[icheerthebull]

Inaccuracy in journalism is taken seriously, but film-makers happily play fast and loose with the facts


Should films that lay claim to truth be free to lie? The old question is raised again by two now on general release. Argo tells the story of the escape of American diplomats from Iran in 1979. Zero Dark Thirty tells of the more recent killing of Osama bin Laden. Both are already controversial.

The first, Argo, has understandably enraged the British ambassador in Tehran at the time, Sir John Graham, by stating that the Brits "turned away" the fugitive American diplomats. It left him "very distressed that the film-makers got it so wrong". He says the British embassy took in the fugitives and they moved to the Canadian embassy only when the British one became exposed to attack. One of the Americans, Robert Anders, has fully corroborated Graham's comments, saying the film "is absolutely untrue. The British made us very comfortable and were very helpful … We are forever grateful."

Meanwhile Zero Dark Thirty depicts gruesome scenes of CIA waterboarding as contributing to the hunt for Bin Laden. Those involved claim this allegation is untrue and, worse, justifies "good cause" torture. The film's director, Kathryn Bigelow, says hers is "just a movie" not a documentary and pleads her first amendment right "to create works of art" and speak her conscience. She is apparently engaged in a campaign not for but against torture.

We are here back in the "factional" territory of Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) and Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father (1993) among many others. Stone was seeking to prove that Kennedy was shot by more than one gunman, which required him to inter-cut newsreels with fictional scenes he staged. Sheridan's film about the trial of the Guildford Four sought to portray it as "one of the most significant miscarriages of justice in the western world this century". Eager "unequivocally … to influence the public", he produced what the historian the late Robert Kee called "a farrago of rubbish", sorely weakening his case.

Makers of films captioned as "true stories" claim either that fabrications do not matter as they are "just making movies", or that they are justified in a higher cause. Yet they can hardly be both. Cinema in my view is the defining cultural form of the age. It deserves to be taken seriously, and therefore to be criticised for shortcomings. If the most celebrated of "docudramas", Spielberg's Schindler's List, could go to lengths to authenticate its storyline, why should not any film claiming truth to history?

Fiction may be free and facts expensive, but film-makers are not short of researchers. Commentators may be accused of choosing facts to prove their opinions – plague the thought – but that is different from falsification. Nor do they excuse lies as higher truth. The licence to report carries responsibilities. Inaccuracy in print is vulnerable to litigation and now the added horror of Lord Justice Leveson. Plagiarism and fabrication are serious journalistic crimes. A newspaper that accused Graham of anti-American cowardice would lead to fierce rebuttal and retraction.

Journalists are told they are making "the first rough draft of history", with the implication that a proper historian will soon be along to take over. Both are now overwhelmed by a tidal wave of film-makers, claiming the same licence to the word truth, but without any of its disciplines. The French director, Jean-Luc Godard, declared that cinema was "truth 24 frames a second". Bigelow, like Stone and Sheridan, feels justified in using possible inaccuracy to advance a cause. If they got it wrong, it was art. I wish I had that get-out. Keats has a lot to answer for in nonsensically identifying truth with beauty.

I believe films matter. The American critic Michael Medved once protested at Hollywood's relentless message, "that violence offers an effective solution for all human problems". He was howled down by the industry. It continued to argue that its glorification of violence and, more recently, Islamophobia, was somehow un-influential. The American show Criminal Minds features a serial killer of the week, excused by CBS's Nina Tassler as not inappropriate, "an adult show". Or, as Martin Scorsese put it back in the peaceable 1990s, "maybe we need the catharsis of bloodletting and decapitation" from time to time.

It insults reason to maintain that some filmed images are harmless fantasy while others can drive viewers to action. We ban incitement to violence and race hatred in other forms of performance as likely to influence behaviour. We likewise ban tobacco advertising. We know visual images influence how people see the world. As Woody Allen grimly reflected: "If I have made one more person feel miserable, I'll feel I've done my job."

Films appeal to inner fears and chauvinist prejudices. That is why Ben Affleck had a mild dig at the British in Argo, and Mel Gibson in Braveheart and The Patriot. It is why American movies imply America won the war, and British ones that Britain did. It is why Hollywood has stopped killing orientals and started killing Arabs. Films must now sell in China.

When communists rewrote history and wiped leaders from old photographs we ridiculed them. Yet we do the same. Claiming the lie as art leaves the door open for Chinese and other censors to pick and choose their own comforting "truths". Nothing should be banned, but the British Board of Film Classification should make itself useful and revise its categories. If "true story" appears in a film's preamble and is clearly wrong, the film should carry certificate L, for lie. We would then know where we stood.

[ernyzaz]

wow who cares

[nic18]

Who expected this movie to be at all accurate?
This is propaganda, if you want a real story... live it.

[Arkoquisa]

as a Historian... I would take all of Hollywood, all actors/actresses, directors, producers, all others responsible for the modern media both TV and news, and place all of them into the sun . The average American will believe anything they see on their fucking TV's or in some movie, but yet I get questioned when I bring up something historically accurate and it is in contrast to their little inverted PC scripted world. All the stupidity, lies, and plagiarism caused by media makes me want to lay down across train tracks sometimes... roots was a made up story too, but like hell there will ever be a disclaimer to the medias favorite guilt trip film. Of all the things i am proud of, not watching TV or movies is in the top 5

[chiefTbon]

I wonder if the new "Lincoln" movie will mention the fact that he tried to pull out of the 'Federal Reserve', which would have given control of the countries wealth back to the people and away from the private international bankers.

[osmosis321]

Should they be free to lie? How do you propose stopping them?

[X--PunK]

Probably just by putting "based on a true story, but up until the ending where we make it more exciting and the good guys win"

[ChemJoe]

Originally Posted by ernyzaz ↗

wow who cares

People concerned with fact and integrity rather than sensationalized, sugar-coated BS. It's all for the sake of being appealing to the masses and making money.

[Cthulhu]

Originally Posted by icheerthebull ↗

Inaccuracy in journalism is taken seriously, but film-makers happily play fast and loose with the facts

If it's not a documentary, and made for entertainment, it's called artistic licence -- And is perfectly valid.

[Cthulhu]

Originally Posted by mengala ↗

here's the actual truth. And it's for free

Any excuse to slip in some antisemitism huh?