Angered by criticism that her movie, Selma, had misrepresented President Lyndon Johnson’s role in the
civil rights struggle, director Ava Duvernay responded that she didn’t want to make
a “white savior” movie and that the film was history through her own lens.
Similarly, director Kathryn Bigelow has defended her film Zero Dark Thirty against critics who argue that she misrepresented the importance of torture and drastically enhanced the role that one CIA agent had in the search for Bin Laden.
Both Duvernay and Bigelow are significant talents and seem
to be appealing people. But their attempts to defend their work amount to
transparent nonsense.
In Ms. Duvernay’s case, the after-the-fact rationalization
is much more a problem than the film.
Duvernay didn’t have to make Johnson into a savior to
acknowledge his role; she could even have portrayed the idea that he was a
reluctant partner to Martin Luther King--thirty seconds would have been enough.
But partner he was, and deleting that fact is a willful distortion of history.
Bigelow twisted the record for no other reason than making a
better story. Her cinematically gripping torture scenes would have seemed gratuitous
if they weren’t seen to be a central part of the narrative. Also, it’s obvious
that focusing on a stereotypically plucky heroine rather than a mob of faceless
bureaucrats is going to be more appealing to the popcorn-crunchers in the cheap seats. (Metaphorically speaking, that
is; there are no cheap seats in theaters these days.)
The directors can’t have it both ways. A film can’t be both
a documentary or pretend to be a history and at the same time serve as someone’s
personal, evidence-challenged, take on the past. If the director can
misrepresent things that get in the way of the narrative, why should we believe
any part of the story?
Ms. Bigelow’s position is especially egregious. She prides
herself on accuracy, and made sure that the furniture in the film version of
the Bin Laden compound was identical to the real thing.
Bigelow got the end tables and couches right, but missed the
history.
There are many morals to this story, especially in light of
the fact that these two Hollywood perversions aren’t unique, they’re just the
most recent in a long string. Indeed, the tradition of getting things wrong to
make a point is so deeply embedded in the film industry that it’s the best
explanation why these two demonstrably superior directors did what they did.
Rather than sorting through all the lessons, I’ll just
advance one: get your history from books
and your news from newspapers.
Film and video can be fun and appealing, but they’re intrinsically
destructive of thoughtful analysis.
If you watch TV news, you see quick visual blurbs together
with even quicker verbal summaries of what you’ve just been shown. There’s no
time to consider accuracy and balance before the whole thing is gone from the
screen.
The image might be gone, but the message is embedded in your
brain.
Film offers more time to consider, but the actual opportunity
is even less. The director’s ability to summon up a narrative filled with
visually emotive power tends to overwhelm the normal person’s ability for
careful reflection. And that manipulation is deliberate.
So go back to books and newspapers. When someone advances an
argument that doesn’t seem to quite hang together, or asserts a fact that
doesn’t make sense, you can stop and reflect and/or look things up.
If you fail to reflect on and carefully consider what others
tell you, you’ll be a film icon--a zero in the dark.
Update 10-10-2015
The producers of the Steve Jobs biopic say that "it's a painting not a photograph" as a way of explaining why the film isn't accurate, as in its depiction of important meetings that didn't take place.
"A painting not a photograph" is another way of saying, "we lied about what actually happened because fantasy makes a better story than reality."
Is there no end to pseudo-artistic bullshit?
http://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-film-is-a-painting-not-a-photograph-moviemakers-say/
The producers of the Steve Jobs biopic say that "it's a painting not a photograph" as a way of explaining why the film isn't accurate, as in its depiction of important meetings that didn't take place.
"A painting not a photograph" is another way of saying, "we lied about what actually happened because fantasy makes a better story than reality."
Is there no end to pseudo-artistic bullshit?
http://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-film-is-a-painting-not-a-photograph-moviemakers-say/
