Hollywood likes to be trendy, and obviously global warming is the issue of choice for a lot of actors, producers and directors, but is the point to offer a message or just entertain the droves of movie-goers looking for an often-politically-incorrect story to make them not have to think for two hours?
The real issue here is something that I as a holder of a history degree have a problem with: artistic license to original source material. When filmmakers deliberately change source material so that it's updated or correlates more to something that's current. Case-in-point: Casino Royale is not about stopping a terrorist financier; Actual story: Bond must face Le Chiffre in a game of Baccharat (the game he plays in Goldeneye) to get the secret Soviet Agency SMERSH to take out Le Chiffre for blowing money they entrusted to him on investments in brothels in France, not Montenegro. The producers completely raped the original storyline that connects perfectly to the James Bond we see in Dr. No, in the interest of making a film about terrorism. Terrorism + James Bond = $$$ for Columbia Tristar. When Syriana was made, Stephen Gagan took the basic premise of Robert Baer's superb book See No Evil about the terrible abuses of power by the NSA and CIA in the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s, and turned it into a film about the government's ties to MidEast oil conglomerates that led to the assasination of a Saudi Prince to push a pro-American brother of his into the throne of his ill father. Quantum of Solace was morphed into a slight commentary on the state of the world's water supply, but an emotion-driven story that doesn't even feature James Bond as the central character. The governor of the Bahamas tells him a story of his revenge on his unfaithful wife and how it left him with little to hold onto in terms of emotional baggage and his ability to put his sorrow behind him.
With The Day the Earth Stood Still, the source material and title refers to what the world would look like had a nuclear war taken place, leaving the planet devoid of life. Keanu Reeve's character is meant to be the one that warns the world's leaders of the dangers of nuclear war. Not disregard for the environment.
I have hope for two important films that open on Christmas Day, though. Ron Howard has already publicly said that Frost/Nixon uses every line of actual dialogue found in the transcripts to the Frost interview of President Nixon. For Valkyrie, there is a lot of material to pull from, as there is a book written by Hans Bernd Gisevious, and some mystery as to which of the German officers in Wermacht Heer was the point man for the operation. Tom Cruise plays Claus von Stauffenburg, but some maintain that General Friedrich Fromm was the only man who could have carried out the final attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944 that would have allowed the German officers to arrest the SS and seize power from Hitler. It will be interesting to see which angle this movie takes, and if it's as accurate as it needs to be.
Why filmmakers feel the need to alter source material that provides all the details to an event is beyond me, but it sure is annoying when they alter something that is recorded fact in the interest of selling a few more tickets. I will be thoroughly ashamed if Valkyrie just places von Stauffenburg at the center of the film and ignores the intricacies of the plan that they had to achieve in order to make their move on Hitler. American filmmakers have already screwed up enough of our own historical events (Pearl Harbor *SIGH*, U-571, the list goes on and on), so I suppose it's time to start screwing up other nations' history.
2 comments:
I didn't think that The Day the Earth Stood Still was overly saturated with the environmental message. I felt it was more critical of the current state of human nature, which is legitimately harmful for the planet. It wasn't nearly as preachy as Inconvenient Truth or Day After Tomorrow.
I'm wish that the Bond movies would stay within the era that they were intended. I think the further Bond gets from his era, the less compelling the stories get. I try to imagine what a Bond movie will be like in the year 2100 and the image isn't pretty (Cyborg Bond saves the European Union from the Mars Mining Consortium while seducing the android daughter of the Lunar regent).
I'm right with you on the historical accuracy thing. I hope that Frost/Nixon and Valkyrie turn out good despite Nixon sounding like Sean Connery and the Germans with American and British accents (that is supposed to be good acting?). One case I like to cite is the movie 300. Despite the numerous and glaring historical inaccuracies, I give it a pass because the source material is a graphic novel, not Herodotus (who was inaccurate in his own account). Gladiator is another good example to use. The historical inaccuracy is far less forgivable, but the action scene are so well done and the characters are so compelling that I can't help but love it.
The British and American accents in Valkyrie is totally inexcusable. I am going to cringe the first time I hear it in the theater. On the other hand if you listen to the Frank Langella, the actor playing Nixon, it sounds just gruff and smooth enough to make it pretty accurate. He's the one who played Nixon in the stage version of this film, as is Michael Sheen, who played Frost onstage.
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