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An anachronism—from the Greek ανά (ana: up, against, back, re-) and χρόνος (chronos: time)—is an accidental or deliberate inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other. The item is often an object, but may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a material, a custom, or anything else so closely associated with a particular period in time that it would be incorrect to place it outside its proper domain. A representation of something as existing or occurring at other than its proper time in history.
Another sort of parachronism arises when a work based on a particular era's state of knowledge is read within the context of a later era with a different state of knowledge. Many scientific works that rely on theories that have later been discredited have become anachronistic with the removal of those underpinnings, and works of speculative fiction often find their speculation outstripped by real-world technological development.
A prochronism, on the other hand, occurs when an item appears in a temporal context in which it could not yet be present (the object had not yet been developed, the verbal expression had not been coined, the philosophy had not been formulated, the breed of animal had not been developed, the technology had not been created). An example might be Western movies' placing of firearms not introduced until the 1870s, such as the Winchester 1873 rifle or the Colt Single Action Army revolver, into frontier society of antebellum or Civil War years. While prochronisms such as this may not be noticeable to the uninformed, other prochronisms are frankly comic in their effect (e.g., a 10th-century British peasant earnestly explaining his village as an "anarcho-syndicalist commune" in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or a Beatlesque band called the "Bedbugs" appearing in the American Civil War–era TV comedy F-Troop).
However, a seeming anachronism may reflect ignorance of history rather than a genuine chronological anomaly. A popular view of history presents an unfolding of the past in which humanity has a primitive start and progresses toward development of technology. Allegedly anachronistic artifacts demonstrate contradictions to this idea. Some archaeologists believe that seeing these artifacts as anachronisms underestimates the technology and creativity of people at the time.
Shakespeare's audience similarly did not ask whether the University of Wittenberg had existed in Hamlet's day, or whether clocks that struck time were available in Julius Caesar's ancient Rome.
However, in many works, such anachronisms are not simply the result of ignorance, which would have been corrected had the artist simply had more historical knowledge. Renaissance painters, for example, were well aware of the differences in costume between ancient times and their own, given the renewed attention to ancient art in their time, but they often chose to depict ancient scenes in contemporary garb. Rather, these anachronisms reflect a difference of emphasis from the 19th and 20th century attention to depicting details of former times as they "actually" were. Artists and writers of earlier times were usually more concerned with other aspects of the composition, and the fact that the events depicted took place long in the past was secondary. Such a large number of differences of detail required by historic realism would have been a distraction. (see Accidental and intentional anachronism below)
Authors sometimes telescope chronology for the sake of making a point. Bolesław Prus does this at several junctures in his 1895 historical novel, Pharaoh, set in the Egypt of 1087–1085 BCE. The ancient "Suez Canal", proposed by Prince Hiram (chapter 55), had existed in ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom, centuries before the period of the novel. Conversely, the remarkably accurate calculation of the earth's circumference by Eratosthenes, and the invention of a steam engine by Heron, both ascribed in chapter 60 to the priest Menes, had historically occurred in Alexandrian Egypt, centuries after the period of the novel.
In recent times, the progress of archaeological research and the more scientific spirit of history have encouraged audiences and artists to view anachronism as an offense or mistake.
Yet modern dramatic productions often rely on anachronism for effect. In particular, directors of Shakespeare's plays may use costumes and props not only of Shakespeare's day or their own, but of any era in between or even those of an imagined future. For instance, the musical Return to the Forbidden Planet crosses The Tempest with popular music to create a science fiction musical.
A celebrated 1960 stage production of Hamlet, starring Richard Burton, was set on a bare New York stage in contemporary rehearsal clothes: the audience could have been watching the rehearsal before the dress rehearsal. The point of the staging was apparently that the story of Hamlet is a universal one that was equally credible in the 20th century as in the 17th.
Other popular adaptations of Shakespeare's plays that relied on anachronisms in props and setting were Titus (1999) and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996). A similar approach was used in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, in which a diverse selection of 20th century music is used over a fin de siècle backdrop. Other films, such as Brazil, A Series of Unfortunate Events, or Richard III may create worlds so full of various conflicting anachronisms as to create a unique stylistic environment that lacks a specific period setting. This use of stylistic anachronism also often appears in children's movies, such as Shrek and Hoodwinked, where it is used for satirical effect. (see Comical anachronism below)
Sometimes a director may use anachronisms to offer a "fresh" angle on an already established story. Thus Andrew Lloyd Webber created two popular musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which filled traditional biblical stories with modern-day sensibilities; and on a similar note, Catherine Hardwicke's The Nativity Story shows a field of maize-corn in a Nazareth farming scene. Maize-corn is native to Mesoamerica; until the late 15th century it was grown only in the Americas.
Stories published before the invention of solid-state electronics often depict characters in futuristic settings still using vacuum tube radios and slide rules. This is particularly noticeable in the Venus Equilateral stories, written between 1942 and 1945 but set in the middle 21st century, where radio communication - using vacuum tubes, though more advanced than the ones at the time of writing - is a major plot subject.
