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Fact or Fiction


The Brothers Grimm were very influential and important people in their time. They wrote many novels that transformed German culture and literature. This led Terry Gilliam to direct a movie about their lives in 2005, titled "The Brothers Grimm". However, there were many aspects of the movie that were not factual and did not happen in real life. So, what is fact and fiction about the Brothers lives?

Fact

The Grimm's were true blood related brothers. They came from a poor family and had to go out and get money for the family. They had people tell them folktales and stories. Which they would later use to write a novel called, The Complete Children's and Household Tales. Many of the fictional events that happened in the movie, were stories taken from their novel. 
In the movie they portrayed the Brother's hating the French, which was true in their real lives. They were very involved in politics and weren't afraid to show their opinion.

Fiction

In the movie, the brothers fought very often and had an aggressive tension towards each other. However, in their real lives, they were very close and did not like to spend time apart. They were always together and had a very close and loving relationship. In addition, Gilliam portrayed Jacob as the weak and nuisance of the brothers, while Wilhelm was the leader and strong one of the two. This was quite the contrary, Jacob was the oldest of the two and seemed to be the leader. Wilhelm was very sick and had to redo a year of college, which set him back a year from Jacob. 
In addition, the brothers were portrayed as con-artists. They would put on an act of getting rid of evil sports in a town to get money. But they didn't believe in evil spirits or magic so they would put on an act, tell the town that it is was dead, when they didn't really do anything, get their money and run off. They were never con-artists in real life, they would not take money from innocent people. They had storytellers tell them magical stories, which they simply recorded and then moved on.
All of the magic, killing, and towns were not real in the movie. They didn't actually go into an enchanted, alive forest to save twelve missing girls. Jacob didn't actually stab Wilhelm, Wilhelm didn't die and the French king was not killed either. Most of the movie was fictional but there were a few details that were accurate. 






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