History films, judged as cinema and as history.
History in Technicolour gives Wolf O'Neill and David Crowther a historical film, from Chariots of Fire to Napoleon, and lets them argue it out. The talk moves between the filmmaking and the accuracy, with plenty of teasing, the odd open disagreement and cheerful detours.
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History in Technicolour is a conversation about historical films and what happens to history once a filmmaker gets hold of it. Wolf O'Neill and David Crowther are the two regular voices. They take a film, talk it through as cinema, then hold it up against the past it claims to show. The titles cover a lot of ground: Gladiator, Oppenheimer, The Great Escape, Chariots of Fire, Bright Star and Napoleon. That puts Roman power politics, the atomic bomb, a prison camp and a period romance side by side. The history is taken seriously without going stiff. On Oppenheimer, the talk turns to the film's rallies, protests and letters from scientists asking that the bomb not be finished or not be dropped, and to the scientists who quit rather than take part. On Gladiator, the discussion works through why an enslaved ex-general could still command loyalty, and how the army stood apart from the Senate. Partway through, one speaker admits to generalising and is told they are actually right. On Chariots of Fire, one wandering accent turns into a short discussion of the assumptions people attach to posh, northern and Estuary voices. Napoleon gets different treatment. It is a recent release, which the show does not always cover, and Henry Theodore Logan joins the pair for it. The main complaint is scope: a biopic that tries to go from soup to nuts has too much history to get right. Still, the same voice describes coming round after a painful first fifteen minutes and deciding the film works better as a study of obsession and megalomania than as a record. Disagreement is part of the appeal. Wolf picks The Great Escape partly to see whether David will dislike it. Chariots of Fire ends on an admitted difference of opinion. Bright Star, Wolf's pick, sends David, who likes his films to have laughs or death, into a romance he ends up enjoying. The detours are half the fun. There is a spat over the word 'stoked', a joke that Barbie is just a plastic toy, and a verdict that the camp in The Great Escape looks rather like Butlins. A question about which role to take in an elaborate prison escape, forger or scrounger, gets a confession of total practical uselessness in reply. Two Christmas editions choose films likely to be on television over Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and one ends with a list of favourite Christmas dinner trimmings. Listeners are invited onto Facebook to argue back. For a first listen, Oppenheimer is a good way into the history side, and The Great Escape shows the pair at play.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes history films and wants company that will argue about them, checking a period film against the record without taking the fun out of watching it.
What sets it apart: It isn't a lecture on what films get wrong. It is a back-and-forth between two people with different tastes, weighing filmmaking and accuracy side by side, and the detours into Butlins, Christmas dinner and the word 'stoked' are part of the appeal.
Wolf and David explore the history films we love or (or sometimes, films we’d loved just a little less but find interesting). Turns out we like different things…anyway, then we given them a score for two things – how good are they as a film, and how accurate are they with their history. When you’ve listened, join us at the History of England Facebook Group – you can vote, and tell us what you think of the film, and you can even tell us (in no uncertain terms) what you think of our views (while writing to your MP in the strongest possible terms). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Gladiator's rose petals get an objection; your movie night gets a second act.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A spirited debate over a film that turns Napoleon's history into a messy, vivid character study.
History in Technicolour takes on Ridley Scott's Napoleon as a lively, sometimes unruly argument about what gets lost when a life packed with history is forced into a character study.
Wolf O'Neill and David Crowther use Oppenheimer to weigh invention, responsibility, and the limits of control.
History in Technicolour returns with Wolf O'Neill and David Crowther discussing Oppenheimer as a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, moving from Cambridge studies to the Manhattan bomb and its aftermath.
A Christmas film debate finds room for The Great Escape, Butlins, panic, and whistled Led Zeppelin guitar solos.
History in Technicolour makes The Great Escape a Christmas viewing argument, using the 1963 film as a way into what might be on television across Christmas Day and Boxing Day, as well as its reported popularity in a Christmas Day film poll.
A Christmas movie conversation finds class, prejudice, amateurism, and a famously unruly accent beneath Chariots of Fire's uplift.
History in Technicolour's Christmas special settles into Chariots of Fire as easy Christmas Day viewing, then keeps tugging at the historical friction under its glow.
A warm, lively Bright Star discussion that keeps Fanny Braun at the heart of Keats's defining romance.
History in Technicolour uses Jane Campion's Bright Star to explore the romance between John Keats and Fanny Braun, covering the years 1818 to 1821.
History in Technicolour turns Ridley Scott's Napoleon into a $200 million debate about whether the film is a romance, a character study, or a battered biopic.
History in Technicolour's Wolf O'Neill and David Crowther review Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, a biopic of J.
["History in Technicolour takes on John Sturgis' 1963 The Great Escape as a Christmas Day and Boxing Day watch, with Wolf O'Neill arguing for it and David Crowther approaching it from a more skeptical angle.", "Wolf calls the film great escapism, praises Elmer Bernstein's score, and points to the prison-escape mechanics of spoons, tiles, tunnels, and guard distractions.", "The hosts keep returning to Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and David McCallum while debating whether the movie's camp humor undercuts its wartime stakes.", "Their final stretch moves into historical accuracy, including composite characters, Americanized casting, omitted Canadians, and the film's distinction between the Wehrmacht, the SS, and the Gestapo."]
History in Technicolour's Chariots of Fire episode treats the 1981 Hugh Hudson film as a Christmas rewatch built around the 1924 Olympics, Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell, and Vangelis's score.
["History in Technicolour\u2019s Bright Star discussion frames Jane Campion\u2019s 2009 film as a 1818-1821 romance between John Keats and Fanny Braun, drawn from Andrew Motion\u2019s 1997 biography.", "Wolf O'Neill and David Crowther spend the opening on poetry itself, with David saying he has \"no feeling whatsoever for poetry whatsoever\" before reciting Coleridge, Shelley, Blake, Milton, and Swift.", "They argue that Campion turns poetry into fabric, wind, flowers, and closeups, with Abby Cornish\u2019s Fanny Braun at the center and Ben Whishaw\u2019s Keats kept deliberately restrained.", "The episode closes on historical detail: Fanny\u2019s letters were published in 1878, Keats was buried with unopened letters, and she wore his ring until her death."]
History in Technicolour revisits Ridley Scott's 2000 Gladiator after Wolf O'Neill's trip to Italy and reading of I, Claudius.
History in Technicolour reviews The Lost King, a film about Philippa Langley's search for Richard III beneath a Leicester car park.
History in Technicolour reviews Ashutosh Gowariker’s 2001 Hindi film Lagaan, set in Champaner, Gujarat, during the British Raj in 1893.
History in Technicolour examines Richard Brooks’s 1967 film In Cold Blood, adapted from Truman Capote’s account of the 1959 Clutter family murders in Kansas.
History in Technicolour examines Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2018 film The Favourite, starring Olivia Colman as Queen Anne, Rachel Weisz as Sarah Churchill, and Emma Stone as Abigail Masham.
Wolf and David discuss and rate historical films based on their quality and historical accuracy, focusing on Mary Queen of Scots.
Wolf and David review the historical film 'The Battle of Algiers', discussing its cinematic quality and historical accuracy.
Wolf and David analyze the historical accuracy and cinematic quality of the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Wolf and David explore history films, rating them on quality and historical accuracy.