So now they decide to tell the true story of the Florida recount debacle! HBO's film, "Recount" looks like a good one but why didn't this story come out earlier?
UPDATE: Warren Christopher, Al Gore's Lawyer has denounced the film, saying, "much of what the author has written about me is pure fiction.... It contained events that never occurred, words I never spoke and decisions attributed to me that I never made."
Critics however say it's solid drama and an exciting film. Wouldn't be the first time Hollywood tinkered with dialogue.
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2 comments:
The film is a lot more fiction than fact.
Strong apparently felt the story of what actually happened in 2000 wasn’t sufficiently compelling enough to attract Hollywood interest, so he ginned up a sexier story: George Bush won the 2000 recount battle because the Democrats--principally Warren Christopher and Bill Daley--were too weak, too genteel, to withstand the Jim Baker-led steamroller. Not even the heroic efforts of the only Democratic operative in Florida with the b---s to take on Big Jim could save the ship.
But Danny had a problem--how to establish the ineffectuality of the Democratic side of the fight. He decided to solve it by creating a scene or two in which Warren Christopher would utter words of compromise, naivete and illogic. In just a few screen minutes, Strong could establish an overarching theme of the film and, if he were lucky, could manage it without ever talking to Christopher.
At some point—maybe with a gentle push from HBO-- Strong realized he had to cover himself and make contact with Christopher. In the NYT story he admits that he waited to make the call until the day the scenes involving the Christopher character were shot. He also admits that he refused Christopher's request to review a copy of the script, even though he accorded that courtesy and beyond to Baker, Klain and probably to people he met on the Metro.
Christopher told the Times that he learned the film was in production when his tailor told him he was making a suit for the actor who was to play him. In other words, Strong felt it was critical to get the wardrobe right for the Christopher character, but didn't regard the facts as rising to the same level of importance.
What Strong obviously didn’t want Christopher to know was that the script contained scenes in which his character declares that the recount dispute can be compromised and that no lawsuits will be filed on behalf of Gore. Strong knew that once Christopher read or was told of such scenes, the jig would be up--that he'd be faced with having to defend the total distortion of what the former Secretary did and said. He also presumably knew from talking to Klain that Christopher was a quintessential, albeit scrupulously ethical, litigator. But weak-kneed? Never.
As we now know, Danny just plowed ahead, disclaiming any intention to suggest to the public that they’d be viewing a faithful rendition of history; claiming that all he intended to do was to convey “the essence of the truth” as he put it to the New York Times. What he sidesteps, of course, is that the film is being sold to the public not as the “essence” of what happened in 2000 but as “the story of the 2000 presidential election.” He and HBO know that the public treats as fact what is fed to them as "docu-drama," embracing the tacit proposition that they are flies on the wall, witnessing historic events as they occurred. That they are consuming an ounce of “docu” for every gallon of “drama” is an inconvenient truth, certainly for Canny Strong and HBO. And like it or not, what the viewers treat as fact becomes fact for others in this generation and those following.
Thanks for the good work, Danny. You’ve done a terrific job of trashing a few good people and blurring the record of one of the signal events of our time. Quite a first effort.
The previous comment was lifted wholesale from another film criticism site. I can only assume it is being routinely pasted into comments whenever this film is mentioned in a blog.
The fact that it was left anonymously says a lot, take it with a large grain of salt, just like the HBO movie which I will admit seems a bit "sexed up" for Hollywood.
Anonymous:
Next time you leave a prepackaged talking point as a comment, please identify yourself so readers can understand that you are part of an organized effort, not just another reader.
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