When movies/literature play loose with history

[doc47]

Somebody started a nice string on favorite films. I posted a reply and included this rant at the end:

 

Rant re We Were Soldiers: Read the book! The film's ending was pure Hollywood fantasy a laJohn Wayne. There was no big bayonet charge. There was no close air support blasting N. Vietnamese. The North Viets never gave up their positions. The Americans withdrew in good order, badly cut up, but being sniped at and cut up further during their withdrawal. (Just like the British at Lexington and Concord....and the analogy is particularly apt!)US forces were eventually choppered out of a different LZ.

 

First, I apologize if I hijacked that thread. It is a good one and that wasn't my intention.

 

However, I'd be interested in hearing some feedback on the liberties authors, screenwriters, etc. take with historical subjects. The powers-that-be who made "We Were Soldiers" thought it OK to lie about how things actually happened in order to make their audience feel better, recommend it to their friends, buy the DVD, etc. But it gravels my ass to think they can do that and get away with it.

Of course, Hollywood has done that ever since there were films.

 

In the film "Beckett", writer Jean Anouilh made Thomas a Becket a Saxon (He wasn't. He was Norman aristocracy.) in order to create some more dramatic tension. It's a great film. The writer altered one part but he didn't change the ending. That sits OK with me.

 

What latitude do you think there "ought" to be? When is some indefinable limit crossed between artistic (or commercial) license and the responsibility to report truth?

[Alan D]

The truth is seldom told. That's the truth.

[Twisties]

it gravels my ass

 

ROFL

 

You been falling off that bike too much. The experience has seeped into your mind (and other regions).

 

I don't watch many films, although we are planning to watch more... seems to keep us on the treadmill longer when we do.

 

But much of why I stopped going to movies, aside from the obsession with violence, is the lack of integrity that came with product placements and text rewrites to accommodate embedded advertisements.

 

I prefer to know when I am seeing an ad, and when I am seeing a story, I want the story the author conceived.

 

I was particularly struck with a modern remake of Tarzan that turned the entire premise on it's head.

 

I am also disheartened by a critic industry that seems to pan films that are faithful to a book or incident as "slavish" and lacking creativity. I think many folk want to see their beloved book brought to life, I expect there is unimaginable creativity required to do this nicely, and plenty of room for interpretation within an envelope that may be considered true to the story.

[Bob Palin]

If a film is labeled as a documentary it should tell the truth, if it has the disclaimer about being a work of fiction, which almost all of them do, it can contain whatever the makers choose.

[Bob Palin]

I prefer to know when I am seeing an ad, and when I am seeing a story, I want the story the author conceived.

 

The author of a film is the screenwriter. The author of the book, when there is one, accepted good money to let the screenwriter use his ideas any way he pleased (subject to contract of course)

[Twisties]

I prefer to know when I am seeing an ad, and when I am seeing a story, I want the story the author conceived.

 

The author of a film is the screenwriter. The author of the book, when there is one, accepted good money to let the screenwriter use his ideas any way he pleased (subject to contract of course)

 

I didn't say it was illegal, I said what I want, as a consumer. Of course they can, that has little to do with whether I like it or not.

[Bob Palin]

And I want the best story they can come up with to entertain me, I don't care if Up is historically accurate or not, nor Apocalypse Now which of course doesn't even come close to either the truth or to its source book.

[RonStewart]

Nothing new here. Sir Walter Scott's 1817 novel, Rob Roy (which isn't really about Rob Roy - he is a character who shows up from time to time) plays fast and loose with the facts, and helped to elevate the legend.