Historical Accuracy Of The Film 'They Shall Not Grow Old'

World War One was physically and mentally draining for every person that entered the war effort. The magnitude of the war is difficult to understand for any civilian because one cannot imagine the torturous events that the soldiers endured. Films and documentaries have been produced in an attempt to portray the reality of the war; however, many films are historically inaccurate and can easily skew a person’s idea of World War One. The documentary They Shall Not Grow Old is one of the most accurate films to portray World War One because it uses real footage from the war. In comparison, the film Passchendaele is historically accurate; however, the filmmakers focus the film on a love story rather than World War One. The documentary and the film

The film is surprisingly accurate in regards to the portrayal of the recruitment and war efforts. For example, the film accurately displayed the mentality of a soldier before and after the war through the character David. David went through so much to enter into the war efforts, yet when he got to war, he complained about sitting in the trenches stating that he only wanted to kill Germans. Additionally, the film is similar to the documentary because David and his sister Sarah both enter the war effort by lying on their documents. Just like young boys lied about their age in the documentary, David lied about getting clearance for his asthma in the film. Similarly, Sarah lied about her father being a German soldier to reenter the war to see Michael and David. The setting in the film during the war scene was insanely accurate because the trenches of Passchendaele were sloppy and muddy from the constant rain. As a whole, the Canadian film is not necessarily inaccurate; however, there are minor details that could have been added to make the film more historically correct. To start off, the film is mainly a love story between Michael and Sarah with World War One as a background; therefore, moving the focus to the war would aid in ridding the movie of historical inaccuracies. It is also highly unlikely that a soldier would have fallen in love with a nurse during the war. Another aspect that can be arguably historically inaccurate is the short timeline that the main character, Michael, lives. Within a very short period of time, Michael has fought at Vimy, been diagnosed with neurasthenia, trained, and re-entered the war at Passchendaele. As a whole, the film’s historical inaccuracies are small and essentially unimportant because only experts would notice the inaccuracies. The film gives an appropriate