Getting Reel: A Social Science Perspective on Film By Michael D. ...

My own clearest, personal concern stems from my having read Orwell’s 1984. It bothers me to think how someone can willfully distort what sense of “true” history I might have. I am somewhat embarrassed by how much I used to assume that filmmakers would tend to be factually and historically accurate. Especially if a film particularly moves me, I am now much more likely to look for at least a film review that will alert me to the extent a film was reasonably “truthful.”

With Regard to Truthfulness, Does It Bother You That:

• Michael Moore changed his chronology to some extent in Roger and Me

• In real life the American diplomat who was captured was a single man instead of a young woman and her child in Wind and the Lion

• In The Lone Ranger, Buffalo Bill, Kit Carson, President Grant and the Lone Ranger all show up in the same train?

• The FBI is probably given far too much credit as heroes in Mississippi Burning?

• The love story in Dances with Wolves was far too modern?

• Mexicans played the El Salvadorians in El Norte?

• A non-handicapped actor portrayed Christie Brown in My Left Foot?

• That Cry Freedom is more about a white journalist than Stephen Bikko?

• In the novel, The Natural, the Robert Redford character actually struck out?

• There was a different ending (suicide) for the Japanese version of Fatal Attraction?

• Indiana Jones couldn’t possibly hold on to the outside of the submarine for the lengthy voyage he took?