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FACT IN FICTION
Should historical dramatizations hold accuracy above all? March 19, 1998 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
What examples of fictionalized history have you seen recently? Can't viewers be trusted to separate fact from fiction? Is it necessary for a movie to be completely accurate? What about the role of technology in film making? Are movies held up to a higher standard than books? Viewer comments.
NewsHour Coverage
December 22, 1997
Through the movie "Titanic," Paul Solman examines the economics of the film industry.
June 17, 1997:
Robert Hughes explores the sweeping history of American art .
March 17, 1997:
Frank McCourt discusses his Irish childhood and memoir, "Angela's Ashes."
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Arts & Entertainment.
OUTSIDE LINKS
The official site for the Broadway production of "The Diary of Anne Frank."
American Visions
Robert Hughes' look at American art and history. Amistad.
When President Woodrow Wilson saw the movie "Birth of a Nation," he said that it was "like writing history with lightning."
It has been over 85 years since President Wilson made that remark about D. W. Griffith's silent feature, but it could be easily applied to the current line-up of movies which try to shed light on historical figures or events with bright lights, star-studded casts, and often, a good deal of "poetic license."
Shakespeare's history plays show that, for centuries, facts have been made into fiction. And beginning with "Birth of a Nation," history and Hollywood have frequently met, mingled, and re-written reality. Oliver Stones' dramatization of John F. Kennedy's assassination in "JFK" took many liberties, as did Spike Lee in "Malcolm X," and Barry Levinson in "Bugsy" (a movie about mobster Bugsy Siegel). The principal character in the movie "The English Patient" was also based on a real person by the name of Count Laszlo de Almasy.
This season, several large-scale historical films have caught the attention of critics and the pockets of movie goers. 20th Century Fox's "Anastasia" is a fictional cartoon tale of the Russian princess (czarina) who was rumoured to have survived the Russian revolution. In "Amistad," director Stephen Spielberg dramatizes little-known events surrounding a mutiny on a black slave ship and the subsequent U.S. trial of the slaves. And James Cameron has spent $200 million to painstakingly recreate the fate of ship, "Titanic," for a movie of the same name.
Historical dramatizations also appear on Broadway. Paul Simon has put the real-life story of teen gangster Salvador Agron to music in "The Capeman." And the 1955 Pulitzer prize-winning play based on Anne Frank's diary has been revived for a second run.
But while these works have been praised for shedding light on history, they are also criticized for blinding audiences to historical fact. Taking 20th Century Fox's "Anastasia" at face value, an audience member might think that a villainous Rasputin was the cause of the Russian Revolution, not a complex class struggle. In "Amistad," John Quincy Adams and the African hero Cinque stand together in court. In reality, they never met. In "Titanic," fictional and real characters mingle together on the deck of the ill-fated ship. And the various versions of Anne Frank's diary, particularly the original play which removed many references to Judaism and added a lighter, more optimistic tone, prompted Cynthia Ozick to write in a recent New Yorker article that "almost every hand that has approached the diary with the well-meaning intention of publicizing it has contributed to the subversion of history."
Ozick's comments highlight the problem: often the best intentions to explain and illustrate the past are curbed by the challenge "to tell a good story." And as film makers and playwrights increasingly assume the role of history teacher-- the producers of both "Amistad" and "The Diary of Anne Frank" have distributed learning guides to accompany their narratives-- the question re-appears: Should historical dramatizations prize accuracy above storytelling? When does dramatic license become revisionism? Should movies and plays include disclaimers to identify fictional elements? Do producers have the responsibility to keep their historical dramatizations fiction-free?
Our guests for this forum: writer Cynthia Ozick and Robert Toplin, professor of history at The University of North Carolina at Wilmington and author of "History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past."
What examples of fictionalized history have you seen recently? Can't viewers be trusted to separate fact from fiction? Is it necessary for a movie to be completely accurate? What about the role of technology in film making? Are movies held up to a higher standard than books? Viewer comments.
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