Originally posted by JDK
This ISN’T an anti Hollywood or anti American statement.
I bet a lot to a brass farthing, that in the film (if / when it comes out) Fisk will achieve at least one kill. Film makers (those with stars like Cruise, rather than films with -ah- more complex plotlines than a Disney cartoon, that is) CAN’T handle anything less than that. That’s my point.
Film bios seem always to exagerate, and for me that detracts from the point of the excercise. But that’s the way it is.
Cheers
The never ending battle I fight with myself on these films is whether or not I can let myself ‘suspend my disbelief’ long enough to enjoy them.
I’ve never seen Pearl Harbor, U-571 etc because I know I’d hate them for the total fabrication of things.
On the other hand, one of my favorite ‘guilty pleasures’ is a wartime film called “Air Force” with John Garfield. The Crew of the B17D “Mary Ann” wins WW2. They land during the raid on Pearl Harbor. Then drop in at Wake Island bofore moving on to fight in the Phillipines at Clark Field where they are shot down, rebuild the plane on their own and fly off to Australia, sinking the Japananese Navy in the process. Total rubbish but great fun, plus the early model B17 it was filmed around.
So I get torn when these discussions come up on films. Sadly many people get their ‘history’ from them. But if it gets people thinking or gets anyone to dig further, aren’t the worth it?
An example. I work with troubled teens for a living. A few years back after Saving Private Ryan came out, we were talking about it and one of the kids said his grandpa ‘had one of those “eagle patches”. It turns out his Grandfather who had recently passed away was in the 101st Airborne during WW2. He knew nothing about what grandpa had done. I asked if he wanted to know and he said yes. After a bit of digging, we learned that Grandpa had jumped on D-Day, survived being wounded during the Market Garden Operation, survived the Battle of the Bulge and was one of about 10 guys in his company to fight from D-Day to the end.
If not for the movie, that kid would never have known what his Grandfather had done.
So I go back and forth on this stuff. Say they make the film about Fiske and embellish the story and he gets a kill. We’ll know it’s not true but others won’t. But if it gets a kid to start digging, isn’t it worth it in the end?
If not for the TV shows 12 0’Clock High and Combat, I’d never have gone down this path.
Dan
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