These things don't "upset" me. If anything, I am amused by the amateurism of the producers.
I would watch 1950s-60s-era war movies and they always had American tanks/trucks/halftracks standing in for German tanks/trucks/halftracks, which always bugged me.
Those movies were all made looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong before Osprey Publishing and several other publishers released volume after volume after volume detailing German WWII era uniform and equipment to the tiniest detail. I can understand the "Gestapo" man in
Where Eagles Dare wearing a pre-1938 uniform in 1943, and one with a Nahkampfspange and EK I to boot, since the literature published in English on German WWII uniforms was relatively sparse then. 2014 is a completely different story. In 2015, movies that screw up the uniforms are basically asking to be compared to
Gestapo's Last Orgy,
Love Camp 7 and all the
Ilsa films in terms of production value.
In other words, if they make blatantly obvious goofs, these, like any plot hole, will be called out just like all kinds of critics called out
American Sniper for changing a detail or two from the book.
Hiring someone to do the research and having a company churn out historically accurate uniforms would be prohibitively expensive.
Incorrect. All they needed to do was get copies of the Osprey Books on the SA and the Allgemeine SS, which would be a grand total of about $45 combined, and even less if used. Then, in the very few scenes where they had SA and SS men, any clever tailor could have produced an accurate reproduction of the uniform. As for the Austrian police at the time of the Anschluss, there is public domain footage of Hitler riding into Vienna, with 1916-helmeted Austrian police with fixed bayonets keeping the crowds away. 1916 helmets or reproductions thereof are not that hard to come by.
Not to mention that this film had a budget well in excess of the Nazisploitaion films of the 70's, so this was well within their wheelhouse. They even found an ancient model cellphone with an antenna for Ryan Reynolds' character.
especially when 99.9999% of the audience will never know the difference.
That is an assumption on your part.
Benoit killed 2x as many w/o a gun than Belcher did with one/S&W fighting climate change since 1852
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cowgoesmoo
10 years ago
I think the real reason the uniforms aren't right is that the movie makers don't care. It's not a documentary. If historical accuracy was important enough, they'd have made the effort. Most of the movie takes place in the present and they probably just chose uniforms that were recognizably Germanic. And, yes, its an assumption that the overwhelming majority of moviegoers aren't experts in 1930s-era military and police uniforms but I think its a safe bet. If you were to pull 100 men and women off the street at random and give them a pencil and paper and ask them to accurately sketch the uniform of an Austrian policeman circa 1938, I'd bet next months mortgage check that not one of them could do it.
But suppose they did decide to make the effort to do it properly. I don't disagree with you that they *could* have done it. They just chose not to. I think you grossly overestimate what the budget was and underestimate what uniforms cost. It's not a simple matter of consulting a $45 reference book and hiring a tailor. Movies that make the effort to "get it right" will hire a historian or a military consultant like Dale Dye who doesn't come cheap I'm sure. Check out websites that make uniforms for military re-enactors - a tunic and trousers can run $400, $200 for boots, and $50-80 for a cap. Throw in more money for the proper insignia, belt buckles, equipment straps, ammo pouches and other accessories and you're looking at up to $1000 - per uniform. Authentic weapons are probably plentiful and can most likely be rented, but that can't be cheap. Think back to scenes with German convoys driving down the streets of Vienna with uniformed men on either side of the streets. How many guys for those scenes? 50 on each side of the street, so maybe 100? There's various policemen/soldiers with speaking or prominent non-speaking roles (the guys in the chase scene, the guys who come to the house to loot it, Goering in his luxury box with his wife) so maybe another 20-30 uniforms for them. The cost of uniforms and the military consultant fee can probably run up to $200,000. According to IMDB, the movie has an $11 million budget. Only 2% or so... But how much of that budget was used to pay Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds? Maybe half? The rest of the cast/crew, costs of filming on location in Vienna must eat up more. They probably saw the extra effort as an unnecessary expense and they had to pick their battles.
In any case, I sympathize with you more than you know. I notice when things aren't right, but I take into consideration what the movie is about and the audience its trying to reach. I simply don't expect "Woman in Gold" to get details about the uniforms right. It's about the painting. I'd be happy if they did make the effort, but I understand why they didn't. Movies like "Fury", "Letters from Iwo Jima", or "Valkyrie"... I'm going to hold those to a much higher standard and I'd be much more critical.
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popeyesucks
10 years ago
I think the real reason the uniforms aren't right is that the movie makers don't care. It's not a documentary. If historical accuracy was important enough, they'd have made the effort.
Exactly. They didn't care. In fact, their sloppiness around the uniforms is exactly the same as the sloppiness of the producers of
Good Kill, which has Ethan Hawke, playing a retired F-16 driver -turned drone operator--telling a girl in a bar how exciting it is to land on an aircraft carrier.
It's not a simple matter of consulting a $45 reference book and hiring a tailor.
It can be done that way. And the $45 is for two books, not one.
will hire a historian or a military consultant like Dale Dye who doesn't come cheap
WWII German uniforms are well out of Dye's wheelhouse and beneath his enormous ego.
Check out websites that make uniforms for military re-enactors - a tunic and trousers can run $400, $200 for boots, and $50-80 for a cap. Throw in more money for the proper insignia, belt buckles, equipment straps, ammo pouches and other accessories and you're looking at up to $1000 - per uniform.
Given that there were not that many uniforms used in this film--it was not
Der Untergang or
Valkyrie, after all-- 1K a piece for a couple of uniforms would have been worth it.
Think back to scenes with German convoys driving down the streets of Vienna with uniformed men on either side of the streets. How many guys for those scenes? 50 on each side of the street, so maybe 100?
Camera only needs to zoom in on five tops. The rest can just be a blur.
There's various policemen/soldiers with speaking or prominent non-speaking roles (the guys in the chase scene, the guys who come to the house to loot it,
None of these were soldiers. The only "police" man in that bunch was the plainclothes Gestapo man. As far as the chase was concerned, there were three Allgemeine-SS in outdated black uniforms, the one with the peaked cap and pistol, the two in 1916 Stalhelms with 98k's.
In any case, I sympathize with you more than you know. I notice when things aren't right, but I take into consideration what the movie is about and the audience its trying to reach.
I appreciate that. However, I have learned to never underestimate the knowledge of today's audiences. Look at all the terabytes of the web debated to heatedly arguing about how the movie version of
American Sniper compacted the book and changed a few details for simplicity. As well, look at the
Good Kill boards and you will see that there are more than a handful of people whinging on the producers for having Ethan Hawke's former F-16 driver character telling a girl in a bar how awesome it was to land on an aircraft carrier at night.
Benoit killed 2x as many w/o a gun than Belcher did with one/S&W fighting climate change since 1852
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