People in History Who Inspired Movies: Part One
Dido Elizabeth Belle: race, slavery & class in late 18th century England
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The 2014 movie Belle is an account of the life of the mixed-race daughter of a British naval captain and a Caribbean slave woman. The father sent her to be raised alongside her orphaned cousin by her great-uncle and great-aunt Lord and Lady Mansfield at their magnificent Kenwood estate near London. The painting above shows the two young women at the estate. Significantly, Belle is depicted on virtually equal terms with her white cousin, rather than shown as submissive and inferior. Mansfield was Chief Justice of England at the time, a leading pillar of the Establishment and the movie -and some historians - have suggested that the semi-paternal relationship with Belle was a factor behind his famous 1772 legal decision that slavery was not part of English law and that slave-owners could force their slaves in England to return to slavery.
El Cid - Spain's national hero
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Charlton Heston as El Cid in the great 1961 movie (above); left, portrait of Rodrigio Diaz better known as El Cid and right, El Cid the Spanish national hero on a postage stamp.
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El Cid (Arabic for "The Lord") was an 11th century warrior-knight who has become a Spanish national hero, widely and incorrectly regarded as helping form a Spanish nation. In the medieval epic poem "The Song of My Cid", he was celebrated as tolerant, chivalrous, brave and noble. The 1961 movie El Cid, directed by Anthony Mann, is justly praised by Martin Scorsese as one of the greatest epic movies of all time. Its battle scenes (especially the astonishing climax) and magnificent settings remain unequalled.
Marie Antoinette, Comtesse de la Motte and the Affair of the Necklace
Jeanne, Comtesse de la Motte, instigator of the Affair of the Necklace.
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Marie Antoinette - for once, the Queen was not involved in the scandal - but she was blamed nevertheless.
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Cardinal Du Rohan, playboy prelate, victim of an elaborate con carried out by de la Motte and her husband.
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The Affair of the Necklace (a.k.a the affair of the Queen's Diamonds) was a swindle, typical of many carried at the royal Court of Versailles during the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Initiated by an embittered noblewoman and involving one of the Church's highest-ranking prelates, it came to symbolize the extravagant, decadent and selfish lifestyle of Versailles. Ironically, the Queen for once displayed a rare common-sense in not participating in the affair but her petulant reaction when the scandal became public delighted her enemies at Court and further damaged the monarchy in the eyes of the public.
The Great Gatsby movies
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Alan Ladd (in a scene above from the 1949 Great Gatsby movie) played him as a noirish and vulnerable but honorable loner. Ginevra King (2nd left) was Fitzgerald's girlfriend when the pair were in their teens; she wrote him a story which contains several features Fitzgerald incorporated years later into his novel. She may have been the basis of Daisy in the book. Edith Cummings was a famous golfer and the prototype of Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby. Above right photo shows Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; she suggested calling the novel "the Great Gatsby."
The Great Gatsby's Creator Goes to Hollywood
Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald - in 1927 she accompanied Scott on the first of his screenwriting trips there.
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One of the short stories that Fitzgerald sold to Hollywood iand was made nto a film in the early 1920s.
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The only film for which fitzgerald received a screenwriting credt.
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Fitzgerald was working with others on the script of this classic when MGM dumped him from its payroll.
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Fantine in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables & its movie versions
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The character of Fantine in the several movie versions of Les Misérables is supposed to be a grisette, a specifically early-mid 19th Century Parisian category of young females, who laboured in the fashion and dressmaking industries, and were famous for their assertive, independent ways and their rejection of conventional family ties and also the contemporary restrictive bourgeois conventions about women's role in society and in love.
Grisettes are now regarded as the vanguard in 19th Century women's rejection of conventional restrictive gender roles.
However, Fantine as portrayed in most movies and the famous musical, (and Tom Holland's 2012 movie) was hardly a typical grisette despite her occupation. She is too passive, sentimental, naive and submissive, and decidedly old-fashioned in her views about romance. A real-life grisette would have been much shrewder, less gullible and more astute.
Below - Victor Hugo, author of the original novel Les Misérables, on which film versions have been based, and Jean Valjean in the most audacious and best adaptation of the novel, directed by Claude LeLouch, and which transposes the novel and its themes into twentieth century France, and covers issues such as anti-semtism and collaboration.
Grisettes are now regarded as the vanguard in 19th Century women's rejection of conventional restrictive gender roles.
However, Fantine as portrayed in most movies and the famous musical, (and Tom Holland's 2012 movie) was hardly a typical grisette despite her occupation. She is too passive, sentimental, naive and submissive, and decidedly old-fashioned in her views about romance. A real-life grisette would have been much shrewder, less gullible and more astute.
