Tag: Hollywood

History According to Hollywood

oscar4Even though the 24-hour news cycle for the Oscars is over, a lot of movie critics still linger in the air like yesterday’s corned beef and cabbage.  They’re all busy grousing about Argo, the most brazen work of fictional non-fiction since James Frey fooled Oprah Winfrey – twice — on international TV.  Argo won Best Picture and scribblers from Tehran to Toronto are suddenly shocked and appalled at Hollywood’s libelous treatment of history.  Now, they’re wearing out Google trying to prove stuff like Robin Hood didn’t look the least bit like Kevin Costner (or, for that matter, Errol Flynn.)  Even the mighty Spielberg has been taken to task over “inaccuracies” in his “tell me how much you loved my movie,” Lincoln.  So far, the critics have discovered that America didn’t single-handedly win the war (any of them) Mel Gibson didn’t either and Krakatoa is not actually east of Java.  They’re spouting this stuff as if they’ve found the forbidden Bush files on the alien landing east (or was it west?) of Crawford, Texas.  Unfortunately, in all their fact-checking, they’re actually ignoring the single most important fact.  It doesn’t matter.  Movies are make-believe.

I realize that most people get their grip-of-steel grasp on history through the movies; after all, it’s not like anybody’s picked up a book in the last few decades.  However, I think it’s unreasonable to demand — or even expect — anything more than a modicum of historical accuracy from people whose single avowed purpose on this planet is to entertain us.  History is not boring (even though most high school teachers dedicate themselves to making it so.)  However, there really isn’t much entertainment value in the bubonic plague, for example, or the siege of Sevastopol or a thousand and one other historical events.  Unless you’re a connoisseur, these are not exactly page-turners.  Besides, I defy even the most accomplished historian to comprehensively explain these events to a room full of strangers, sitting in the dark, in less time than it takes to cook a rump roast.  And movie makers are not accomplished historians.

The problem is, history, already written, isn’t tidy.  It doesn’t have a beginning, middle and an end.  Like unruly hair, it has clumps that won’t lie down right, parts that aren’t straight, strands that refuse the comb — and it’s forever getting blown around by the current political wind.  For example, in 1943, Lillian Hellman was convinced by the American government to write a pro-Russian propaganda screenplay for the movie North Star.  Then, in the 50s, she was hauled before the congressional witch hunting HUAC to explain her sympathetic portrayal of the Soviet Union.  Go figure!

The other thing we need to remember is that filmmakers, even the documentary kind, do not set out to tell a story; they set out to tell their story.  There’s a difference.  If you look hard enough, you can find at least three distinct interpretations of any historical event.  The folks who make movies can use only one at a time.  That’s not to say that they necessarily have to distort the facts to accommodate the tale they choose to tell, but, in every case, they have to distribute them unevenly.   That’s the nature of filmmaking.

Visual entertainment has become such an integral part of our lives that we think it’s real.  And we get pissed off when we discoveroscar5 it isn’t and think we’ve been wantonly fooled.  We haven’t been.  Ben Affleck and George Clooney set out to make a “caper” movie.  They succeeded.  This isn’t the first time historical accuracy has taken a back seat to entertainment.  (If you want some serious grins, check out Billy Shakespeare’s Richard III.)  The folks in Hollywood might make a big show about how films are supposed to provoke thought and inform us, but in the end, it’s the same dog and pony show it’s always been — since les frères Lumiere first set up shop in Paris.  The critics can whine all they want about historically accuracy, but when you’ve got an Oscar in your hand, you aren’t going to listen.  The only cinematic mistake Ben and George made was choosing an event that was still part of our living memory.  Had they reached back a hundred years or more, the “ain’t it awful” crowd wouldn’t have had the information at their fingertips, and nobody would have said a word.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

It’s not very often I feel sorry for young people.  They’ve got tons of brilliant stuff going on — all the time.  They live in a wonderful age when anything is not only possible, it’s downright probable.  And they wear it well, in general.  They’re smart and way more polite than I ever was at that age, but they’re young yet.  However, for the last couple of days, I’ve felt sorry for them – oddly parental – protective, if you will.  Just as if they didn’t get that cool Christmas present, or grandma forgot their birthday, or they’re teenage sad with hungry love –the poor things.   I’m sad for them because they’re never going to sit in the dark and see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton – the first time.  Liz and Dick are a forgotten cliché now.  They’re on television, Netflix, Yahoo and YouTube.  They’re gone.  They might just as well be Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

There’s no way to describe Liz and Dick to the 21st century.  In a world of 24/7 celebrity, they sound trivial — even trite.  They were not.  They didn’t soar above everyone else; they lounged there.  They simply did not share top billing with anyone, and only Marilyn was ever mentioned in the same breath.  There was never any debate.  It was Liz and Dick and then everybody else.  They were celebrities without even trying; to call them Hollywood Royalty or larger than life actually diminishes their stature.  In a time before regulated celebrity gossip, they made news — right alongside Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro.

This isn’t just old man nostalgia either.  I was never a fan.  I didn’t follow them in Photoplay, for example, or tune in when they showed up on Carson or Cavett.  It didn’t matter.  Liz and Dick didn’t care because we were friends.  We, the three of us, shared their movies.  They were on the screen and I sat in the dark, watching them.  We were three consenting adults — together alone.  It just happened that the theatre was full of all those other people who were doing the same thing.

That was the magic of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  They lived in a conjured world that was real, and they let us watch.  There’s no doubt that it’s Edward who tears his soul apart for Laura in The Sandpiper, but somewhere inside there, it’s Burton and Taylor.  When you see it the first time, it’s personal.  These are people you care about.  You want them to be in love, and in the end, they have such a majestic sadness.  It’s the same in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  It might be Martha and George screaming insults at each other, but, somehow, you’re not sure it wasn’t Dick and Liz who invited Nick and Honey to watch.

But that wasn’t all they did.  They knew they were celebrities.  They didn’t deny it.  They flew to Friday night parties in Europe and flew home Sunday morning.  He bought her jewels the size of Easter eggs.  They drank and smoked and partied without any self-conscious leer at the waiting cameras.  They didn’t demand a normal life; they chose to be famous.  Remember, it was Dick and Liz who invented the paparazzi when they carried their half-hidden adultery across to Italy during the filming of Cleopatra in 1962.  It was a time before Rock Hudson was gay; when June and Ward Cleaver still slept in separate beds, every Thursday night.  And the Kennedy brothers kept their mistresses hidden behind the curtains of Camelot.  It was a time when scandals ruined people and careers — but not Dick and Liz.  They were splashed across every newspaper in the world and reviled by everybody but the public.  They didn’t care.  They did what they pleased.  And they kept doing it, brawling and beautiful, for two and a half decades.

Sometime I’m going to see their movies again, but even the biggest TV won’t do them justice.  Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are special, beyond Hepburn and Tracy and even Bogie and Bacall.  You need to be alone with them — sitting in the dark.