I often read Wikipedias of movies, TV shows, and books I enjoy. It’s a great way to keep engaging with a piece after I’m done with it, and to learn more about the stuff that I enjoy. My favorite parts are often controversies and misconceptions regarding the pieces. Over the past week or so, I’ve watched two movies that include historical figures that actually existed: Inglorious Basterds and RRR. While I’m well-acquainted with the historical figures in Basterds (Hitler and Gobbels), I’m less familiar with the Freedom Fighters depicted in RRR (Raju and Bheem). Both movies involved real-life historical figures, and both movies were obvious fakes: the characters are so famous and the plots are so sensational. Neither film promised to tell the whole truth and nothing but.
However, there are movies that blur the lines between truth and fiction. I’m thinking of the more serious, “based-on-a-true-story” type of film. Take Argo, for example. Argo was advertised as a movie that told the true events of a rescue of six US diplomats from Tehran during the Iran Hostage Crisis. After my customary post-film Wikipedia deep-dive, I found that the film was riddled with historical inaccuracies. Same with The Imitation Game: I learned on Wikipedia that the screenwriter dismissed fact-checking as necessary in film, arguing that you’re trying to create the sensation of experiencing a certain feeling, rather than conveying information. But who’s to say that feeling is accurate? Can we feelings-check things? Absolutely not: they’re subjective, and the entire premise is ridiculous anyways.
Art tells different truths than historical accounts do. That’s it’s job. It allows people to tell stories the way they want to: like Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit. But the danger lies in when we mistake one for the other. The danger also lies in whose truths are allowed to be elevated as art and whose are forgotten. Does an artistic rendering of the truth exclude “boring” or hard-to-digest truths in favor of a flashier, more consumer-friendly narrative?
Art makes history come alive, and it conveys things that can’t be taught—only felt. So artists have a big responsibility, especially ones with huge platforms. But so do we as consumers: we have to remember that films are there to educate us on feelings, emotion, and the human experience. For the incredible true story, we’re better off watching a documentary. Or reading Wikipedia.
This Week’s Top 3
- RRR 🐯 – excellent films. All the golden globes!
- “Kesariya” 🌻 – song from the movie Brahmastra. Not a new song, but in reading its translation, I feel like I found it again
- Pumpking Milkshake @ Southern Tier Brewing 🍺 – elite.