How to Make an Historical Epic

Hello, my name is SB and I am an historical epic addict. This is truly a sad thing to be as it is but rarely that a good one comes along, and then more often than not, only in the form of the director's cut. As an overly interested spectator, and a person hoping one day to work on the production end of such a film, I have been creating, over the years, the criteria necessary for a successful historical epic. And so I shall share it with you now. A historical epic, to be worthy of the name must include most of the following; (a) a moral and often unwilling leader (the man who does not crave power will be the least likely to misuse it when it is given to him) and one possessing convincing charisma, (b) a villain with at least a modicum of intelligence of wily wit who possesses all of those traits - greed, desire for power, lack of concern for the human condition - that make him the opposite of the protagonist, (c) a theme which goes beyond the stories of the character themselves, speaking to the human condition and, if the film is to be truly great, creating a parallel between then and now so that we may draw from it some greater sense of enlightenment about the times we now live in, (d) approximately three fights, each revealing important information about the characters, whether it be tactical skill, betrayal, surviving against all odds, a willingness to surrender riches and power in order to save human lives, (e) a driving motivation for the protagonist which comes prior to the cause for which he will later be fighting, such as the death of the woman that he loved (this is always a good motivator and shows that even a man who seems barbaric in battle has a soft, loving side), (f) a suitable number of characters that we like need to die, not everyone can live when they're cleaving each other with battle axes and the like, and it is often good if the protagonist himself dies at the end, as in christ dying for our sins - the martyr's achievements go down in history, (g) standard british should typically be used as this makes up for the fact that often the characters that we are watching would actually be speaking a different language, or would be speaking in a way that would not allow for the eloquence with which the script writers would like their characters to speak, and besides, when things are said in british they just sound more epic, (h) no expense should be spared when it comes to production design for, no matter how great everything else is, if the film does not look epic, then it won't be - costume the characters correctly, do not make them look too pretty (people didn't bathe so much in the past and don't forget it, also, when on a long journey without a caravan it is unlikely that people would be able to shave everyday or keep a neat and closely sheared beard), that is except for the women, for, unless they are warriors themselves, they should have such beauty as would drive men into battle and create such deep love as is necessary in an epic, (i) and lastly don't cast Colin Farrel as the lead or kill Lancelot before he can betray Arthur with his love for Gwenefyar. 

Some of the above listed need no further illustration. For the others, I will broaden their definitions and provide examples. Clearly, the leader, or protagonist of an historical epic must be spot on, or all else is for not. Simply casting a man who is pretty is not enough. In fact, generally the leader should not be pretty as a warrior should be manly. The only exception to this that I can proffer is the unexpected success of Orlando Bloom in the role of Balian in Kingdom of Heaven (though I did notice that the production designers went to a great deal of effort to make him often look dirty and we careful to put him in the least feminine clothing they could).  Men such as Mel Gibson or Russel Crowe are more generally the desired type. While the leader should look savage in battle, he also must be able to show depth of emotion, an almost innocence which can make one believe that he seeks only to do the right and does not want for power. Mel Gibson's baby blues looking up at his betrayer The Bruce are, to my mind, the quintessential illustration of this. Generally, he must love some woman, often one who dies at the outset of the film, as with Wallace's wife, Maximus' wife, and Balian's wife (Braveheart, Gladiator, and Kingdom of heaven respectively). At some later point in the film another woman must arise who will be a help and inspiration to the leader, and there must be some sense of romance between them. Finally, he must have a good voice for yelling in order to muster legions without sounding like a fool.

And here, for today, I will leave off, with greater expansion to come.

Lay the Past to Rest

Almost imperceptible, like something not quite seen, the car pulls up. There is a face in the driver's seat that is familiar. Eerily so. It is a remembrance, half lost in the land of dreams. The woman, no longer a girl, sitting on a small wall stands, straightens her plain black sundress, throws an old army backpack over her right shoulder and steps towards the vehicle. Sliding into the seat she feels like she has done this a thousand times before, and yet, never. There is a brief embrace shared between the two, so platonic that it seems unfitting for two who have shared intimacies for years. Pleasantly, but without much luster, the woman asks perfunctory questions. He answers, but does not ask any of her. Giving directions in between banalities she carries the conversation, unsure why she bothers. A part of her is still standing on the receding sidewalk, while the other lies in years past. Nothing but a shell now shares the space of this metallic tomb. They move as wraiths, part of no world. It is a convergence; the landscape of her childhood and present, a place new and unknown to him, two people who's time has passed.

Too many memories in one moment. The space flashing by the outside of their ghost ship belongs to her, to thoughts of her father and mother, of life before college, of daily life and things to come. These clash with those that they hold together, from a place and time so distant that they seem not to belong to this world. Always she has loved to play the tour guide to visiting friends. But not now. Now she wants to hold the worlds apart for fear their collision might eradicate one and split her in two never to again become whole. As the day passes they exist in nothingness. And she knows now, completely, that college and the life that it held for her is over. That her life has become memories. And the to survive she must let them slip into the recesses, to be pulled out only for special occasions. They are no longer the people they were then. She is not so innocent and naive. Oh that she were. She is no longer the fantasy he had once called her. The girl who sent shivers down his spine when she walked into the room. They no longer turn in assignments to be graded.

The change is what it is. The inevitable. Her only fear is that this day, this day that signifies the end of something forever, will steal the past. Take away those happy, exciting, memories. At one point he tells her he has never seen her happier. She thinks that he does not know her at all. After all, it has been a year since last they lay eyes and hands on one another. Time had not stood so still for her as it had for him. She who had moved across the country, departing from all that there had been for her, which even then was no more. He had lived still surrounded y his friends, in the same place, her still a reality to him. But he was no more than a ghost to her.

