our children getting an honest chance at success after school. Some of her teachers give the impression of checking out. It has become next to impossible to get any kind of timely communication from them. It is next to impossible to get any kind of support from them. Now I admit, there are some fantastic teachers, and some have been my daughters teachers. But unfortunately these have been in the minority. So what can you expect from children when they have roll models like this? I know that a lot of the blame lays squarely with programs that have been instituted over the past 20 years. I also know that raising and teaching a child is 100% the parents responsibility. But what can I do when I send my child to school and she ends up in an environment conducive to anything BUT learning? The programs are a problem, the students lack of interest is a problem, but it must be recognized that some teachers are also the problem.

  28. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blauer Baron View Post
    :lol: :lol: :D;) :p :surrender: I like this. It could be kicking off further reviews in same tone...
    http://www.bidalaka.com/picofarad/archive.html -- has some of my efforts in this regard.

    As to Film Quality, and The Lack Thereof, I leave you with this from _The Critic_:



    "Cahn Ah get ahn 'AY-MEN', bruthas 'n' sistahs!?" >:)

  29. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by prymus View Post
    While I agree with what you write, I must say that because of my interaction with some of my daughters teachers in elementary and middle school, I have a poor outlook on our children getting an honest chance at success after school. Some of her teachers give the impression of checking out. It has become next to impossible to get any kind of timely communication from them. It is next to impossible to get any kind of support from them. Now I admit, there are some fantastic teachers, and some have been my daughters teachers. But unfortunately these have been in the minority. So what can you expect from children when they have roll models like this? I know that a lot of the blame lays squarely with programs that have been instituted over the past 20 years. I also know that raising and teaching a child is 100% the parents responsibility. But what can I do when I send my child to school and she ends up in an environment conducive to anything BUT learning? The programs are a problem, the students lack of interest is a problem, but it must be recognized that some teachers are also the problem.
    Which goes to precisely why, if I can arrange career to allow and my gal and I ever get to go for it, I'd prefer to be a stay-at-home dad and home-school our kids should we have any. Given that one of my Psych profs used to jokingly describe me as "half gunfighter, half housewife"... O.o

  30. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackronin View Post
    No Dave, it's worst. Worst acting, worst "history", worst combat scenes, worst romance... Not even Jean Reno saves the day...
    There are worse honestly!
    Judging by what I read concerning how this film came to be made it would appear that the director and writer actually intended to make a resonably accurate depiction of the story of the Lafyette Escadrille.
    Trouble was, in order to get it made at all they had to accept a lot of "dumbing down" of the script in order to get the backing.
    I think "The Red Baron" had similar problems to get accepted by "the system" even though that was a German film.

    Seems like its the old "Art for arts sake, money for God`s sake!" situation.
    General rule I have concerning any film, the more they spent on it the more likely it is the story is going to stink as there are going to be too many fingers in the pie!
    So I don`t go to the cinema much and don`t expect a lot when I do.
    Last edited by Rabbit 3; 07-20-2014 at 22:22.

  31. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackronin View Post
    Kevin, there's a lot of choices to pick from.
    'quim, have you seen the recent German film about MvR where they turned him into an anti war crusader & a kind of teen Hero?
    Had some decent aircraft on the ground sets but the CGI action was beyond belief.
    Oh & Werner Voss looked about late 30's & grabbed a Bentley Rotary for his Tripe!

  32. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    My daughter doing a piece on history of film came across an interview with a well known American Director. When asked why a certain film was so innaccurate (I think it was the Patriot - the bit about burning the civilians in the church) he replied, I make movies to make money. If I have to change history to do this then I will.

    ...
    I know the film and that scene.

    Told my wife that this scene was completely idiocy.

    You know war knows every cruelty, but to let do British army members this to white American settlers in the independece war was unnecessary and gave the film a bad taste in my opinion.

    I was really angry about this scene and indeed everybody compares it automatically with the Oradour massacre in 1944.




    Yes Flyboys was a one time experience.

    I liked the suicide run of the badly wounded US pilot versus the Zeppelin and had to laugh when the machine gunner on the top of the Zep, run to escape the flames of the exploding Luftschiff (10.000 feet over the ground) .



    ...and to make your opponents ramming each other is a standard WoG tactic.
    Last edited by Marechallannes; 07-21-2014 at 11:23.
    Voilā le soleil d'Austerlitz!

  33. #33

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    Watched it once a forgeable movie. I think there were airplanes in it

  34. #34

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    Just think for a minute. How many historical movies and t.v. series do you know of that are accurate? Precious few! The director introduces artistic licence to 'make it more entertaining' ( or earn more money).

  35. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by Naharaht View Post
    Just think for a minute. How many historical movies and t.v. series do you know of that are accurate? Precious few! The director introduces artistic licence to 'make it more entertaining' ( or earn more money).
    It's not the artistic liberty. We have seen many movies with artistic liberty that were very good. It's the bad, lame, poor scripts created by an industry that thinks that we are dumb and deserve only dumb movies.

    It's the people that can't understand History and squease out of History what History has of brilliant that makes idiotic stunts and inserts stupidity and falsity in a tale that needs none of it.

