comment #1

Larry says ...

Movies "based on a true story" cheat in both directions. They make up all sorts of stuff but want viewers to be more interested because it's allegedly true. And then if the story isn't dramatic enough, they claim it's not their fault, that's how things actually happened.

The Coem brothers had it right--make it up then pretend it's based on a true story.

comment #2

JHRussell says ...

The "based on" issue deeply influenced my disliking of "Munich" (the chance meeting of the jews and arabs in the safe house never freaking happened in real life) as well as the "artistic license" in the total misrepresentation of the private life of the mad genius in "A Beautiful Mind."

comment #3

Jay T. says ...

"the chance meeting of the jews and arabs in the safe house never freaking happened in real life"

Yeah, but who cares? I thought that was obviously a ploy for political discussion and a bit of a break from the killing, but it's not like the scene dramatically altered the course of events.

comment #4

thatmovieguy says ...

I was perturbed about the liberties taken with the facts in THE GREAT DEBATERS, which puts together composite characters and pits them against Harvard, instead of USC, their real rival. The problem here is that this is exactly the sort of movie that will be used by high school teachers as inspirational material for students. The actual story was just fine as a basis for a screenplay. Changing so many of the details put a cheesy coating on an otherwise admirable film.

comment #5

berg says ...

Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true.

comment #6

MadCrazyMovieHouse says ...

Not every "true story" deserves to be a movie. I always wanted to open up a film with "based on a true story... kind of" because that's actually honest.

comment #7

JHRussell says ...

"Yeah, but who cares?"

Well, Jay T, I cared, and I assume to this day that many if not most people who saw this film and did not have knowledge of the actual events have no idea that this meeting never happened - the inclusion of this totally fictitious meeting was pivotal to Spielberg's political agenda in spite of what you think about its significance or lack thereof. To call this merely a plot device to take a break from the killing is fairly naive.

comment #8

mrbill says ...

I almost had sex with Charlize Theron last night. Had an erection but couldn't find her.
Based on a true story.

comment #9

George Prager says ...

THE GREAT DEBATERS is a perfect example of where we are now. They had to change the school from USC to Harvard. If you had made the movie 30 years ago, USC would've sufficed, but now you need a brand name and USC just doesn't cut it.

Of course one of the worst offenders in this aspect was THE MAN IN THE MOON. Dick Ebersol gave Andy Kaufman the boot, not Brand Name Lorne Michaels, and to have Lorne Michaels play himself in such a completely disingenuous dishonest untrue scene masquerading as the truth is up there with denying the Holocaust.

comment #10

EOTW says ...

"...to have Lorne Michaels play himself in such a completely disingenuous dishonest untrue scene masquerading as the truth is up there with denying the Holocaust."

Whoa, Prager. take it down a notch or two. Know you were kidding, but there are far more important thigns to get your feathers ruffled about than a crap film I forgot they evne made.

comment #11

BurmaShave says ...

Prager, you're not more disturbed by Danny DeVito playing the manager, not himself, and Michael Richards being played by Norm McDonald without explanation? Still, Carrey's best performance.

comment #12

George Prager says ...

Lorne Michaels didn't play Dick Ebersol. Forman never should've left the Iron Curtain. The KGB could've used him.

I think Jim Carrey's best performance was as the Juice Weasel on `In Living Color.'

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tZMERUKErGE

comment #13

DarthCorleone says ...

Given that I love Munich, Man On The Moon, and many others that are attacked on this issue, I tend to fall in the "it's just a movie" camp.

comment #14

Gaydos says ...

A few weeks ago in VARIETY, we did a section on the whole "true story" bit and included this piece, which polled folks from Joseph Wambaugh to Valerie Plame about the current spate of "reality" pics:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117977205.html?categoryid=2758&cs=1&query=plame

comment #15

Sean says ...

JH Russel - you seem to think that you're being very clear, but you're not. Which political agenda are you accusing Spielberg of playing to? The anti-Israel one that so many people accused him of because he included a scene which was humanizing Arabs, or the anti-Palestine one that so many people accused him of because he made a movie about villainous evil Palestinian terrorists who disrupted the status quo of the rich imperial nations?

I've seen both sides argued by extremists on either side, so I'm not sure which political agenda you're accusing him of.