And so, as they sat at the conclusion of their stolen say he tried to make the past the present. But she was not moved. All that she desired was the end of this forgery. Wished that he would slip back into the memory from whence he had come and stay there locked safely, forever unchanging. She told him that the door to her was closed. He took it in, and smiling sadly at her said, so it's really over then. He had not until that moment fully grasped this truth and it struck him like a dagger in the heart. I'll go then.

And so he went. Forever out of her life and into her mind, to be kept forever and for always, unchanging.

What is Morality

We try to qualify too many actions as moral, rendering the word meaningless. Not all charges of man need be, or indeed can be, viewed in terms of morality. We do not need, for example, to qualify a standing army in terms of morality. It falls under the category of realistic and pragmatic. A standing army is neither moral nor immoral, but amoral. Of a dimension outside of morality. A consideration of moral issues arises when we decide to use the army, to send them into action. Morality enters as a discussion of whether the army will be used in a pragmatic, less immoral, or fully immoral manner. Individual soldiers may, as well, act with more or less immorality, depending on how they treat those who they capture and the innocent civilians which they come upon. It is better, I think, in matters of war to leave any claims of morality out of the picture and instead only strive to not be overly immoral, to flout morality the least. 

If a side believes themselves to be in the moral right the consequences can be grave. The world is not black and white as those who seek power would like all to believe. Just because one country executes immoral actions it does not necessarily follow that their enemies are moral. Only radicals hold that is our enemy is immoral, the we must be moral, fighting the hand of evil with our goodness and propriety. Just because terrorists are immoral, it does not follow that torturing them is moral. Just because Hitler was immoral, it does not follow that the bombing of Germany and the shooting of German troops was moral - pragmatic, necessary, and inevitably beneficial to the world, yes. But moral, no. One should have only to read All Quiet on the Western Front to come to that conclusion. The story follows a German youth who, like so many Americans, was drafted into the military, set out in a field where his choice was to kill or be killed, pumped full of some vague sense of national loyalty and propaganda inspired patriotism. Shooting such a boy is not moral. But it may, sadly, be or seem necessary, at least in our present world.

I have recently begun a book entitled "Nuclear Ethics". It was the oxymoronic title which drew me to it. Using nuclear weapons has and never will be ethical. I do not denounce Truman for his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It ended a World War and saved net lives. But it was not ethical nor moral. Killing innocent people never can be. If we were able to shift out perspectives to understand that all war, all killing is immoral, I believe there would be a great deal less war. It is when we imbue war with the virtue of morality that we find ourselves entrenched in violence. 

Perpetrating immoral actions does not necessarily make a man evil, a word too well used in todays "enlightened" age. In Buddhism one who does wrong action is not deemed evil, but unskillful. As we are all of this earth, we are all unskillful to various degrees. So long as we seek to enhance and better ourselves we are moving in the right direction. The maintenance of nuclear weapons by the United States and other countries cannot be called moral, I do not care how talented at rhetoric you are. It may be called instead understandable, as we as a nation and world have not yet moved beyond hate, fear, pettiness, and most importantly greed for power, for economic gain. And so it is. But we will never move beyond these vices so long as we use the morality to disguise them. Call them what they are. Without the power of morality to back up wars, to condone violence against others, we would not, I think, be so motivated to perpetrate these.

Universality and Morality

Morality has become that which justifies immorality; "we are a moral nation, thus that which we do is moral." But who governs morality? Who defines it? And who's morality are we talking about anyways? Ideally in a democracy, the people are the governors of morality. How, though, can such governance be carried out hen the government, often in collusion with the media, provides false information, forgoes crucial details, or censors? All too often critical information is uncovered long after the fact, and is considered no longer worthy of the front page (though of course it is, as knowing the past fortifies against future mistakes, or so the hope is). 

No one wishes to believe themselves or their nation monstrous. Particularly when people feel powerless to make change (or even get the actual president elect into office) they are want to ignore reality, to look the other way and manage as best they can to live their own lives. Living a single life is hard enough, but doing that successfully and making world change is, granted, a tall order. It is not surprising that we wish to give ourselves allowances not given to others. If, just because you are you, you were given immunity from getting parking tickets or moving violations, I imagine that you wouldn't, out of a sense of morality, give them to yourself. That is our nation. Due to out preponderance we can, regardless of world outcries, avoid punitive action, as we have all to often done. 

With the growth and increased power of the neo-conservative Republican party what we are made to believe is patriotism is actually nationalism. And a nationalist does not question. He cannot ever think his nation to be in the wrong, let alone make any statements along those lines. His nation need not adhere to the rules by which other nations must. He is narrow-minded and dangerous. He is an isolationist. While this modality of thought is desired by a government hungry for power (as is the present) and simple for those unwilling to look beyond their front porch, it is one of the most volatile. The nationalist's lack of empathy breeds destruction. The world is no longer vast, convenient for isolationism. whether America, or more specifically her government (for I find many Americans not so narrow minded as the leaders) wishes is or not this is a globalized world.

In one respect, the neo-conservatives are correct - what the world needs more that anything is morality, just not their "morality". We need to embrace the concept of universality, whereby rules apply equally to all. What rules we wish to set is up to us. Will it be that massive bombings and ground assaults are justified as a result of terrorism. If so, the Nicaraguans would be justified in an assault, or assaults on America as pay back for years of American terrorism carried out in that country. Not a pleasant thought. What about all of the innocent Americans that would be killed? What about all of the innocent Afghanies? The fact that this, our nation, is built on beautiful doctrines does not make us sacrosanct. If we do not uphold our doctrines, even advance them, and look on all humanity as one, as in the same shrinking boat, then that boat will sink and us along with it. I love America to much to see that happen.