How Old Does it Have to Be…

… to be considered historical?

With the proliferation of movies set in the first half of the 20th century this question becomes more and more frequent. For instance, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are among our favourite series, Agatha Christie’s famous characters who lived in around 1920/1930. Can those be considered historical adaptations? We’d like to think so, they describe social habits and relationships particular to that time and manage to be faithful accounts in terms of descriptions, settings, wardrobe, etc. We’d probably have doubts in classifying the books as historical, mainly because they were written in the period they described, but we think the series can easily fall into that genre. We’d like to know your opinion though… What do you consider as “historical”, as “the past”? Where should we draw the line to consider a movie or series as a “historical” adaptation?

Regarding the adaptations, several actors and actresses recreated the characters, for Poirot we’d mention Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov and David Suchet and for Miss Marple, Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan, although there were others. Do you have any favourites?

Some interesting links:

Agatha Christie’s Poirot ITV
Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple ITV
Poirot on TV and Film: The Official Agatha Christie Website
Miss Marple: The Official Agatha Christie Website