Does Armour in Movies Have to Be Historically Accurate?

Does armour and costumes in film and TV programmes have to be historically accurate? Hello, my name is Hadley and I'm an archaeologist. Like many people, I watched the trailer for Christopher Nolan's new film called The Odyssey. I'm very excited to watch it, but more entertaining than the trailer for me has been listening to and reading the reactions of people who have watched the trailer. It got me thinking about the decisions that people like Christopher Nolan have had to make while producing a film or TV programme regarding what the characters wear and, in the case of The Odyssey, the armour. I think people's reactions have fallen into four main categories. Some people think the costumes look naff, they don't fit into the vibe of an ancient story with a big budget. Others say the armour looks great, a fresh take on a very old story. Those two opinions, in my view, are perfectly valid and are just down to subjective taste. I can't really say anything more about the two takes. But here's where things may get spicy. I've seen people argue that the armour is inaccurate and that this is a bad thing. Interesting. The counter-argument is that this is a fictional story featuring a cyclops, a one-eyed monster, so historical accuracy doesn't even matter. That's even more interesting, I think. I think films that are based in a historical context must make a choice about where they fit into this triangle, each point representing an element of visual storytelling. Cost is one of these elements. Even in high-budget flicks like The Odyssey, the producers can't spend all of the budget on costume, recreating ancient armour using real-life blacksmiths. Just not feasible. Another element is aesthetics. How the armour actually looks, or to use more plain English, does it look cool and does it serve the message of the story? Finally, we have authenticity. I deliberately didn't use the term historical accuracy here because that can very rarely be achieved at a mass scale. Accuracy here means true-to-real-life, using exactly replicated pieces of armour found through archaeological excavation, made with the same materials. That's not really possible in a film. But what is possible is authenticity, giving the audience a feel that the armour could have reasonably been worn by someone from that time, even if it's drawing from multiple archaeological finds, made with materials that simulate real life rather than directly emulating them. Using this triangle method, I'd place The Odyssey, based on the trailer alone, here, more heavily aligned with aesthetics rather than authenticity. I think we need some comparanda though. The TV show Barbarians has been lauded for the effort put into the costumes and the armour. Not only does it look great, I think, but it's authentic too. Of course, it's not entirely accurate, because it can't be, but if you were to show a Roman legionary soldier this scene in AD 9, he wouldn't have been too shocked, whereas you show a Bronze Age Achaean this, he would not recognise the look, nor would he recognise the materials, actually. It's not a critique, I'm just highlighting the creative decisions that were taken by the filmmakers. So let's place Barbarians here. These looks weren't cheap, but they are as authentic as I think you can get on this scale, and they are very aesthetically pleasing, to most people, actually. 300, my favourite film of all time, I'm not even joking about that, whilst the details are almost completely made up, ironically this film captures the themes of the Battle of Thermopylae, emphasised by Herodotus, the ancient writer who tells us about this battle. The sacrifice of Leonidas, the overwhelming odds, showing the Greeks that the Persian king could bleed, metaphorically speaking. Although the Corinthian helmets are surprisingly good, the total lack of body armour, and the shields made entirely of metal, are not authentic. It was relatively cheap though, so I'm placing 300 here, between aesthetics and cost. My final comparandum is Britannia, the TV programme that oversimplifies and mythologises the Roman invasion of Britain. That's not a critique though, it is brilliant. Like 300, it captures a feeling that I have about the Roman invasion of Britain. How the Romans were terrified of Britannia, an island steeped in mystery, and how the Britons must have thought that the Romans were the harbingers of the end times. The armour is not authentic, of course. Some helmets, shields and weapons are okay, but cost was clearly the main concern here. Leather segmented armour is a bit of an open joke among archaeologists. Clearly this is meant to represent the famous Lorica segmentata, like this superb specimen found in Germany. It makes no sense from an authenticity perspective however. The costume designers did what they could to make the Roman soldiers look Roman, but it was the bare minimum. So I'm placing Britannia firmly on the cost section of the triangle. So I hope I've made clear up until this point that I don't really think any of these choices are better than the other choice. I love 300 and Britannia. They inspired me to study archaeology, and now I'm doing a PhD in Roman archaeology thanks to films and TV shows like this. But they made a sacrifice, and they made a choice to sacrifice historical authenticity. I'd rather have that than these amazing productions never be made in the first place though. Going back to the Odyssey trailer reaction, I do have one major bone to pick with those who say that since Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was a fictional story, that it can't be historically authentic. Monsters like the Cyclops aren't real, so why should the armour be based on real archaeological evidence? Well, The Odyssey isn't a fictional story. The ancients who first told the story of Odysseus' journey home, the people who listened to the story and the people who first wrote it down believed the events happened. It wasn't fiction for them. This epic poem, to give it its formal classification, therefore doesn't fit into the genre of a Every subsequent generation who engaged with this story in ancient times thought that Odysseus ruled Ithaca, that he fought at Troy and that he took a long time to get home. The Cyclops, Circe, the gods were real parts of the story for them. People saw this skull and didn't think, that's an elephant, I mean did you at first? They thought it was a Cyclops skull. Of course, the events almost certainly didn't take place in the way that the Homeric version of The Odyssey describes. Odysseus himself was probably a mythological figure rather than a historical king. But to say that The Odyssey was a fictional story and it therefore cannot be historically authentic, no, that's just not true. It would have been possible to recreate what the Achaeans would have worn to battle in film. The filmmakers of The Odyssey, however, chose not to do that. And that's okay, it's a film that doesn't claim to be historically authentic. Thank you so much for watching to the end of this video, I do hope you enjoyed it. Do let me know where your favourite ancient film and TV shows fit into the triangle. In the future I'm imagining we create this huge triangle database for this kind of thing. Anyway, until next time, vale.