On Historical Accuracy

The airport sequence of "Argo" has been pointed out as one of the most thrilling climaxes of any movie released in 2012. Most of it was also completely made up. In real life, Tony Mendez and the American Embassy workers he helped to surreptitiously leave Iran, simply bluffed their way through security at the Tehran airport, got on the plane, and left. They were not detained and questioned. Their identities were not discovered at the last minute, and no one sent police cars to chase after the airplane as they were taking off. These were total inventions, created to make "Argo" more thrilling for a paying audience. What we saw on screen clearly wasn't the way it really happened, but nobody seemed to mind very much.

Then you have Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," which also took a lot of dramatic license with the events surrounding the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery at the end of the Civil War. Omissions seemed to cause the most consternation, particularly the role of black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass. Surely with the all-star cast of character actors, Spielberg could have found room for Douglass, maybe played by Morgan Freeman? However, these concerns were largely dismissed. After all, the movie was called "Lincoln," and it made sense the Spielberg would prefer the keep the action focused on his title character. "Lincoln" has been a modest hit in theaters, and thought the inaccuracies have been acknowledged and discussed, nobody seems to mind them very much either.

Now we come to "Zero Dark Thirty," depicting the manhunt for Osama bin Laden, and a massive storm of controversy over the film's accuracy. There's the claim that the film condones torture. There's the claim that it's thinly veiled propaganda. Few people actually had the chance to see the film before last week because of its limited release schedule, but that hasn't stopped the rampant accusations, speculation, and all kinds of conspiracy theories. There have been allegations for months that director Katheryn Bigelow and her crew had improper access to confidential CIA and Department of Defense information. The Senate recently opened up an official inquiry into whether there were improper contacts between the filmmakers and the CIA. "Zero Dark Thirty" has been getting great reviews and winning plenty of accolades, but for many potential viewers, the quality of the film seems to be of lesser importance than its accuracy.

Why the discrepancy in the treatment of "Zero Dark Thirty"? The most obvious reason is that the events are more recent and politically charged. As upsetting and contentious as the Iran Hostage crisis was, it's been over thirty years since the events of "Argo," and the country has had the time to absorb and process what happened. The recent wars in the Middle East and the manhunt for Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, are still very much a part of current events. And instead of celebrating a feel-good victory, the filmmakers chose to tackle some of the most difficult aspects of the War on Terror, including the deeply controversial use of torture as a method of intelligence gathering. Many of the primary players are still employed by the government, and the political ramifications of many of the film's events are still playing out. This is far more sensitive and prickly subject matter than the other historical dramas of 2012 have chosen to deal with.

However, it's important to remember that this is a historical dramatization of events, not a documentary. We know that the filmmakers used dramatic license much in the same way that "Argo" and "Lincoln" did. Some characters are amalgams of multiple real life people. The film covers the span of ten years, so many events had to be condensed or omitted to fit within the confines of a two-and-a-half-hour movie, while others were highlighted for dramatic emphasis. Part of me wants to take the most vocal critics, sit them down, and explain that while accuracy is important when looking at films based on real life events, at the end of the day a film is a piece of art, and it's the message - what the director is trying to convey by showing you these events - that ultimately matters.

I will not be seeing “Zero Dark Thirty” until next week, and I know enough not to draw any conclusions before I see it for myself. However, I don’t think it's going to be very accurate, just as "Argo" and "Lincoln" weren't very accurate, but that's really beside the point. I don't think that most of the people arguing about "Zero Dark Thirty" are really worried about whether it shows what actually happened either. They're worried about whether the film frames those events in a way that confirms or counters their own value judgments regarding what happened. The power of a film isn't in recreation, after all, but in the context it provides. It's still very much up in the air how history is going to look pack on this period of American history, and everybody wants the last word.
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