Overrated Facts

Yesterday L.A. Times columnist Patrick Goldstein, writing from a standard city-desk, big-city-newspaper, shoe-leathery perspective, cast doubt upon the general cred of The Social Network by sugggesting that its portrait of Mark Zuckerberg is, in the words of Facebook Effect author David Kirkpatrick, “horrifically unfair.”

One retort (which also posted yesterday) came from New Yorker critic David Denby. He says in his Social Network review that “the debate about the movie’s accuracy has already begun, but David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin, selecting from known facts and then freely interpreting them, have created a work of art…accuracy is now a secondary issue.”

“Movies tend to exaggerate retellings of true-life stories for dramatic emphasis, and…like, whatever, Francis Bacon wasn’t a naturalist,” I wrote a few weeks back. “Welcome to the art world. People want strong points of view, and basically to see the non-provocative stuff pruned down so the provocative stuff can be savored all the more, and so the core issues confronting characters can be addressed in some detail. Didn’t William Shakespeare play more or less by these rules?”

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34 thoughts on “Overrated Facts”

  1. I always laugh at non-creative types whining about the “accuracy” of biographical feature films. The needs of drama and narrative outweigh “truth” (which is subjective anyway) when crafting a work of art.

    Now, if someone purports to be making a documentary, then by all means, fact check them.

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  2. Didn’t William Shakespeare play more or less by these rules?”

    But Shakespeare at least had the class to wait until the historical personages had died before interpreting them for his audience.

    I get that biopics, of any stripe, are essentially and unavoidably works of fiction. Given that even the best and most accurate biopic is at least somewhat fictional, it’s difficult to argue with making them *more* fictional– like the old hooker joke, you’re only negotiating price.

    That said, the mass of humanity that sees this film will now believe they know who Mark Zuckerberg is because they’ve seen this movie. We all know what makes a *26-year-old man* tick because we enjoyed Sorkin’s whiplash dialogue, only half of which might even be close to accurate. This guy will now have this portrayal living over his head until he dies, fairly or not.

    It’s “art,” sure… but it’s also irresponsible. Not as irresponsible as populating a documentary with fictions or a biographical book with falsehoods, but it’s only a matter of degree, not of kind.

    One wonders what the movie of the life of Jeffrey Wells based only on ugly shoes, pocket cake, thin-skin and Vinessa Shaw would look like. It might be entertaining as all hell– I’m thinking Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets– but how *real* would it be? Not real at all. And *this* site is at least written by Wells, i.e. this is as close as one can get to “autobiographical.” The Social Network couldn’t be that close even if it tried– how is the fact that it *didn’t* try to be right is something to be embraced, even celebrated?

    This all reminds me of this video that always makes the rounds during discussion of “reality” TV:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI

    You can film actual, real live people living their life and edit it all into lies. Once free of even those constraints, nothing on screen is true.

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  3. To sum up a long argument: Citizen Kane is a great biography of William Randolph Hearst precisely because it *isn’t* a biography of Hearst. Welles was liberated from having to be accurate so he could better capture the spirit of it all.

    Fincher and Sorkin, by choosing to make a movie featuring Mark Zuckerberg as a character, purposely chose to NOT liberate themselves from the responsibility to be factual.

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  4. I usually get pissed when I find out that facts and events are manipulated, but it depends on the degree. I can appreciate the need to artistic license, and if it’s done in the spirit ot efficient storytelling, OK. If it’s done to bend the facts because the truth doesn’t fit how the writer/director *wants* it to fit, not so much. The Facebook movie might be an exception to all the rules, because it really is a mirror of the current times. Everyone will bring his/her own prejudices.

    I will say that as someone who worked in a high tech startup and saw dozens of everyday joes become millionaires via flagrant misuse of stock options and insider knowledge, the particulars of the Facebook story resonate, and are emblematic of what’s currently wrong with our economy and country. Some see these people as geniuses and savvy businessmen, others see them as frauds and thiefs. You’d be amazed at what people will do (to friends and coworkers) for inside action with an IPO looming on the horizon. Even in Pittsburgh.

    I’ve got my own story I’m working on.

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  5. Like plausibility, accuracy can be a very useful optional bedbug. As far as “The Social Network” is concerned for Denby, it doesn’t matter, but when he wanted to take a hammer to “Gangs of New York” it was extremely important. One might appreciate some consistency in these matters, but I understand that’s asking too much most of the time…

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  6. Zuckerberg should do himself a favor and embrace the current spotlight, get out and be himself, and let people judge for themselves. I guess the grant to Newark is a step in the right direction. Imagine what it would be like to be “immortalized” as our 20-something selves for public consumption. We’re barely formed adults.

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  7. And crazynine comment #3 really stops me in my tracks. Excellent point.

    My honest reaction to some of Jeff’s first critical ravings about The Social Network involve his description of the first scene between Zuckerberg and his “fictional” girlfriend. I have to admit that gave me pause. A great scene? Probably. But not authentic.

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  8. >But Shakespeare at least had the class to wait until the historical personages had died before interpreting them for his audience.

