The enigma of historical fiction

THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER. Alright so give me a break -- I could not come up with a clever title for this posting. I would also like to say that for now, I think I will have exhausted my thoughts on historical accuracy in film, but I could not do so without turning back to this movie, which does fit quite excellently into the topic. Good choice, Owen. I also appreciated the little bit of history of the film lesson in your posting as it opens up for a lively discussion on when to take liberties with history. We seemed to fall on the same side of the argument when it came to historical accuracy, but I find this to be a slightly different case.

Your bringing up of the original title is a good point, and I find that coupled with the English title it suggests to the viewer that this is not a history lesson. Unlike most historical movies, the original title is more along the lines of a straight-up fiction-based film and the English title pretty much says that it is not a straightforward story. My preference is to generally fall in line with your conclusions about historical films adhering to actual history, but this movie challenges my opinion a bit because I join the other side here and was not troubled by the added scene of the carnival. Perhaps it is a myopic view of history that if it is not recent it does not matter as much if it is completely accurate, but I think the larger reason I find it less troublesome is because, as you said, the movie is more about ideas and an exploration of human nature than it is about the particular person. In a way Kaspar Hauser was a blank slate who was able to develop his views as a fully formed adult and so questioned humanity in general and issues like gender roles in particular from an approach that others did not. In that vein the story lends itself to treating the story as a bit a starting point for exploring ideas and not tied to his past as strongly. It's a sticky wicket, however, in allowing for changing of history because one could then argue that it is OK for Disney to have Pocahontas talking to a tree in that movie they made, which might sound benign except that I had a cousin who, although young, was certain that the actual person could speak to landscaping.

Where I think you might be on to something, however, is when you talk about not tying the story as strongly to an individual. Perhaps Werner Herzog's misstep was in including too much historical accuracy. An interpretation along the lines of This is England (which I will say, I have not seen although was intrigued enough to add it to my queue) might be a good path to take, although another example I would find promising would be something like I'm Not There, which I thought was a noble idea if not a completely successful realization of the ambition. A story like Kaspar Hauser -- especially one already labeled as an enigma -- might be the perfect story to explore as an inspiration more so than history. Another example from our history as schoolmates might be the book Einstein's Dreams from sophomore English that took the idea of Einstein developing the theory of relativity to explore ruminations about time and in doing so underscored the concept Einstein eventually formed. It's a rare story that leads to this interpretation, but I would certainly watch that type of treatment of Kaspar Hauser.

On a side note, I should say that I did not really know the story until watching this movie and after watching it when originally thinking about what I was going to say, I was listening to an episode of This American Life that turned out to have a segment by a San Francisco comedy troupe called Kaspar Hauser and it made me feel special knowing the origin of the name. Oh the coincidence.

P.S. I could not find a way to really bring this up in what I was writing as it was a bit off the subject, but there have been a number of pretty well-made movies about skinheads of late. The one you brought up sounds pretty strong and then there was the rather famous American History X and another movie I think I told you about, The Believer. Don't know if you have seen that one, but if you haven't it is worth taking a look. That was a movie that stayed with me. I think I might have to watch This is England and a thread on skinheads in film could be in our future.