What Do We Expect from a 'True Story'?

“The following motion picture is based on first hand accounts of actual events.”

This is how the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty begins, and it sets the tone of the film in many ways. I recently watched this film again, and I continue to be impressed by it - mainly due to the incredible lead performance from Jessica Chastain as Maya. However, the film has certainly faced pushback in the years since its release for the irresponsible fashion in which it depicts torture.

The truth of the matter has been covered by many other writers since the film was released (an article by Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker outlines the particulars). Torture did not unearth the information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. However, the film seems to play up the importance of testimony gained from “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

And this is where the question I pose in the title of this article comes into play. Of course, we can simply say that this is a feature film. It is a dramatization of real events. It is not a documentary - a medium which handles true events differently than feature films do. Art does get a certain level of coverage in this regard. But don’t we expect a bit more of art that focuses on a real event rather than a fictional tale?

This is also where the opening disclaimer at the beginning of Zero Dark Thirty becomes even more important. Of course the search for Osama bin Laden is a true story. But Zero Dark Thirty chooses to bill itself as being “based on firsthand accounts of actual events”.

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal branded their film as a kind of artistic journalism when it was released. However, we expect far more out of journalism than we do out of feature films, or at least we should (more on that later). If Bigelow and Boal wanted to take on the mantle of journalism, didn’t they owe their viewers a more truthful representation of events than what might be otherwise expected?

Roger Ebert famously said, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” I have often come back to this idea when considering films. A parallel idea is that depiction does not equal endorsement. In fact, Bigelow herself made this point when responding to the critics of Zero Dark Thirty. It is a good point, but not really the heart of the matter of the critical response to the film (as the article linked above points out). What critics took issue with was how Zero Dark Thirty presented the use of torture, not that they presented it at all.

It would have been untrue of Bigelow to cover over the fact that the U.S. did, indeed, use torture techniques. At the same time, the way the film seemingly ties information gained from torture directly to the raid on bin Laden’s compound is also untrue. The film attempts to toe the line between depicting the truth that torture was used and the truth that it ultimately failed. I would contend that it does not adequately toe that line. There are key scenes where the increased oversight on torture is presented as a hindrance to our main characters.

Here again, the film’s basis of firsthand accounts could give it cover by saying that the film is taking the viewpoint of the accounts that provided the information for the screenplay. Of course those people believed that the techniques they were using were helping their cause. They were wrong, but they certainly believed it.

Powerful art has often allowed misguided and even evil characters to have their point of view. My personal favorite example is Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) from A Few Good Men. He firmly believes his final speech, and the film allows him to make his case without an ironic winking to the audience that it shouldn’t be believed. We, as the audience, must make our decision on whether his view of the world is right or not.

This is where I return to the question of whether or not we should have the same expectations of art that we do of journalism. While I believe that art should allow for the presentation or depiction of morally ambiguous or even morally reprehensible content and allow us as the audience to decide our feelings on them, I’m not sure journalism should have the same aims. At the heart of journalism is the search for and verification of facts. While both art and journalism have a drive for truth, I think the route that each takes to get there is and should be different.

These days “fake news” has become an all-too-common phrase. I’ve seen far too many people blame society’s ills on the media - whom they say is wholly corrupt and does not report facts. I would counter and say that the erosion of public trust in the media is more troublesome. We must hold the media accountable, of course. But we also need the hard-working journalists that bring news to us. We will always need to know the truth of events that we cannot experience personally.

Social media muddies these waters even further. Is it more in the camp of journalism or art? I’ve had multiple conversations with friends recently about truth and facts on social media. Should social media sites remove viral posts that share false information or outright lies? Or should that choice be left to us as individuals? If we say that posts should not be taken down, are we willing to do the follow-up after false information is shared to make sure that the thousands of people who comment and share understand that the information is false? Here again, maybe how we present the information has some importance.

I’d like to present another film that I recently re-watched that handles similar material in a different light - the 2007 David Fincher thriller Zodiac. Of course, this film addresses a true story as well - the story of the search for the Zodiac Killer. Obviously, that search never found its subject like the search for bin Laden did. But the two stories share a dependence on firsthand accounts of events.

In Zodiac, authorities are repeatedly thwarted by an overabundance of firsthand accounts. People with no knowledge of the facts call in with tips on the case. This inundates the detectives with faulty information that distracts them from their main pursuit.

Zodiac, the film, also works off of firsthand accounts drawn mainly from the 1986 non-fiction book by Robert Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal in the film). Going back to the importance of how a work of art depicts information, though, Zodiac adeptly weaves back-and-forth between true and false information. It pulls the viewer into this intoxicating web of information just like Graysmith was. In our own lives, it can be easy to be pulled into webs of conspiracies or specious posts that go viral. But just like with Graysmith, the effects of this can be ruinous.

At the same time, I do think films like Zero Dark Thirty and Zodiac should push us to consider what we expect of art, how we get at the truth, and how we address firsthand accounts from other parties. These are issues with which our culture at large must wrestle. We must find a way to accept shared truths rather than simply letting each person decide what is true for themselves. Everyone should have personal freedom to choose their informational inputs. Truth cannot be forced on people. If someone wants to believe something that is not true, that is their freedom. But we must have a shared basis of facts with which to hold each other accountable.

Journalism provided this in the past, but the overall trust in our journalistic institutions has, unfortunately, waned. Social media has exacerbated this because now those people who choose to believe falsehoods can easily develop a large platform and lead thousands astray. If limiting the reach of these falsehoods is going to be labeled as censorship, how do we protect against the complete loss of shared truth in our society?

For me, personally, I find that basis of truth in my faith in God. As a follower of Christ, a core belief of mine is that God is truth and will lead me into truth. As I study the Bible and continue to grow in my faith, the leading of the Holy Spirit helps to guide me in this pursuit. At the same time, I know that not everyone shares these foundational beliefs with me. So the questions remains - how do we ensure that we all work from shared facts in the public square?

Maybe the best way to end this discussion is with an anecdote from another film. It just so happens to come from my personal favorite film of all time. In No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is consoling Carla Jean Moss (Kelly MacDonald) - the wife of main character Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who is on the run from an evil killer named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Sheriff Bell tells Carla Jean a story about a man named Charlie Walser. Later in the film, Carla Jean asks Sheriff Bell if it was a true story. When he responds by asking who Charlie Walser is, Carla Jean has her answer. But then, Sheriff Bell says something even more interesting.

“Well…uh…a true story? I couldn’t swear to every detail, but it’s certainly true that it is a story.”

I think that line of thinking works just fine in movies and other works of art where we can each wrestle with the situation on our own terms. This can be in a fictional story or in a depiction of a real-life one. That’s because, in art, we can get at emotional truths by depicting ambiguous situations. In art, it’s the how that often matters more than the what. However, I’m not sure that line of thinking works as well when we are dealing with truth that affects our daily lives. In journalism and, even on social media, I think we need to expect more from our true stories.

I think we need to expect the cold, hard truth.