“It is impossible to recreate the past, but you can represent it well.”In Conversation with Professor Guy Rowlands

The phrases ‘historical accuracy’ and ‘period drama’, in our time, seem to seldom get on well with one another. The role of historical consultant for any major period film is then one we must revere, even more so when occupied by Professor Guy Rowlands from the University of St Andrews’ School of History, who was the historical consultant for the film Savage House, released on 5 June in the UK. 

The film follows, in Professor Rowlands’ words, “an inveterate gambler and womaniser” who “gradually bankrupts his wife’s family, ancestral lands, and as a result of that, the film is set when they’re basically really in the last chance saloon of life. And suddenly they get this opportunity to host a visiting dignitary, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.” The film depicts the stresses and tensions of this couple as they prepare for this ordeal. “It’s set in 1715 against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rebellion of that year, and the backdrop of plague.”

“Now, how does it tie in with my own work?” asked Rowlands. “I’m a late 17th-, 18th-century historian, mainly of France, though I’ve done a certain amount of work on Britain, but mainly on the Jacobites. But I did do a lot of work on that when I was an undergraduate … so I was very familiar with these issues of polite society, the reformation of manners, the gentry and the aristocracy, and basically the culture and the world that they inhabited. And I’m certainly very, very familiar with it from [the] direct work that I’ve written on France in the age of Louis XIV.”

Discussing how Rowlands came to the job, he said “What happened was, out of the blue, the director, who had at that point simply written a draft screenplay and script, he — for whatever reason, I’ve never found out how — approached St Andrews, and got in touch with the Principal’s office, and said, ‘Have you got anybody that might be able to help me just to refine this, and sort of make sure I'm not making any silly mistakes?’ And by sheer chance, one of my friends happened to be one of the assistant vice principals at that point and said, ‘Yes, I know exactly the person.’”

“I was very, very lucky that this writer-director, Peter Glanz, was so open-minded, so interested in the period, so willing to accept that I knew a lot more about the period than he did — but he had this sort of creative spark.”

“Peter sent me his first draft of the script, and I read it through, annotated it, [and] commented on it. Then we had a meeting in which we discussed it, and then I gave him some various suggestions for further reading, a few secondary works of literature [...] But more importantly, the original versions of the Spectator and the Tatler, which were first published in the early 18th century — though they’re obviously modern magazines now, [and] were refounded in the 19th or 20th Century. But back then, they were founded in the early 18th Century as sort of bite-sized guides to life, and how to be a successful person in society, how to be a polite person.”

“Very much part of this movement of the late 17th and early 18th century was known as the Movement for the Reformation of Manners. How to turn a country which had the reputation of being the football hooligans of Europe in the 17th Century, into a society that was polite and well-mannered; and was dutiful, and devout religiously [...] in many ways, the sort of standards of behaviour that we expect from people these days, certainly in public interactions.”

“Those were sort of laid down, actually, in the very early 18th Century,” said Rowlands.

And how well was this historical background adapted to the film? It has “very much captured a lot of the spirit of the age [...] people were aspiring to appear more polite gentlemen and ladies.”

Rowlands himself speaks highly of the movie, and points out how “anybody who goes to see the film will see that there are sort of sly references, ever so hidden, to other films like Barry Lyndon … but this is not a derivative film in any sense. I think it's really quite original in its storyline.”

“When I went to see the movie, I didn't see anything whatsoever that I thought was anachronistic or made me wince,” said Rowlands. “And we professional historians go to historical movies, and are constantly sort of carping about bits of anachronism and things that shouldn't be there. And, you know, one might be able to quibble with one or two details [...], but by and large, these are trivial matters. And of course, in the end, as well as the fact that you have people doing a work of fiction, they have a right to have artistic license [...] I think that they got it pretty much right.”

As for previous films he’s seen which perhaps didn’t get it right, Rowlands said,

“I mean, I don't want to sort of point fingers at films that have been so terribly anachronistic, but I think … well, I'm going to: just sort of Leonardo DiCaprio as the man in the Iron Mask. You know, I just sat there and laughed my way through it. I can't remember quite why I laughed my way through it, but I remember very much that I did.

“When it comes to these things, I constantly have to remind myself [that] these films are not made for me. They're made to appeal to a wider public.”

Rowlands maintained that this was not the attitude, however, of Savage House’s director, “Because he took the view that history in particular periods tells its own story, really, really well without one messing around with the details too much, or making it seem incredible. He wanted to make a film that would last. It wouldn't be just a good piece of cinematography, it wouldn't just be a good storyline, but it would be a film where people would say, ‘That was a good job done as a period piece.’”

The process, for Rowlands, took about two years from the first conceptualisation of the film to the moment when shooting began: an approximately four-year process in total. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a film where I felt so uniquely with my feelings [...] They’re kind of difficult to describe, but put it this way: when you combine the atmosphere, the music, the period detail, the theme matter, I found it at times almost overwhelming, in a positive way, in a really positive way.” 

This strength of feeling came from “a sense of knowing the art that's gone into this and actually knowing the period as I do. It is impossible to recreate the past, but you can represent it well.”

Image from Wikimedia Commons