A for Anachronisms

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Excerpt from page 44 of Alan Moore's BBC Maestro Course Notes 1.0, related to the 21th episode of the series,  Period. Full course: HERE!

Alan Moore: [...] Watch out for anachronisms, as they can pull you out of the period quite forcefully. In Boardwalk Empire, Stephen Graham as Al Capone compared a character with half a tin mask on his face to Frankenstein. Although Mary Shelley had written the novel in 1815, and Thomas Edison had produced a silent short film in 1910, a semi-literate Chicago gangster is not going to be referencing a Mary Shelley novel in 1920. Similarly, Steve Buscemi’s character greets his stepchildren as munchkins. While L. Frank Baum’s novel was written, nobody would have been referencing Wizard Of Oz characters until the MGM film in the thirties. This sort of thing can completely destroy a sense of period. Perhaps not everybody will notice, but there will always be people like me who will and probably bear a grudge against you for the rest of your life. And you don’t want that. [...]

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