Great Hollywood Mythmaking
27 November 2004
Other reviewers talk like Plymouth Adventure is fiction. They think Clarence Brown is like James Cameron, who cares more about the story conforming to a movie than the other way around. In other words, they have no idea what integrity is.

Though much was documented - and is adhered to by the plot points - much is conjecture, and this can be subject to dramatic license. Of course, the dialog is up to the screenwriter and director. We can discuss this, but for me, the language and dialog weren't at all problematic, nor was the lush cinematography, in itself (see below).

I have only two quibbles:

I should have preferred to see Plymouth Adventure in black and white. The Pilgirms were a black and white lot who established a black and white society.

I don't mind myth-making, because I think myths can be metaphors for the truths behind them. Of course, myths can be used in malign ways, as we know from the Nazis. Though not malign, the myth of the Pilgrims is of questionable value, since we know that the Pilgrims were seeking, in the New World, freedom, but freedom to establish their own tyranny. This is different from the myth, say, of George Washington and the cherry tree, since Washington was a true archetype of integrity. Nevertheless, rather than making a debunking movie showing the Pilgrims as a kind of proto-Taliban, perhaps it would be better to let their qualities of courage and resourcefulness stand, and leave the myth to benign neglect.
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