ABC's Untrue Path -- "Docudramas" are the worst draft of history.

Opinion Journal ^ | Sept. 11, 2006 | John Fund

[PDR]

Five years after 9/11, it's easy to find partisan divisions. But here's an issue we should be able to agree on: Docudramas--the portrayal of real events and people by actors--are a poor way to teach children and adults history. It's especially iffy to take dramatic license in telling the story of events in which many of the principal players are still living, such as 9/11 or President Reagan's administration.

Just ask ABC. Last night, it aired the first part of a six-hour miniseries, "The Path to 9/11." Sandy Berger, who served as President Clinton's national security adviser, bitterly complained about a fictional scene in which he stopped CIA agents who were about to kill Osama bin Laden. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright had similar complaints. Both persuaded ABC to alter the scenes involving them. It's not known if the network also altered scenes in tonight's installment that portray Bush administration officials such as Condoleezza Rice in a negative light.

The makers of docudramas always have smooth explanations for why they need to adjust history for the purposes of storytelling. Cy Nowrasteh, the screenwriter for "The Path to 9/11," told National Review: "The Berger scene is a fusing and melding of at least a dozen capture opportunities. The sequence is true, but it's a conflation. This is a docudrama. We collapse, condense, and create composite characters. But within the rules of docudrama, we're well documented."

That's the problem with docudramas. Their rules simply aren't good enough when dealing with events that are still fresh in the minds of so many. At worst, they can be used by ideological gunslingers like director Oliver Stone, who smeared the reputations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in paranoid fantasy films.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=11000892

[P-40]

the portrayal of real events and people by actors--are a poor way to teach children and adults history.

I'll agree with them there...but I don't know what the alternative is. Unless something goes on the TV...it might as well have never have happened.

[cvq3842]

I don't have a problem with criticism of the program.

What I DO have a problem with is Democrat officeholders threatening the FCC license of ABC.

THAT'S censorship.

[weegee]

REAL event portrayed by REAL participants:

They considered their roles to be a JOKE.

[frogjerk]

It's especially iffy to take dramatic license in telling the story of events in which many of the principal players are still living, such as 9/11 or President Reagan's administration.

No, they can refute it with facts. Unfortunately, the Klintoonites don't have facts on their side.

[msnimje]

Some of us do not use docudramas as teaching tools.

[dead]

My problem with docudramas is that the actors are always better looking than the actual people.

This is especially true of bad guys on "America's Most Wanted."

[msnimje]

Every time I see that picture I think Sandy Berger should be hanged at the WTC site.

[the anti-liberal]

I suppose John Fund expressed the same opinion about Moore's film, right?

[prion]

Why do we even need the word "docudrama"? Isn't every play or movie that is about real people and events but is recreated with actors a "docudrama"? And aren't there thousands of those? Hasn't that been a Hollywood staple since there was a Hollywood?

They all have to make changes from reality (if for no other reason than the constraints of time). Whether the changes constitute a distortion is a case-by-case thing.

[Dixie Yooper]

The woman who played Madeleine Albright should get an Emmy. Very believable.

[weegee]

Did John Fund denounce the film that pasted George Bush's head onto an actor's body for that assassination film?

[pissant]

John Fund is a hack.

[dfwgator]

Oh yeah, real documentaries like "Fahrenheit 9/11" are so much better. /sarcasm

[GoBucks2002]

Unfortunately, the Klintoonites don't have facts on their side.

They never have, they never will. What they DO have going for them is a compliant media, a leftist education establishment, and spineless political opposition.

[dirtboy]

The woman who played Madeleine Albright should get an Emmy. Very believable.

I heard they applied the actress's makeup with a Power Painter to get the right Mad Maddie look.

[traditional1]

"the portrayal of real events and people by actors--are a poor way to teach children and adults history. "

That's what's done every evening and morning on the MSM "news"....

[WoodstockCat]

I disagree with this assessment. If words are recorded from meeting notes and corraborated then acting them out is only repeating history.
The only thing I will agree with is taking 10 or 12 "chances" to get Bin Laden and trying to make one spectacular episode out of them.

