Fictionalized History
Made it a point to stay up late and Finish "Frost/Nixon" the other night. Why did I do this? Well calm the hell down, I'm gonna tell ya...
I was extremely invested in the story, mainly because it extracted legitimate drama from real-world people and the situations they found themselves in. The real icing on the cake, however, was that it was all BASED ON A TRUE STORY. Oh, what a fun blanket statement. Hollywood can ride for miles and miles on that sentence.
I really enjoyed the movie overall, but I was hesitant to look up any info about the film afterwords (as I'm prone to doing) in fear of having the drama become undermined. I wanted to remain just a little naive and assume that whole thing was strongly rooted in reality. I mean, it was Richard Nixon after all. That guy could stir up some pretty dramatic shite. But, of course, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked it up. Go figure, a lot of it was altered for the purposes of drama. Should've expected this from the team that brought you "A Beautiful Mind". Ech.
I just wonder how much further films could ride on their drama if they didn't cling so tightly to the "based on a true story" angle. I'm guessing most people take that phrase with a grain of salt. And since the filmmakers never claim WHICH PART of the film comes from the real story, we're left to optimistically assume that all of this happens in the real world. Would it perhaps be easier to downplay the fact that these have their roots in true stories? An innumerable amount of films are based on true events, even if those events are just small moments of inspiration. Think about how many horror movies ride the hype of "based on a true story". Now think about how ridiculous it is to claim that a movie about ghosts is trying to recreate something that actually happened. OOhhhhh.
Maybe the most compelling angle you could hype is to keep the "true" parts to yourself. Compelling stories will sell regardless of their source material, and rigidly pairing a Hollywood film with reality can only harm its credibility.
Oh, and here's a funny article to support my argument.
Digital Film for The Depression Era
The year is 1933: Gangsters run amok, robbing banks in downtown Chicago. The great depression has the United States in dire straits. All of this is captured with...handheld digital cameras?
So I saw Michael Mann's 'Public Enemies' last night. Overall I enjoyed the flick quite a bit, but there was something that kept tearing my attention away from the story: They shot a good chunk of this film on handheld digital cameras. This was a big surprise to me, since none of that style really came through in the trailers. But I want to establish that I'm all for advances in film tech and directors experimenting to get the best possible shots for their films. But handheld digital cameras emulate such a modern style and atmosphere; I'm not sure how appropriate they were in a 1933 gangster movie. The way digital cameras pick up light or sound is so inherent to a post-millennial, '28 Days Later'-style of filmmaking. It just comes across as very "unnatural" for a strong period piece. It's odd to see that shaky-cam style with all the little dancing pixels picking up G-Men firing tommy guns out of a Ford Model-T.
Maybe I'm too accustomed to seeing epic period pieces shot like epic old-school Hollywood films. There was a great sense of realism that Mann brought to the events depicted in the film. But overall, it was a very strange thing to witness, to say the least. It was almost as if I was watching footage of rehearsals on set, shot by a PA. Which, considering how it all plays out, wouldn't be the worst thing to watch.
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How Much Is Too Much?
Posted by movieguyjon
I try to hold off on seeing trailers as long as possible. There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest reason is that they tend to spoil too much of the film for me. It used to be that I could ignore the spoilerific content and still have a good time when I eventually saw the movie, but nothing on screen would ever truly surprise or thrill me. Never was this more glaring to me than when I watched the trailer for the Iron Man sequel coming out in May.
A movie trailer has a lot to do in the minute or two that it has in front of your eyes. It has to give you some sort of idea of the story and what the main plot is going to be while at the same time showing off just enough whiz-bang to get you into the seat. In short, trailers need to excite you. This is the rule with action, comedy, sci fi and comic book films and there are absolutely no exceptions. If Spider-man were to face the camera and talk about how awesome his new movie is going to be, would you actually go? No. You want to see the webhead dodge traffic while swinging from his white, gooey vines in pursuit of Doctor Octopus who has taken the effervescent Mary Jane Watson captive. It's these money shots that are going to get you into the film.
And it's these money shots that are making movies less fun. Back to Iron Man 2. We see War Machine in full outfit fighting side by side with Iron Man. There's one scene that will no longer impress me. There's another shot at the end of the trailer where Iron Man essentially reveals his portable Iron Man suit and steps into it on the race track. It's an impressive shot, and now completely old hat.
What's left, now that the creators have shot their load? Is there going to be something even more awesome in the film than what I've seen in the trailers? It's hard to imagine that since what I saw was already really damn cool. I hate to say it, but the chances of me going to see the movie in the theaters has dropped from 100% to about 60%. I think I might be able to wait for the DVD..