Clifford Simak's Time is the Simplest Thing is set in the 22nd Century - a time when cars are equipped with atomic engines and do not touch the ground, teleportation exists though not yet available to the general public, and a form of traveling to stars thousands of light years distant was created - yet telephone calls go through manual telephone exchanges which have never been automated.
Many of the works of Ray Bradbury depict futuristic families who rely on helicopters as a main mode of travel; such a replacement of the car by the helicopter has not occurred by the date stated in the stories. The same is true for Heinlein's The Puppet Masters.
H. Beam Piper's novels, largely set in the 27th century "Atomic Era" (circa 2600) envision anti-gravity drives and super-luminal travel, but still depict analog tape-based recording. Futuristic films, such as A Clockwork Orange, sometimes have anachronisms, such as the fact that in that film a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle is run off the road, and listening to microcassettes in a film set deep in the late 20th century.
This can happen another way as well: William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy depicts a cyberpunk world of fantastically advanced technology in which personal mobile phones do not exist, characters rely extensively on pay phones or exotic satellite-based communication and 8 megabytes of RAM is a valuable commodity. (Mobile phones already existed at the time of the works, but they were big, clunky, and expensive; Gibson did not foresee their miniaturization and ubiquity.)
A more subtle example may be found in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II, where it is assumed that fax machines are ubiquitous as of 2015 instead of email. Shows like The Jetsons also tend to have a number of them, like videophones (which have not, as yet, become widespread), or that 1960s style rock music would still be unacceptable to adults, or that media of any kind would still be recorded on tape.
In the 1982 film Blade Runner which is set in 2019, Atari, which was liquidated by the late 1980s is portrayed as the main source of computer products. Also the film depicts cigarettes as being advertised, not anticipating that by the early 2000s most developed nations would have had legislated against tobacco advertisement in the name of health.
Sometimes terms are intentionally used anachronistically, especially when referring to futuristic technology and the writers prefer to retain audience identification instead of creating a new term that would then have to be explained. The first Star Wars film referred to the rebels having stolen "data tapes" that contained the Death Star's secret plans. Although it is evident that computer storage media in the Star Wars universe was far ahead of Earth's, the term "tape" was probably used for audience recognition purposes as magnetic tape was the primary storage medium of computer data at the time the film was made. The original Star Trek series also made reference to "computer tapes" despite the fact that the storage media seen strongly resembled floppy disks which hadn't yet been invented in the real world.
One work where nominal anachronisms are present but not fatal to credibility is David Brin's 1990 novel Earth. Brin foresees the ubiquity of the computer networks (but not the term Internet), but he was writing the year before the World Wide Web was made popular. He therefore refers to documents that are readily available to computer users but called by clumsy numeric identifiers, rather than URLs. He also imagines that personal video recorders, like camcorders, would influence civil liberties by making it possible for ordinary citizens to film crimes committed by police, as well as by hooligans. He does not foresee the ways in which both still photographs and video can be transmitted, making it possible for amateur reporters to cover breaking news stories and get their stories televised.
Cinematic anachronisms that result from inappropriate objects in a film or television program are commonplace even if they are unintentional. Often these are faults of costume, especially for a television series filmed with a low budget. Thus episodes of a 1960s series relating to the frontiersman Daniel Boone have been shown with 20th century hairdos and clothing with plastic buttons. At times some modern actor unwilling to put aside a prized wristwatch during a filming of an epic of ancient times is shown with the bulge of the wristwatch under a toga even if the watch or its band is not partially exposed. A ballpoint pen, a commonplace object of the late 20th century, would not be available until after World War II to Americans, so any incidence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or any earlier President of the United States signing legislation with one demonstrates an anachronism.
The popular 1970's television series The Waltons, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency in the Great Depression and later, World War II, contained several anachronistic references to things which occurred during the pre-war Depression era. The first season is set in 1933, yet in the first episode, the family listens to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy's radio show, which did not start until 1937. In the fifth episode, breaking news of an earthquake in Long Beach, California is discussed, though it actually occurred on March 10, 1933 (just six days into Roosevelt's presidency).
A more serious anachronism was introduced in a series of seven feature-length Waltons sequel specials aired from 1982 to 1997 with the surviving original cast, but which were set in the years 1969 and 1970. In the final sequel A Walton Easter, the Walton parents are said to be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in 1970. But in the series' first year, it was established that they had been married for eighteen years, which would have put their wedding in 1915. If they had been married in 1930 as the sequel implies, the series would have taken started in 1948, completely contradicting the Depression/World War II setting. To be consistent with the series, either the sequels should have been set in 1955, or else they should have been celebrating 55 years in 1970 (which might have required a cast of older actors.)