[WoodstockCat]

Shirley Jones

[dfwgator]

At worst, they can be used by ideological gunslingers like director Oliver Stone, who smeared the reputations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in paranoid fantasy films.

I must say though, that Stone was actually fairly kind to Nixon at the end of the movie. Of course he had to show the clip of the Sinkmeister speaking at Nixon's funeral.

[California74]

Kiefer Sutherland's mommy! Now we know why he's such a good actor. He inheirited the talent from both sides of the family!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

We sure can't let anyone tell the truth on TV.

That's why we have docu-dramas.

[A Citizen Reporter]

Fund's is really a stupid argument. What these people seem to be saying that no movies or plays should be based on a real story or on history.

Are they saying that Hollywood should stop making any movies about historical events?

[California74]

Shirley Douglas. Kiefer Sutherland's mom:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0235250/

[gov_bean_ counter]

For all the complaining about made up dialog, the only truly non verifiable conversations are the ones between the terrorists. The writers had interviews with enough people to get a sense of the discussions that took place within the Executive Branch as well as the conversations between competing agencies and both CIA and FBI agents.

[VOA]

Anyone that doesn't like the docudrama take on Clinton's Legacy can go
to a Clinton-friendly source...PBS.
Believe it or not...these Frontline documentaries are just as d-mning
of Bubba as "The Path To 9-11" (IMHO):

(repost from prior thread follows)

1.
"The Man Who Knew"
about John O'Neill (the fellow played by Harvey Kietel in "Path to 9-11";
shows how poorly anti-terrorism was run at the FBI during the Clinton era.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/

Note button for -- Video: Watch "The Man Who Knew" Online
Full-length DVD can be purchased here:
http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-frontline-the-man-who-knew-dvd--pi-1792419.html

2.
"Gunning For Saddam"
includes details of Clinton's failed attempt to depose
Saddam; and how US-friendly Iraqi generals paid with
their lives.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/
Full-length DVD can be purchased here:
http://www.shopthirteen.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=13032&storeId=10552&catalogId=10101&langId=-1

3.
"Gunning For Saddam"
IIRC, Bubba and a number of Clintonian luminaries "declined"
requests for interviews.
See how a Christian aid worker did pull out of Kigali (like
the US Embassy staff)...
and even faced down the leader of the massacre to save some children.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/

Note buttons-- some video excerpts can be viewed online
Full-length DVD or VHS is available for purchase:
http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-frontline-ghosts-of-rwanda-dvd--pi-1786689.html
Also note on that page: "Sometimes In April". It's a docudrama
about Rwanda, I saw it air on PBS-KCET in Los Angeles.
It's good and sufficiently brutal; Debra Winger plays a
frustrated US government official.

[frogjerk]

The woman who played Madeleine Albright should get an Emmy. Very believable.

Didn't you feel like just wacking her?

[PDR]

another county heard from.

[PDR]

she's too tall.

[Madeleine Ward]

I don't recall these complaints about composite characters, and docudramas when Hollywood released All the President's Men, so close to the actual events. What was it, 5 years?

I don't know that a docudrama is any worse than newspaper articles with unnamed sources, history professors teaching that the US attacked itself on 9/11, etc.

[PDR]

I don't really know... what I do think important is his larger point about the efforts of the political class to censor this program... they realize that, no matter what the MSM may or may not say, that there are many, many people out there who will believe that what they saw or see in this program is actually what took place. Therefore, the Clinton spin team has to come out hard against it.

[SerpentDove]

Don't you remember? The libs were screaming bloody murder about "All the President's Men."

/sarc

[WoodstockCat]

smarmy comes to mind ...

[Cementjungle]

The Path to 9/11." Sandy Berger, who served as President Clinton's national security adviser, bitterly complained about a fictional scene in which he stopped CIA agents who were about to kill Osama bin Laden

We all know Sandy did in fact issue the kill order, and killed UBL and saved the world. Right Mr. Burglar?

[the anti-liberal]

"Did John Fund denounce the film that pasted George Bush's head onto an actor's body for that assassination film?"

If the technique works for George Lucas in Star Wars, it must be alright...

