Straying from the Truth

Some more thoughts on artifice and truth. (This post is really a continuation of last week's post.)

Screenwriter William Goldman, in his book Which Lie Did I Tell, says: "What is genuinely heroic in life many not work for film. It simply, as they say, won't shoot." Goldman goes on to tell a story how he personally once saved a kid from drowning. "In real life it was extraordinary. On film, nothing." (p.80-83)

In his book, he then recounts how he came across a heart-chilling true story of the heroic John Henry Patterson -- a man who hunted down and killed two man-eating lions in East Africa. "It took him nine months, but he got the first [lion]."

(Look at the photo... That's one of the lions.)

Then, after patiently waiting up in a tree, Patterson got the second lion.

What kind of movie would that have been? As Goldman put it: "For nine months he sits in a tree? Wow. For nine months, his plans mostly suck? Whoopee. For nine months he fails?"

In movie-making, sometimes you have to stray from the truth a bit. Shrink a time line. Meld several people into one character. Add a character to help move the story along.

But the key is this; you also need to remain true to the essence of the historical event or person. If you as the filmmaker can do that, than the movie based-on-a-true- story -- although you may have strayed from the truth -- will be truthful in the way that art is truthful.

(By the way, that's why historical movies tend to use the term "based" on a true story. As opposed to proclaiming: "A true story" or "This movie is 100% accurate in its historical depictions. Learn your history from us!")