The State of the Race: Truthiness

What does it mean to tell the true story of someone? To tell the truth you have to admit the truth. We all have our own ideas about our lives, about who we really are and whom we’d most like to be. The truth, it sometimes seems, is vulnerable to interpretation. Once you go down that road, of course, it depends on whose version is being told whether or not it resonates for you. Some people like to hear certain parts of stories, and others might be fascinated by minor details.

This year, we have the major films so far heading into the Oscar race as true stories, or to borrow a Stephen Colbert term, truthy stories. Their truth isn’t so much in the details, but rather in the broader context; what these themes mean to us, the people out here living our trivial lives. You might think that King George VI’s speech impediment on route to becoming the reluctant King of England would have nothing to do with you. If you’ve ever had to struggle with a disability you will appreciate Firth’s inner and outer struggle to hide what he has been conditioned to be ashamed of. His legs were crooked and had to be straightened. He wrote with his left hand; they made him write with the right. He couldn’t speak without stammering. So he just didn’t.

It was a good thing, then, that his brother Edward seemed destined to take the throne when his father finally died. Edward, though, had a longing he couldn’t suppress. It was either bigger than his sense of duty to serve or else he didn’t particularly want to be King either. This is an interpretation of factual events. One might protest the film’s depiction of Wallis Simpson, who is portrayed as a kind of stupid ho-bag. The friendship between King George and his speech therapist was enhanced to the point where the film became what In Contention’s Guy Lodge called a “romantic comedy” – what he means, of course, is boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets boy back and they all live happily ever after.

The King’s Speech will be one of the more pleasurable couple of hours you’ll spend in the theater all year and because of that, you will never stop to think whether it portrays the raw truth; it hardly matters because you are watching a movie that is so good it takes you happily back to your own life, and all of the gratefulness that comes with it. Does it pierce the image of the Royal Family? Sure it does. And who doesn’t enjoy a little skewering of the Royals? But I’m sure if you asked them if it was true, they would smile and say, “parts of it.”

I don’t think anyone would object to having their own mundane life transformed into something of a myth.

In 127 Hours, Danny Boyle’s pitch-perfect meditation on our need to survive at all costs — make no mistake, this is not Into the Wild where a man exiled himself into the wilderness with no clear knowledge of what it would take to survive — this is a story that is about someone who knew how to survive but found himself in a situation where his good luck finally ran out. But did it? Aron Ralston says that if he had cut off his arm earlier in the process he might not have survived because he might have bled out while trying to reach his truck. It was dumb luck he happened to run into hikers who helped him, in the end. Parts of the Boyle version of Ralston’s odyssey are true; parts are enhanced for the medium. We accept this because we have not been cheated out of our experience, and because we leave the theater with so much more than we came in with.

Does it sell out the main character because it doesn’t include the scene where he stabs his hand to let the gas out once he realizes his arm is decomposing while he’s trapped there? Of course not. A talented and intelligent artist like Boyle will know what to keep and what to cut because this isn’t a documentary; this is art. There is a big difference between the two. And if you’ve ever stared at a painting that interprets life, or the strange and haunting imagery that reminds us of moments, you will understand why there was never a need to paint things accurately in art; it is about interpretation and deeper meaning.

Other films this year also deal with true stories — Conviction, Secretariat, Made in Dagenham — but only one so far is getting some flack for its version of what went down at Harvard University in 2003, when TheFacebook was invented. The film takes a direct point of view, not unlike Reversal of Fortune where you never really know if Sonny Von Bulow was murdered by Claus or whether it was an overdose. What a terrible movie it had been if it had pretended to know. What is remarkable about The Social Network, which is still far and away the best film of 2010 so far, is that Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher and Jesse Eisenberg are interpreting what might have happened. In addition to that story, there is a wealth of resources on the founding of the site and Zuckberg himself. Look, you don’t get 500 million friends and not expect a few of them won’t stick up for you. Funnily enough, the residual effect of this portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg is that he has been nudged into infamy, and that’s because Sorkin wrote him a lot more complex than he actually is. I don’t think Zuckerberg is complaining – I think he loves the attention, frankly. This is the guy who put his face on the masthead of Thefacebook. Every page.

The complaints seem to be we didn’t get a generous enough portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg himself, and of course, there is the continual complaint as to the truthiness of how the women are portrayed: weren’t there female coders? Weren’t there female computer geeks? Why are the Jewish boys only attracted to Asian women? Do we stick to the truth or do we alter the truth to fit the political correctness of our time? Do we answer those objections while we’re writing a story because the truth might be too offensive? You see, the truth isn’t always the preferred option, is it? We color the truth when it suits us — but we betray who we are now when we do that. Films about World War II are very much American propaganda films, just as those sanctioned by Hitler promoted their hateful ideas. We want the truth but we want it dressed up as a better version of our world, don’t we? Just don’t make it a less flattering one, because that is bound to offend some.

Is The Social Network true? Is All The President’s Men true? Is Titanic true? Was Citizen Kane the true story of William Randolph Hearst?¬† Parts are true. If you’re Woodstein the greatest thing that ever happened to you was that they hired Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman to play you in the film version of your story. Orson Welles was unkind to Marion Davies, by all accounts. Did everyone still believe that he threw over his wife for a know-nothing hick? They probably did. Will many people walk out of the Social Network believing Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker fucked over Eduardo Saverin? Of course they will. But they also have to conclude that they might have done the same thing. If success is your aim, you will likely step on people along the way. These moments are backed up by facts — Zuckerberg DID make a decision to cut Saverin out of the site’s stock options, and he took his name of the masthead.

The part about him not having a girlfriend? Well, that might have been made up. The part about him building TheFacebook because he wanted to create a network of friends and woo the one who got away? It’s an interpretation of the story, and an analysis of Zuckerberg. We allow for this because it’s necessary to make a great film.

The question is whether truthiness will be a factor in this year’s Oscar race. If that is the best they have against The Social Network that isn’t much at all. The year isn’t complete. We still have a few films yet to go – and we have the critics, the guilds and the top ten lists. Stuff will shift and we’ll get a better idea what films will be celebrated this year. A Beautiful Mind still won, even though it had to face down the negative campaigning that the life of John Nash was altered. They did drastically change who he was. They buried completely his forays into bisexuality – he may have even been gay — and they whitewashed a lot of the bad things he did. Was it a good movie? Yes, it was.

To believe that The Social Network will be hurt by this stuff is to assume it’s the frontrunner to win. And right now, I can call it the best film of 2010, with Inception running a very close second, and 127 Hours right up there – and of course, The King’s Speech. Therefore, Best Picture TO ME looks like this:

The Social Network
127 Hours
Inception
The King’s Speech
Winter’s Bone
Toy Story 3
The Kids are All Right
Another Year

Black Swan (Aronofsky seems a sure bet for a DGA nod)

And the ones I’m holding a place for but haven’t been seen:
True Grit
The Fighter
The Way Back

That may be your ten right there. Other films in the conversation in a big way:
Blue Valentine
Hereafter (I’m sticking with it until the bitter end)
Love and Other Drugs
Made in Dagenham
How to Train Your Dragon
Get Low