Below - Victor Hugo, author of the original novel Les Misérables, on which film versions have been based, and Jean Valjean in the most audacious and best adaptation of the novel, directed by Claude LeLouch, and which transposes the novel and its themes into twentieth century France, and covers issues such as anti-semtism and collaboration.
Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables.
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Scene from Claude LeLouch's brilliant transpositioning of the novel into France in the first half of the 20th Century. Jean-Paul Bemondo [right] is the truck driver who redeems himself by modelling his character on the fictional Valjean.
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President F.D. Roosevelt, Margaret Suckley & KIng George VI
FDR (left), with his companion Margaret Suckley centre. Roger Michell's movie "Hyde Park on Hudson" claims their relationship was more than companionable.
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King George VI and FDR during the Hyde Park weekend that is the subject of "Hyde Park on Hudson".
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Shot of FDR and George VI, plus FDR's mother Sara, during the famous hot dog picnic lunch portrayed in "Hyde Park on Hudson".
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Abraham Lincoln and people associated with him in biopics
This photo of Lincoln without a beard conveys a powerful,. brooding persona.
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Lincoln with son Todd.
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1860 cartoon depicting Lincoln as a dangerous , destructive, madman.
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Mary Todd, Lincoln's troubled wife, sometimes believed to be mentally unbalanced.
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Ann Rutledge, supposedly Lincoln's firsat and greatest love, and the subject of many sentimental paintings like this, which depicts the pair meeting in Lincoln's store.
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Roberrt Todd Lincoln, LIncoln's son, and a source of tension between mother and father.
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References to the above trio can be found in Cliomuse pages on movie depictions of Lincoln - "Abraham Lincoln", "Young Mr. Lincoln" and
"Abe Lincoln in Illinois".
"Abe Lincoln in Illinois".
India and the sub-continent, Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier
Philip Meadows Taylor, author of the 1839 adventure novel "Confessions of a Thug" which introduced the term to the English language and ignited intense Anglo-American interest in the Thuggees.
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William Sleeman, who gained fame as the hunter and exterminator of thuggees in British India in the 1830s and 1840s, and is the model for the hero of John Masters' "The Deceivers".
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John Masters, soldier and author. Masters used his years of service on the subcontinet to write a series of novels about a fictional Anglo-Indian family, the Savages, in British India in the 19th and 20th Centuries. "The Deceivers" is the first of these; it was later made into a movie.
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Alexander the Great. A crucial figure in 'The Man Who Would Be King'.
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Rudyard Kipling. Author of 'Kim' and 'The Man Who Would Be King', popularised the saying 'The Great Game'
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Josiah Harlan. The archetype for 'The Man Who Would Be King'?
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Versailles and the dangerous culture of image and celebrity
Late 18th century royal culture: Marie Antoinette.
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Late 18th Century royal culture: Louis XVI.
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idealised portrait of the Duchess de Polignac, friend and mentor to Marie Antoinette.
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Late 20th century: Princess Diana - royal culture becomes celebrity culture.
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Mayerling Scandal, 1889: the Prince & his Teenage Mistress -suicides or murder?
Corwn Prince Rudolf, heir to the throne of the Austrian-Hungarian empire in 1889, and his estranged wife Stephanie
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Elisabeth, the glamorous, popular mother of Rudolf, wife of Emperor Franz-Josef.
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Rudolf and his young mistress Mary Vetsera. The mysterious deaths of the pair at Mayerling in 1889 have provided subject matter for movies, ballets, operas and novels.
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Franz-Josef, the stern, conservative ruler of of the huge but disintegrating Austrian-Hungarian emperor.
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At the frontline of the juvenile delinquency controversy of the 1950s
Estes Kefauver, whose Senate Sub-Committee investigation of U.S. juvenile delinquency stimulated public interest in the 'problem'.
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Dwhose r. Fredric Wertham, psychologist, who blamed comics for causing violent and anti-social behaviour in America's youth.
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Richard Brooks, director of 'Blackboard Jungle'.
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Cultural icons featured in Midnight in Paris
Ernest Hemingway.
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Scott Fitzgerald.
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Zelda Fitzgerald.
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Cole Porter
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Hollywood personalities: the silent movie era
Douglas Fairbanks Jr in typical pose for one of his silent action films.
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Leading Hollywood producers of the 1920s: Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zukor, Samuel Goldwyn, Cecil B. de Mille & Al Kaufman
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Mack Sennett, silent comedy star, behind the camera for one of his movies.