    So perhaps Sorkin/Fincher are being classless; you could argue there is something genuinely unfair about making a defamatory story of this kind. But that, I would argue, is entirely at right angles to the aesthetic consideration of whether it is a successful film.

    The fact that Mark Zuckerberg is alive and Antonio Salieri is dead is ultimately tangential to the question of whether Social Network and Amadeus are, respectively, great films, despite (or because of) their gaping inaccuracies and their similar choice not to go the roman-a-clef route.

    (Granted, in the case of Amadeus, it would have been disastrous to make up fake composers rather than use existing ones; you could argue that in the case of TSN, the aesthetic penalty wouldn’t be so high; Kane admittedly didn’t suffer for making up a fake Hearst pastiche to pillory.)

    More people probably now think Salieri was a murderer and desperately bitter mediocrity than even knew he was alive in his own time. It can be laid at Peter Schaffer’s (and, to a lesser extent, Milos Forman’s and F. Murray Abraham’s) doorstep that a great wrong has been done to the memory of a kind, generous, industrious man who patiently instructed some of the great composers in music history. A man who, far from being a mediocrity, achieved greater success and had more talent than most of us would dare to hope for.

    That’s as may be. Amadeus is still a great film, and Schaffer’s ruthless appropriation of this undeserving historical personage as a counterpoint to Mozart’s transcendent brilliance is a dramatic masterstroke.

    To recap, IMO, the dead-or-alive status of the unfortunate personage being thus used is tangential to aesthetic considerations, though it may be a legitimate issue legally, or morally, or otherwise.

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  9. Social Network is being hailed for the way it depicts the interaction among the erstwhile friends and for capturing the mood of the times. It’s obviously not the sort of fare one sees in the Biography or History channel even if purports to cover part of the life of Zuckerberg as the central character. It’s not a complete picture but it accurate captures part of it. Citizen Kane on the otherhand was more about the man than his era.

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  10. Quite annoying of Goldstein, but predictable. Fincher, Sorkin and even Mark Zuckerberg have publicly acknowledged it was fictional, mostly.

    Citizen Kane, same thing. Good lord, get a clue, man.

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  12. So what will this mean for Fair Game, whose whole storyline is built on omitting one key, established beyond doubt historical fact– not about a girlfriend, but about actual guilt and innocence?

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  14. Glenn, please expand…What did Denby do/not do re: Gangs of NY vs. his gripes with The Social Network? I’m genuinely curious.

    With regards to the film, you can’t go to the movies for your history lessons. Haven’t we learned that yet? Besides, you have to choose a point of view because if you put every one of these principals in a room for a year and let them tell “their” story, you still wouldn’t come close to anything approximating proof, only perspective.

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  15. @ mybrainismelting: You can’t get Denby’s “Gangs” review in its entirety online, but he really goes to town on its accuracy there, and gets off on some really amusing tangents about how really awful the Irish immigrants were and why everything that’s still bad in New York is pretty much their fault. I’m exagerrating, but only a little here.

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  16. So what will this mean for Fair Game, whose whole storyline is built on omitting one key, established beyond doubt historical fact– not about a girlfriend, but about actual guilt and innocence?

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  17. Did these same critics deal with “JFK” and “Nixon” in a similar fashion? If not, they’re showing favoritism to Fincher and this film.

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  18. bluefugue– I’m not casting judgment on a movie I haven’t seen yet, a film I wholly expect to blow my socks off. I have no gun in this fight.

    I’m just dismissive of those who *are* dismissive of the ethical complications involved in making a biographical movie that isn’t biographical, or at least strives to be.

    All film interprets, all film invents. One can’t avoid that. Even the most loyal of hagiographers can’t possibly capture all of the most intimate thoughts and mannerisms of the characters.

    I’m reminded of the HBO movie about the Wannsee Conference, Conspiracy. We actually have the real transcript of the conference, we know precisely what was said and by whom. Yet even then, the filmmakers “lie” to a certain degree– how the words were spoken, who winked at whom, we can have no idea. The artistic license is unavoidable, but it is not flaunted.

    Another comparison: compare Downfall to Inglorious Basterds. They’re both about Hitler, but one strives for accuracy, the other goes completely absurdist to capture some other, mad truth. Both work perfectly fine in their own ways, but you can’t mix and match those two films and still maintain you’re doing something historically accurate, “more or less.”

    Anyway, I believe this isn’t an area where one can split the difference (well, sure, they can, and do, but I don’t feel comfortable with it). There really are only three ethically valid solutions, IMHO: be as loyal as possible, go for the “spirit” of things but understand up front that you’ll never be able to credibly convince the audience what is true or not, or go the whole cloth invention route, ala Kane.

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  19. Re the Goldstein “maybe I can start a national conversation article:; thought that the thesis of THE HURRICANE being pounded on issues of accuracy because it was considered “schlock” while THE SOCIAL NETWORK isn’t suffering the same fate so far because of critical praise was interesting, to say the least.

    Can’t wait to see if Aaron Sorkin and/or David Fincher respond with a forceful rebuttal.

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