Based on a true story?

“Based on a true story.”

“THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.”

“Some of this actually happened.”

“The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you Jenny Beckman. Bitch.”

_From the openings of Captain Phillips, Fargo, American Hustle and 500 Days of Summer. _

According to the great uncitable (Wikipedia) before the year 2000 211 films had been produced based on a true story and after 2000, 221 films have been based on a true story. Why is it that this concept has become such a popular trope in modern filmmaking and should we care?

My first point on this matter is that we all know that what we are seeing is not real. It’s been filmed and there are well known actors saying the words. Could the words be the real words that these people said? Probably not, because real people don’t talk like they do in the movies (unless the genre is mumblecore). So there almost has to be an element of fabrication in the way the story unfolds.

So if writers and directors are going to embellish the truth to make a good film, why not just start from scratch and write a movie about what you wished had happened for the most drama? Lots of other writers do this already and it was pretty much par for the course until 2000.

Well, one interesting comment made by Joel Coen may give us some insight:

“If an audience believes that something’s based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept.”

Which begs the question, is Fargo based on a true story at all? Is the introduction just a method to get you to overlook some of the issues in the film. The Coens used lots of physical comedy, which for some people could jerk them out of the moment. However, with the pacifier of knowing it is all a “true story” it might be easier to say, “Hey, I don’t mind if this is unbelievable, because life can be unbelievable.”

One of the biggest problems with pulling the true story card comes when making a real person an archetypical movie hero. People in real life may resent seeing someone they know or knew who might be the antithesis of a hero in real life. For example Captain Phillips, the person from the film of the same name has been called out for being anything but a hero, and we’ve been told that due to his disregard for the safety he put his crew at risk.

The things that people take away from films are the emotions and the journeys a character goes through. Even when a film is totally fictional, if the character is relatable then the emotions are transferred to audience and these are real. What the audience then hates is feeling lied to. We had empathy for Cpt. Phillips when we left the cinema, and when we found out the story wasn’t true the rug was pulled out from under us.

Now it’s obvious the studios love this because it then gets free column inches, and this is very possibly one of the complex reasons why more films that are “True” get made. Often there are stories that people already know, the life of Mandela instantly springs to mind, that are made into a film because again, people will talk about it straight away and there is a discussion about whether it did his life justice. All of which seems like a very cynical way of making movies. Especially when the discussion of the apartheid system in South Africa can be so cleverly taken apart by a film like District 9.

Really my conclusion is probably quite a blunt one, and that is that with clever writing and smart filmmaking this is something we really don’t need, it’s something that film companies need.