The year 2004 will not go down as a great vintage for historical movies, thanks to Troy, Alexander, King Arthur, etc. In contrast, films that feature original ideas, even if they are sequels, have done well, but there are so many interesting stories contained in history that I see no need to stick with the familiar. To illustrate this point I have compiled a selection of pieces on successful women from history, whose stories would all make good movies.
As well as factual details, the pieces include suggestions of how the films could be constructed to marry historical fact and cinematic drama. These are a pair of influences which tend to be uneasy bedfellows, but too often accuracy ends up sacrificed wholesale, for reasons which tend to be questionable at best. This isn’t necessary; as these cases show, there is potential for an interesting film that still remains credible.
The heroines come from widely different eras, and while they vary in their importance as far as making a difference, I find them all fascinating, and feel strongly that they deserve to be better known. Part of the reason they are not is, I believe, down to historians, who seem far more interested in women who meet with a tragic end. For example: Cleopatra (suicide), Boudicca (suicide), Joan of Arc (burned at the stake), or Mary Queen of Scots (beheaded). I’m sure that many people would appreciate a film featuring women who come out a winner, and these articles will hopefully generate some interest in such historical figures.
Making history: historical heroines to Hollywood
- Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus: Wonder of the World
- Aethelflaed: Daughter of Greatness
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Crusader Queen
- Grace O’Malley: Scourge of the Sea
See also
- 1572: The Battle of Haarlem
- 300: Rise of an Empire
- The Adventures of Maid Marian
- Agent High-Pockets, by Claire Phillips
- Amy
- Amy Johnson: Britain’s Amelia Earhart
- Annie Oakley (film)
- Annie Oakley of the Wild West, by Walter Havighurst
- Annie Oakley: the first girl with a gun?
- Le Avventure di Mary Read
- The Battalion
- Battle for Sevastopol
- Boudica: Queen of War
- Boudica: Rise of the Warrior Queen
- Calamity Jane
- A Call to Spy
- Cattle Annie and Little Britches: Fact vs. fiction
- Dangal
- Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story
- Forest Child, by Heather Day Gilbert
- Fraulein Doktor
- The Girl King
- The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant
- The incredible, true survival story of Juliane Koepcke
- Iron Jawed Angels
- Jhansi Ki Rani
- Joan Of Arc (1948)
- Joan of Arc (1999)
- Joan-pocalypse Now
- Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI
- Lachmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi: The Jeanne D’Arc of India by Michael White
- Lady General Hua Mu-lan
- The Legend of Princess Olga
- The Legend of Tomiris
- The Legendary Adventures of the Pirate Queens, by James Grant Goldin
- Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
- Maria Bochkareva and the Women’s Battalions of Death
- Mary Kom
- Matchless Mulan
- The Messenger: the story of Joan of Arc
- Mulan (animation)
- Mulan Joins The Army
- Mulan (2009)
- Nautical But Not-So Nice: Women pirates through history
- Neerja
- No Man Shall Protect Us
- Queen Lakshmibai: India’s Joan of Arc
- Queen of the Desert
- Rudhramadevi
- Russian World War II Girls With Guns
- Saint Joan
- Sophie Blanchard: The first aeronautess
- They Flew Alone
- The Tiger and the Flame
- She-Wolves – England’s Early Queens
- Voevoda
- Warrior Princess
- Warrior Queen (1978)
- Warrior Queen (2003)
- Warrior Queen of Jhansi
- Warrior Women
- The Woman King
- The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake