All too often, highly fictionalized cinematic depictions of the past are accepted as the unassailable truth by those unfamiliar with the "real" account. This book profiles sixty movies that portray actual moments in history, and compares the mythologized account of each event to what really happened. Movies chronicled include
The Ten Commandments
,
Spartacus
A Man for All Seasons
Gladiator
Gandhi
Apollo 13
The Thin Red Line
Dances with Wolves
Braveheart
The Last Emperor
All the Presidents Men
Mutiny on the Bounty
Gone with the Wind
Bonnie & Clyde
Patton
, and
Elizabeth
. Sanello also contrasts several historical figures with their filmed treatments, including Julius Caesar, Henry V, Christopher Columbus, Joan of Arc, Sir Thomas More, Jesus Christ, Catherine the Great, Sigmund Freud, and Harry Houdini. Lavishly illustrated with sixty film stills,
Reel v. Real
shows how a happening's genuine details are frequently reshaped and distorted by Hollywood's bottomless appetite for over-the-top flamboyance and melodrama.