I thought that scene was part of his humanist agenda, to say that both sides involve human beings doing horrible things that they believe they can morally justify, and by pointing out that both sides believe that, it calls into question whether either one can.

comment #16

carla kolchak says ...

Coincidentally, I just sat down to watch Colour Me Kubrick, described in the opening credits as 'A True...ish Story'. That works for me.

comment #17

LYT says ...

Technically, every movie is "based on a true story."

It's just that a lot of the time, that true story is about one time that a screenwriter had an idea and decided to write it down.

comment #18

PerfectTommy says ...

I've heard that Shakespeare got a fact or two wrong in his histories. It is tougher to make a film when witnesses to the events depicted are still around. I think my favorite "true" story of recent years was "Adaptation".

comment #19

actionman says ...

how do we know that jews and arabs didn't meet in a safe house the way MUNICH depicts? did Roth/Kushner ever say that they made it up? I am curious.

comment #20

kittyn says ...

The reason USC was changed to Harvard was the filmmaker and studio didn't think USC was impressive enough and they didn't have the talent to make it so. All they did here was make a fictional film and call it "true", because marketing a period drama as a true story helps a studio make more money. Period. Nothing artistic to it, nothing more than that. Artistically the Great Debaters was the most conventional and unimaginative film I saw this year. There is no comparison whatsoever to the Coens or to Adaptation, in this case. It's a joke to suggest it.

comment #21

kittyn says ...

Also I would add this in response to those claiming artistic license: movies like Great Debaters that fictionalize the story - they aren't letting you know it's fiction. Quite the opposite. It's all still portrayed as a true story. Big difference between Great Debaters and Adaptation that way. Adaptation communicates to you from the start it's as much out of Kaufman's imagination as it is truthful. Great Debaters doesn't, because it needs to be marketed commercially as an inspirational true story.

comment #22

Discman says ...

Let's clear something up. Ann Hornaday writes for the Washington Post. I get the paper delivered to my door every day. Her top 10 list, along with Stephen Hunter's and Desson Thomson's, is in today's Style/Arts section.

I thinkt this is the second Hornaday article to recently have appeared on the L.A. Times site. Her byline clearly states her Washington Post affiliation. I don't believe the two papers have any relationship, but there must be something I don't know, because this looks to be a recurring content-sharing relationship.

Good for Hornaday, but I'd like her to stick around these parts. The Post lost Kenny Turan to the L.A. Times years ago, and although the Post never lost a step, Turan remains a must read for me. Hornaday has vaulted into the top tier this year, IMHO. But I feel possessive. She's a Post critic, dang it, not an L.A. Times writer.

End of rant.

comment #23

DavidF says ...

The funny thing about JHRussell's argument is that it implies the rest of MUNICH is nearly documentary in its accuracy.

I imagine it is mostly true but given the covert nature of the operation there are maybe 5 people on earth who know what parts of MUNICH are "real." Yeah, that scene is a construct, but so is the closing scene. So what? They both give the film a structure and an internal struggle without affecting the movie's plot or the actual history.

My hope with these "Based on a true story" flicks is that people will invest some effort in finding out what really did happen - The Hurricane was the first movie to get slammed for being "innacurate" and aside from amalgamated a few characters into Hedeya's, it wasn't so bad. Some movies make omissions (necessary and otherwise) but some, however, play awfully loose with what actually happened to make their point.

comment #24

PerfectTommy says ...

I haven't seen The Great Debaters, but from what I've read, the problem with the film is not that they change the history, but that they don't do so in an interesting way. From what I've read, there are three main debate set pieces in the film and in each debate the African American team takes on Civil rights from the pro civil rights stand point. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to have the African Americans have to argue in favor of segregation? But preserving the formula is even more important than preserving the history.

comment #25

JHRussell says ...

RE Munich: To Spielberg's credit, the film says "inspired by" real events which seems one step further removed from historical veracity than "based on."

Nonetheless, condensing characters and compressing events to fit a 2+ hour format doesn't bother me nearly as much as concocting a critically pivotal but entirely fictional event to editorialize the history, and I still feel that Spielberg crossed that line with Munich.

Why not fictionalize the entire story - change the location, time period, the "good guys and bad guys," and tell a similar story of kidnap, murder, intrigue, and state revenge? Then the "inspired by" tag is credible and accurate.

At least name the movie something other than "Munich."