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Scraps the dog, Chaplin's co-star in his 1918 silent comedy 'A Dog's Life'.
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Rock Around the Clock (the movie): some key players
Sam Katzman, king of B-movies, producer of 'Rock Around the Clock'.
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Alan Freed, disk-jockey, promoter of rock 'n' roll and one of the stars of 'Rock Around the Clock'.
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Bill Haley and the Comets performing.
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Charlie Wilson's War (the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1880s) - the Instigators
Gust Avrokotos, CIA agent and mastermind of the supply of US-financed weaponry to the Mujahideen - Russia's triable opponents in the war.
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Tom Hanks, left, with the real Charlie Wilson, the Congressman who set up secret funding for CIA supplies to the Mujahideen.
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Joanne Herring with then President Zia of Pakistan. This shrewd, wealthy Texan socialite actively assisted in arranging the financing of covert military supplies.
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Steven Spielberg's 1941: Zoot suiters, air raids, riots, Japanese submarines, John Belushi, Walt Disney ....
'1941' includes Spielberg's affectionate tribute to Walt Disney animated movies in a scene in which US General Joe Stillwell weeps while watching 'Dumbo' while outside a riot rages.
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John Belushi, then at the height of his popularity, plays an entirely fictional and completely irresponsible pilot, Wild Bill Kelso, whose aerial antics create mayhem in LA.
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Japanese submariners shelling Santa Barbara oil installations early 1942 -the historical event that is the basis for '1941's plot. The post-Peartl Harbor paranoia and hysteria was further heightened by this event, with tragic consequences for thousands of Japanese-Americans.
(Photo: PaciifcWrecks.org)
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LA policeman arresting Mexican-American Zoot suiter mid-1943. The Zoot suit riots, racially motivated, are treated as rivalry between sailors and soldiers in Spielberg's film
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India on the road to independence
Gandhi was the most important single person in achieving independence for India. He features in the plot of 'Bhowani Junction'.
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Gandhi became the iconic figure of Indian independence.
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Adored by the Hindu masses, Gandhi was regarded with suspicion by many leading nationalists.
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Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway
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Nicole Kidman as Gillman and Clive Own as Hemingway in Philip Kaufman's movie "Hemingway & Gillman".
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The celebrity couple of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
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Resistance and Collaboration in France During World War II
Charles de Gaulle became the symbol of French resistance to German occupation. He engineered the myth that the French overwhelmingly opposed the Nazis and their control of France.
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Moulin was one of the most able and heroic leaders of the French Resistance movement until his capture and execution by the Nazis.
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Figure in this cartoon is Pierre Laval, one of the leading architects of collaboration with the Germans and a prominent figure in the collaborationist Vichy government.
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Rose Valland, Looted Art, the French Resistance and The Train
Rose Valland, the mild-mannered woman depicted below, a quiet and unassuming art curator in Occupoied Paris, would appear to have little in common with the events depicted in John Frankenheimer's movie about the Resistance, with its bombing raids, derailments and sabotage. Actually, Valland was a hero of the Resistance who used her low-key personality and intricate knowledge of France's art collections to classify, track and sometimes prevent Germans shipping looted art treasures out of the country. The incidents in The Train are based on her activities.
See pages on The Train and The Monuments Men movies
See pages on The Train and The Monuments Men movies
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Four people whose writing or actions influenced The Dark Knight Rises
Charles Dickens, author of 'A Tale of Two Cities', a novel which is central to the movie.
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Thomas Carlyle's famous 19th Century history 'The French Revolution' emphasized the role of towering heroic figures in times of chaos.
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Robespierre, architect of the Terror in revolutionary France.
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Stalin, who carried out his own version of Terror in the USSR after 1928.
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What have these images to do with the 1957 movie The Girl Can't Help It ?
Jayne Mansfield.
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Paul McCartney, teenager. practising chords.
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Bugs Bunny animated cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin.
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Joseph Stalin & Laventri Beria
Laventri Beria, eraly 1950s.
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Joseph Stalin, as the benign father-figure of the nation.
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Apart from tedious Soviet-era movies idolising Stalin, there have been few attempts to attempt an interpretation of the dictator's personality and rule. One of the rare exceptions is the Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky's neglected but controversial and insightful study of Stalin (and Laventri Beria, the secret police chief) in the 1991 movie The Inner Circle. Konchalovsky daringly emphasises Stalin's veneer of charm and affability, while subtly revealing the terrible substance of the dictator in his delaings with his underlings.
