Clint O’Connor: Why Does Hollywood Ignore the American Revolution?

Clint O’Connor, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (7-3-05):

It’s a pitch no Hollywood studio could refuse: “A ragtag gang of revolutionaries takes on the greatest empire the world has ever known – and wins!”

It’s backed by those five turnstile-turning words: “based on a true story.”

It has everything producers want: violence, epic scope, great characters and instant name-recognition, and achieves both anti-government aggression and teary-eyed patriotism.

So why has the American Revolution been such a zero in Hollywood?

Both world wars, the Civil War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War all have a pantheon of great films reveling in their glorious deeds or decrying their insanity.

The Revolutionary War, 1775-1781, has . . . well, that Mel Gibson movie (“The Patriot”), and there was the one with Al Pacino that bombed (“Revolution”), and the musical from the Broadway show (“1776”).

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and company have overflowed bookshelves. Recent biographies of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton sold well, and David McCullough’s “1776” is No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction best-sellers’ list. But the Founding Fathers have failed to wow them on the big screen. Why?

“ ‘Gone With the Wind’ has such a strong influence on our mythology that the Civil War represents the greatest war,” said local film historian and author Louis Giannetti. “We all dutifully studied the American Revolution in school and then moved on to the more interesting epoch. There’s more poignancy in the Civil War, and it’s all-American.”

The American Film Institute’s list of the “100 Greatest Movies” includes 16 war or war-related films. None chronicles the Revolutionary War. The Korean War is also lightly represented, although it does have “M*A*S*H.” Even the Russian Revolution (“Doctor Zhivago”) ranks in the top 40....

You would think the bloody, heroic tales of colonists uniting against British tyranny would make for cinematic fire, even if it were not especially true.

“It’s the seminal myth of America that we were created as a unified people out of revolution,” said Ron Hoffman, the Pullen Professor of History at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. “The truth is we have always been deeply divided over liberty.”

In fact, the colonies were a hotbed of hatred between pro- and anti-British factions. “There was a civil war within the country and a great deal of violence,” said Hoffman, who also directs the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg....