Should Hollywood Bend The Truth?

[loz]

Don't know myself mate, all I know is she was villified for what she believed in because it was standing up against popular belief. I believe that she did go out there with her camera, or a camera crew....but I guess i am basing that on what I believe to be true, so in a way that would be worse than the Hollywood producers, right?

But if you made a film of her life you would check it out before adding it in. Otherwise you would have me moaning at you

 

[mad_mac]

Amazingly, I was thinking of making a film of her life, I'll be sure to add you in the credits!

 

[Jimboola69]

Two things.

When Oliver Stone's film came out it was much discussed this this was his interpretation and was not just passed off as fact with no explanation.

Jane Fonda started out as just one of many famous Americans to speak out about the Vietnam war, however what she did to so upset US public opinion was on a tour she posed on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun...used of course to shoot down US Planes.

 

[Jimboola69]

Damn site will not let me edit my earlier post, so here is the infamous 'Hanoi Jane' picture.

 

[Plavi26]

Many movies have played with history and some of them made major mistakes. In my opinion, if you are going to do a history based movie do it right with the right facts and research. As a history student, I sometimes get really annoyed by the mistakes or changes that are made on purpose to either change the real facts, on the purpose to make one side look good and the other evil. Some movies are huge mistakes and destroy complitaly the concept and story, like Pearl Harbour (why oh why did they ruin what could have been a perfectly good movie with a love soap), U-571 and I would have said The Patriot, but the director said on numerous occasions that the movie was entirely fictional.

If you want good movies, with pretty good historical accuracy:

HBO mini-series Band of Brothers - incredible piece of work, great action, and on the long run you see the american soldies make a connection with the german soldiers and how they are all going trough the war

Joyeux Noel - Incredible movie...they have made changes to the real story, but this is an incredible piss of work. Set on christmas day in 1914, tells the tale on how German, French and Scot soldiers made peace for the night. Really shows how all sides suffered trough the war.

Der Untertag (Downfall) - Story about the last days of Hitler in his bunker told by one of his scretaries

There are some more that I really like, but those three are my favourites, and should be watched by everyone. They are all well acclaimed productions and pretty easy to find. Why these movies are good in my opinion, is that they go a bit further and look back at history from all sides. OK, Band Of Brothers is a typical american WW2 series, but even there, with all the inputs from the veterans, the Germans are (well in some parts they are) not downgraded as some other movies do (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds85Zko0cT0 probably one of the best scenes).

p.s. how do add youtube clips on this new format?

 

[Mike O]

Interesting thread.

I think that in a progressively illiterate, short attention-span world, the film industry does have a duty to get the facts right, as well as entertain.

The problem is, of course, that true events do not always follow classic narrative structures. Also, that events do not always sit easily with current social mores.

I'm currently loving the row between Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee over 'Flags of our Fathers' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima', two of the most brilliant films about war I've ever watched, for what it's worth.

Lee accuses Eastwood of not accurately representing the amount of afro-americans that fought in the battle, and therefore aiding to the historical write-out of black men from the US WW2 effort.

Eastwood's retort is that his film, 'Flags of our Fathers' is primarily concerned with the 8 men who lifted the flag on the hill in the iconic photo, none of whom was black (one of whom was native american, though). He also adds, tactfully, that Jones should go f*ck himself - or words to that effect.

So here we have an accurate historical film-maker being berated for not redressing historical inaccuracies in a wider canon of work, even though to do so would be historically inaccurate!

Beat that!

 

[loz]

Mike

Funnily enough I read about that Clint Eastwood/Spike Lee spat a few hours after I started this thread and did chuckle at Eastwood's, as you out it, tactful response. Apparently it is now reported that Clint told him to 'shut his face' - I prefer to believe your version (even if that is diametrically opposed to the general opinion I have expressed in this thread!)

Spike Lee also had a moan when Eastwood made 'Bird' because he objected to a white man making the story of Charlie Parker. Lee was quoted as saying 'Why would a white guy be doing that?'

In a recent article in the Guardian Eastwood is interviewed and a paragraph read:

Lee shouldn't be demanding African-Americans in Eastwood's next picture, either. Changeling is set in Los Angeles during the Depression, before the city's make-up was changed by the large black influx. "What are you going to do, you gonna tell a f**kin' story about that?" he growls. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like Bird, I use 90% black people."