Assignment #2

Although, I have not seen any of the films mentioned in Manohla Dargis’ article “Confronting the Fact of Fiction and the Fiction of Fact”, I have seen other movies that incorrectly portray historical events. While I do think it would be preferable to have accurate information in movies, I do not think it should be forbidden for directors to twist historical facts. As long as it clearly states before the movie begins that it is based on a true story, the audience is clearly informed that some things in the movie are not fully true. Since the audience is aware that some things are not true, if they are interested enough in the topic can further research subject to discover the historical facts.

While this does lead to an uninformed public, since many people will be too lazy to do this research, it is not the movie industry’s job to educate the public on historical events. Their job is to make money and if tweaking facts makes the plot more interesting and therefore gains more revenue, then that is what they should do. People should not be using films produced for entertainment in order to educate themselves on history.

The only time I believe a movie should be 100 percent accurate is if it is classified as a documentary. Since one of the characteristics of a documentary is for it to be nonfiction, it is important for all of the information to completely true. For this reason, it is acceptable for people to use documentaries as a source for learning about historical events. In conclusion, directors of fiction movies can portray history however they choose but directors of documentaries need to follow history exactly as it occurred.