A number of accidental anachronisms occur in Franc Roddam's 1979 film Quadrophenia. Based on Pete Townshend and The Who's 1973 double album about a troubled London teenager trying to fit into the hedonistic early 1960s Mod scene, the film is widely believed to be set in 1964, as it depicts the Mods and Rockers seaside battle on Brighton beach and shows Jimmy's newspaper cuttings of similar battles at Hastings and Margate that same year. The numerous mirrors, lamps and chromed frames adorning Jimmy's Lambretta scooter also suggest 1964 rather than the stripped-down scooters of later years. However, 1970s car models are seen in street scenes, such as the Austin Allegro. At a house party, the sleeve of Who LP A Quick One is on the top of the record player, yet it was not released until the end of 1966. Also, in a scene on Brighton promenade, a cinema is advertising the film Heaven Can Wait which was made over a decade later than the film's setting. Furthermore, while Jimmy is watching an episode of Ready Steady Go! on TV in 1964 (a pop-music programme aired 1963-66), The Who appear, singing "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere", a song not released until May 1965.
Sometimes movie anachronisms are intentional, while appearing accidental. An example is the musical score of The Sting. The ragtime piano music by Scott Joplin was composed in the 1890s and 20th century, while the setting of the movie was the 1930s Great Depression. Although Joplin's music is not contemporary with the 1930s, its use in The Sting evokes a 1930s gangster film, The Public Enemy, which had also used Scott Joplin theme music. The presence of Joplin's music might give the impression that the movie's backdrop and music are from the same period or, conversely, be mistaken as an unintentional anachronism by viewers unaware of the allusion to the earlier film.
Technical advances can also cause anachronisms, especially in movies set in the future. Numerous examples of this can be seen in the 1995 film Harrison Bergeron, set in 2081. Throughout the film, numerous analog CRT television sets are visible, along with other anachronisms, such as the analog nature and hardware-level programming of handicapping headbands. (One would expect the headbands to be programmable using a computer, as opposed to adjusting by hand.) In a large number of Yugoslavian movies about WWII, 1960s FAP and Tam trucks were used. A 1940 Ford fire truck has been used in 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde.
Anachronisms can show up when filming on location, since buildings or natural features may be present that would not have been at the time the film was set (think of movies that have already been filmed, that are set in the future and contain footage of the World Trade Center in New York, such as Vanilla Sky), or may be missing in the film while they existed at the time the movie was set. Another example is the Coen brothers movie No Country For Old Men, in which a modern-day Carl's Jr. is visible in the background of the hotel scene, set in early 1980s Texas, there would not have been a Carl's Jr. there, let alone one with current markings. Similar anachronisms are noticeable in the film The Blue Max, in which outdoor television antennas are visible on buildings, during scenes set in 1918.
In the BBC science-fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, set on a 23rd century spacecraft, Sony Trinitron monitors are seen throughout the ship and VHS and Betamax video cassettes are still in use. One of these unintentional anachronisms is used for comic effect in , when it was explained that DVDs were discontinued sometime in the late 21st century because "humans were utterly incapable of putting them back in the cases" and that "videos are too big to lose".
In the case of films made in the past but set in the future, a building or feature may be seen that is known to no longer exist. Especially with regards to historical items and vehicles, anachronisms can stem from convenience, for example a historically accurate item might be replaced with a later but fairly similar item, especially if a historically accurate item cannot be sourced. In the case of replicas, signs of modern construction techniques may be visible. In some cases, though, due to technological entrenchment, anachronisms cannot be helped, such as in the British television show Life on Mars (set in the 1970s), where removing present-day public amenities like park benches and satellite dishes in outdoor scenes would be impossible or absurd.
A literary work such as Quo Vadis set in the time of Nero is written in Polish, a language that did not exist in Roman times, and is usually translated into other languages that did not exist in ancient times because modern audiences generally do not understand Latin, the language of Rome, any more than non-Poles can be expected to understand Polish, and is generally excused.
At the most blatant, linguistic anachronisms can demonstrate the fraudulence of a document purportedly from an earlier time. The use of terminology from 19th- and 20th-century antisemites demonstrates that the "Franklin Prophecy" is a forgery, as Benjamin Franklin died in 1790.
Sometimes a lack of understanding of language differences can lead the reader to detect a false anachronism. For example, the Oxford World Classics translation of Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War mentions the 'corn situation' in Rome. To North American ears this might sound anachronistic (since American corn or maize did not reach Europe until over 1,500 years after Caesar's death), but in British English the word corn is a synonym of the word grain and normally refers to wheat.
A common example is the critique of ancient science by Carl Sagan:
"Writings about fossils, gems, earthquakes, and volcanoes date back to the Greeks, more than 2300 years ago. Certainly, the most influential Greek philosopher was Aristotle. Unfortunately, Aristotle's explanations of the natural world were not derived from keen observations and experiments, as in modern science. Instead, they were arbitrary pronouncements based on the limited knowledge of his day."
Indeed, Aristotle stated many things in conflict with both modern science and the findings of pre-Socratic philosophers like Democritus, as Carl Sagan observed in Episode 7 of and in Chapter 7 of the book Cosmos.
Category:Time Category:Chronology Category:History Category:Fiction Category:Setting Category:Out-of-place artifacts
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