Hacker Cinema
U-571
2000 · Film · 116 min
Directed by Jonathan Mostow
In the midst of World War II, the battle under the sea rages and the Nazis have the upper hand as the Allies are unable to crack their war codes. However, after a wrecked U-boat sends out an SOS signal, the Allies realise this is their chance to seize the 'enigma coding machine'.
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7 comments on Hacker News
Like all movies, especially Hollywood movies, it is a terrible presentation of history.
As another Engima related example, the film U-571 decides that presenting the real British capture of a U boat and its Engima machine won't do at all, so it was the Americans what did it. How else to perpetuate the Hollywood idea they win all wars single handed? ;)
Most of the history books after Nigel West's in the late 1980s cover the major Polish role in the story properly with more details. Until West, and the coverage after his book, histories essentially presented the official GCHQ authorised history. They omitted huge details, and enormously significant events and people like Tommy Flowers and Colossus remained almost completely unknown, even in Britain. A couple of Colossuses were sent to GCHQ at the end of the war, everything else was smashed to pieces and officially "forgotten about".
Which is why Tommy Flowers and others received little to no acknowledgement of their role during their lifetimes. Which is a fine way to thank people who played such a huge part in winning the war, and creating the post-war world.
I'd like to hear it. It's better than the USplaining of U571 in that movie. You know, where the US Navy stole the Enigma machine with Bon Jovi. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film)#Historical_inaccuracy
Polish contributions were ignored in the film U-571, which showed Americans recovering enigma machines before they entered the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film)#Controversies_regarding_content
I don't know if you should watch it...
But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film)#Historical_events : "David Balme, the British naval officer who led the boarding party aboard U-110, called U-571, "a great film"[9] and said that the film would not have been financially viable without being "Americanised"."
And there's a bit more of his opinion and recollections in a BBC article from when the film was released: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/774427.stm
Movies that have done the same to appeal to American audiances:
U-571 - "Ayer told BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme that he "did not feel good" about suggesting Americans, rather than the British, captured the naval Enigma cipher:"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_%28film%29#Controversies_regarding_content
Master And Commander: The Far Side of the World - "...as the producers wished to avoid offending American audiences [...] the fictional opponent was changed from the USS Norfolk to the French privateer frigate Acheron" (Original book was only loosely historical, but my point remains.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_and_Commander:_The_Far_Side_of_the_World#Allusion_to_real_events_and_people
Seriously?
She wasn't treated so much as a love interest as an intellectual interest and a close friend. Having been to Bletchley Park some years ago, the tour guide pointed out the spot where the two of them would picnic together, so there was some truth to it. His orientation is mentioned infrequently and in hushed tones as it would have had to have been back then - it was criminal after all.
I'm not saying it's an accurate movie, but it's no U-571 where hollywood decided it would be better if the Americans were the ones that captured the U-Boat and the enigma machine because it would play better to a US audience that way...
It would be interesting to find a film version of a real event of which the same cannot be said. The film "U-571" springs to mind, although is most likely an extreme case.