[PDR]

I think that's a different kettle of fish... no one disputed the accuracy of the book on which the film was based and the film was very true to the book.

[Hannibal Hamlin]

If my memory serves me correctly, Oliver Stone's thesis in "Nixon" was that Watergate occurred because Nixon pissed off some wealthy Texas oil rancher types, who decided to take him down in retaliation.

[PghBaldy]

Tora Tora Tora - docudrama. Gus of Navarone - docudrama. Schindler's List - docudrama. The Audie Murphy Story - docudrama. Battle of the Bulge - docudrama. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo - docudrama...

[P-40]

If words are recorded from meeting notes and corraborated then acting them out is only repeating history.

I guess in some ways it depends on how close to the original the movie can be...but to make a movie from historical documents will still require a lot of speculation to make the narrative...and that can be hard to do and still be faithful to what actually happened.

[oceanview]

so that means that every movie ever made, based on an actual event, is "fiction" simply because it may not represent EVERY SINGLE FACT that occurred that day. movies about the D Day invasion, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, etc - are all no good, because they contain some blending of non-essential facts to make the presentation flow theatrically.

instead, let's focus on the real question - what was FALSE in the movie last night? which SIGNIFICANT information presented, was a lie?

[oceanview]

so, what's your point? that the Japanese didn't really bomb Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941?

[WoodstockCat]

and that can be hard to do and still be faithful to what actually happened.

Agree completely with you on that.

[newzjunkey]

Part 1 of the docudrama was good and did not portray the Clintonites as any worse than they really were. If anything they seemed less inept than the record would indicate. There's a reason it's called docudrama and not documentary (a term tortured by Michael Moore).

The only complaint I really have about the edits is that they used Clinton's finger-wagging incident instead of the grand jury testimony as originally cut into the film. That alteration changes that thread from focus on his self-inflicted legal trouble to the Democrat talking point that it was all about sex-obsessed Republicans and the uptight Ken Starr.

They dialed back on the Berger teleconference but not showing him literally leaving the call and the operation hanging. That's fine, it didn't change the thrust of the scene: buck-passing spiked another attempt to stop Bin Laden.

[dfwgator]

so, what's your point? that the Japanese didn't really bomb Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941?

I thought that was the Germans.

(Forget it, he's on a roll)

[JimSEA]

OK! Now Oliver Stone proposed a movie "exploring the truth" of a 9/11 conspiracy involving the Bush Administration. Docudrama or sheer BS, I bet it is praised by the same people who are so upset about ABC's 9/11 venture.

[OldFriend]

What the heck is Fund whining about. Everything shown last night is well documented from many sources.

Can he point to a single instance that was incorrect?

[Beckwith]

Sandy Berger, who served as President Clinton's national security adviser, bitterly complained about a fictional scene in which he stopped CIA agents who were about to kill Osama bin Laden.

I still can't understand why Sandy Burglar is not in Leavenworth?

[CharlesWayneCT]

People portrayed poorly in docudramas are always complaining about how they are portrayed. Bambi Bembenek, Jeff MacDonald, Joey Buttafuoco, John Kerry, all have complained about how they were shown in movies which were dramatic portrayals of true stories.

I bet Black Hawk Down had people who were upset with how they were portrayed as well. In fact, I bet every docudrama has had some person portrayed who complained about how they were shown.

The question for a docudrama is whether the broad themes are accurate.

On the other hand, I'm all for removing the "docu" from docudramas, because a lot of people watch stuff like this and think they are watching actual conversations. "Based on a true story" would be sufficient.

The Clinton group knew they couldn't stop this movie. They found 3 places they could argue specific error, and used it to say the entire movie was a lie.

When someone pointed out 12 factual errors in Fahrenheit 9/11, the same democrats argued that the theme was accurate and you were bound to get a few details wrong.

[oceanview]

well sure, if the Clintonian definition of "incorrect" is used. Any factual error in the presentation, even for something tangential to the main point, makes the entire scene "fiction".

[oceanview]

that is the "magic bullet theory" question of this entire affair, and unfortunately, he was let off the hook by this administration.