We're currently working on a "based on a true story" film. Which means that, while not all the characters are real people, the main ones are based on real people who lived in the past.
Which brings us to our next point. How much should we fiddle with the past to get the movie we want?
It's certainly no secret that most Hollywood true stories are embellished for dramatic reasons. (Ever see the tag "Inspired by a true story"? That one is usually even worse than the "based on" ones. Meaning probably only about 1% is truth; the rest is made up by some very clever screenwriters.)
Hollywood knows one thing: Narrative is king.
Meaning a movie must be good storytelling.
Meaning the story comes before the timeline of historical events.
So, while we are trying to stay true to the real-life events that happened in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 40s, we're finding that sometimes we have to consciously melt some dates together to get the story to work.
Guess the lesson here is: Don't use movies as a history textbook.
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