Fake History Hunter

This article was originally a thread on social media, which is why it is formatted with lots of images and short responses.
The text is about the image below that paragraph.

This the first film Robert Eggers directed, it was received very well and helped him on his way to become the big director he is today.
I enjoy his films, he truly has a way for spoiling and delighting my eyes.
He also has a thing for history themes, so that’s good, but are his films historically accurate?
Let’s take a look.
And yes, there will be spoilers and yes I’m going to be the annoying historian complaining about the tiniest details, just so you know, you’ve been warned.

I love this font and hate that the film is now called the Witch everywhere, VVitch is a much cooler name;

If you enjoy me to poke holes in film and pointing out inaccuracies, you’ll be disappointed, there were very few and they aren’t really worth mentioning.
And so many gorgeous shots:

I do think the film was a bit too dark, too grey, too faded all the time, the dreaded ‘blue filter’ seems to be welded to the camera lens.
Everything being pretty AND scary stuff happening might have been a more interesting contrast.
Or perhaps starting really pretty with the vibrant colours everywhere and then slowly getting darker?
Sunshine, green fields, rosy cheeks, pretty clothes… and then it starts to fade… lose its colour for it to never return…

This era is not my speciality, so if there was a detail wrong about the clothes I wouldn’t spot it but it all sure does look authentic. Clearly a lot of effort was put into getting this right and I think they succeeded. The fabric, the style, it all looks accurate and convincing;

And I LOVED that it was dark indoors in the evening, I’ve spend time in “the past” and if you know what it’s like when a candle is your only light, you’ll never stop complaining about films getting that wrong and being too bright.
That’s not the case here;

And that is a very brave thing to do for a director.
The cameraman will complain, the set dresser will complain, the producer will complain. “The audience won’t see a thing! They have to see stuff!” they’ll cry.
But look how gorgeous this shot is, it’s like a painting;

I also can’t say much bad about the interior of the house, it looks good and although candles may have been a bit expensive for this family, having one candle and a fire being the only light is glorious.

The story itself is pretty good and believable, the supernatural bits but also the general tension are excellent and actually scary, and that says something coming from an 80s kid, after all, we grew up watching films we were way too young for and it takes a lot to ruffle our feathers 😉

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