  36. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by Naharaht View Post
    Just think for a minute. How many historical movies and t.v. series do you know of that are accurate? Precious few! The director introduces artistic licence to 'make it more entertaining' ( or earn more money).
    Sometimes it's a practical consideration which causes the inaccuracy. There's a very good A&E Movie, _The Crossing_, about the Battle of Trenton; the major inaccuracy is the weather conditions for the battle -- it's clear. In Reality, the battle was fought in a blizzard; but if they'd tried to film that, the audience wouldn't actually have been able to see the fighting!

  37. #37

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    True, and the aircraft that provided air-cover and diversion in the real Cabanatuan raid was a Black Widow--the movie The Great Raid had to make do with an A-29 Hudson because there are no flyable Black Widows and they didn't have budget for CGI.

  38. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackronin View Post
    Film directors should - like all artists - have a moral code, like doctors have. We would still have junk movies but probably people would be more aware of whats good and whats bad.
    Good Idea...then we could sue directors/producers of drivel for malpractice.

  39. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by csadn View Post
    Sometimes it's a practical consideration which causes the inaccuracy.

    Quite right, hence M47s in the "Battle of the Bulge" (a great film apart from the bizarre final tank battle) for example

    But often its poor research, poor writing and an attitude of "give 'em any old crap as long as there's lots of explosions"

    U-571 anyone? :happy:

    VERY keen to see how "Fury" turns out

  40. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    No need--to most Americans "ancient history" is anything before they were born, and History class is just a mid-day nap time in between mindless twaddle about "feelings" and "self-esteem" and "fill-in-the-blank cause/group-du-jour studies". (Right along with basic spelling and grammar, I'm alarmed by how fast the US is devolving into a nation of functional illiterates--it is truly disturbing to note that comparing my elementary and high schools' libraries, the FORMER had a higher average reading level. How could we LOSE so much ground in as little as five years with the same group of students? Would that be termed DE-education? O.O )
    Sad, but true in many cases.

  41. #41

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    And of course we can't forget the tanks depicted in Patton... magically transforming from M4 Shermans to--were they M47s too?

  42. #42

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    I don't really mind if they don't have the right model and use a "proxy", if the movie script is good and the depiction is faithful or at least credible. Brothers in arms is a good example of it. Excellent script, great actors, beautifully filmed. When you see Captain "I don't remember his name" dashing through the bullets all over the battlefield and then dashing back, you are thrilled with it. It feels true - and probably was.

    If they needed - for budget sake - to put a vehicle that didn't belong to the theatre or year in Brothers in Arms we would pass it as unimportant.

    But in a bad movie, with a bad script, a swarm of Red Fokker Triplanes is just stupid.

  43. #43

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    Frankly, if the Skinner character allowed people on IMDb to point out to some dumbass who posted there complaining that "it didn`t happen back then" that there was such a person as Eugene Buller that the character was based on then the movie did its job despite the inaccuracies.
    It might get a few more people interested enough to read up on the real history.

  44. #44

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    Robert, rarely less makes people get more, and normally the exception is: less quality makes people more alienated.

    Sorry, but I don't agree with your statement.

  45. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    ".......and it doesn't help that a typical history teacher here comes off as marginally less lifeless than the people they talk about. ....".
    That is rather good Diamond back (note British understatement), I like that!! A nice bit of subtle.

  46. #46

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    Thank goodness my History teacher was a dynamic charismatic showman then.
    Rob.
    "Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."

  47. #47

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    I had a History teacher that would bring props to class to show how things went.
    Once he brought a small scale scratch buit trebuchet and we all fired it in class. It was awesome and suddenly the siege of Lisbon in the 11th century became something else. he would then give us important data about it.
    That's good teaching.
    But he never told us that the these were superheroes and those were villains, or that horse ran like Formula 1 cars and D. Afonso Henriques was capable of godly feats.

    No. He was a teacher and truth had enough drama for us.

  48. #48

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    Brief tangent, if you'll indulge me: a good instructor should be passionate about their subject, be able to tell it not just as dry arcana but to humanize it, tell the stories of a representative sample of the people involved and show how things work, not present like a stuffed suit in a stuffy Ben Stein monotone. One of the better History instructors I had used a novel trick, if he knew one of us had a passion for something relevant to the class he'd ask us to guest-lecture on it. (For WWII, *I* got to teach the class for a week. )

  49. #49

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    When I was at the CSS _Albemarle_'s museum in North Carolina, the curator pointed out what I'd been trying to find the words to express for a while on why History is so often badly taught, and not well remembered: "Find the Stories". Don't just make it a dry rote memorization of "person, place, event"; find the human-interest in it, and run with that.

    Watching _Jodorowsky's Dune" a while back, Jodorowsky actually used the phrase "raping the novel" when describing what a director of a film should do to a novel he's adapting. My response: "Thank you, I've seen quite enough of my favorite novels raped by auteur-theory-bulls***-artists; I do *NOT* need to see any more".

  50. #50

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    Chris, I couldn't agree more.
    Alas, at last.

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