Steven Spielberg's nineteenth century set Amistad was criticized on the pages of Roger Ebert's "Movie Answer Man" for its characters' use of the greeting "Hello," an uncommon pleasantry until well after the introduction of the telephone. Experts are wont to pick and poke at such niggly details, and the volume Past Imperfect has given a sampling of professional historians a forum for their critcisms of so-called fact-based motion picures. For trivia buffs like myself, who search high and low for such examples as the Amistad gaffe above, the book provides page after fascinating page of Hollywood research blunders great and small.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Past Imperfect also functions as a brief chronicle of time; it will likely strike a loud chord with disengaged high school students, because it places famous events and movements of the past in a cinematic context. (Additionally, it provides its lessons in compelling but bite-size morsels that will probably not tax the average teenager's attention span.)

Each chapter highlights a specific title; these chapters are organized chronologically by era, not by the release dates of the films. (Past Imperfect begins with Stephen Jay Gould's summation of Jurassic Park and ends with a look at Nixon by Watergate whistle-blower Bob Woodward.) Seventy-seven motion pictures in all are discussed, and not every one of the studied works purports to be derived from a true story. In the case of a definite fiction like Apocalypse Now, for instance, Frances Fitzgerald examines what aspects of its depiction of the Vietnam War are realistic or rooted in truth. (He dismisses Apocalypse Now's third act as a load of hooey, natch.) Jurassic Park is looked at in terms of its plausibility; much of the scientific dialogue spouted by John Hammond and his team apparently contradicts basic genetic precepts.

My favourite article in Past Imperfect is John F. Kasson's take on Houdini. The biopic, produced with the assistance of Houdini's widow, actually alters the circumstances of the escape artist's death! (He died of peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdomen caused by a blow to the stomach; Tony Curtis' Houdini dies trying to break out of the famed Chinese Water Torture Cell--a contraption that the real-life Houdini had successfully exited hundreds of times without fail.) Kasson cites other changes made that are equally banal, such as how Houdini's famed sixteen-minute escape from a San Francisco jail cell takes hours in this adaptation. It's as if the filmmakers doubted Houdini's well-documented physical (and mental) prowess.

The layout of Past Imperfect's essays consists not only of a few paragraphs about a given film, but also numerous sidebars filled with anecdotal asides related to the historical subject at hand. In the section about 1992's duelling Christopher Columbus epics, Carla Rahn Phillips and William D. Phillips, Jr. come down heavily on Ridley Scott's 1492. Meanwhile, in one margin, the authors question the authenticity of a portrait traditionally thought to be that of the explorer; in another, they side against Columbus on his geographical estimations. (Note: if a Past Imperfect composition pertains to a docudrama, a physical comparison between the main subject and his or her on-screen counterpart is usually given; notice the stunning resemblance between Malcolm X and Denzel Washington, as well as the ludicrous dissimilarity between Richard Nixon and Anthony Hopkins.)

The book's 1996 softcover edition is bookended by two interview transcripts. In the prologue, Eric Foner quizzes John Sayles, who wrote the docudramas Eight Men Out and Apollo 13 and is known for his attention to detail. Foner mostly grills him on the importance of historical accuracy in motion pictures. More to the point, Foner asks Sayles if directors and screenwriters of non-fictional tales have a responsibility to what is known if it compromises the entertainment value or director's vision of the piece. Mark C. Carnes interrogates Oliver Stone for the closer; Stone holds his own quite well--he has surely grown accustomed to defending himself. (I once attended a lecture that Oliver Stone gave at Toronto's Massey Hall, and in the Q&A that followed a number of insults were hurled his way. The director maintained a Zen cool throughout.)

Past Imperfect has sharpened my "Jeopardy!" skills; it's an addictive, informative, untraditional reference. It's also a tad snooty--many of its contributors, including the renowned Stephen Ambrose, cannot come to terms with artwork as representation rather than document, fearing (perhaps justifiably so) that a wrongheaded retelling of an important true story will forever colour the public's perception of it. Gould states in the middle of his Jurassic Park rant that he doesn't wish to "set our collective effort on a wrong course with carping criticism and cheap shots in the 'nyah-nyah' mode," but, of course, that's just what he does.-Bill Chambers

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