:rolleyes: Which is why Inglorious Basterds was a terrible movie.
If people want to see a documentary, then by all means watch a documentary. But any movie about history is going to fudge the facts to make it work.
I’m reminded of Ron Shelton’s commentary about Cobb. The film accurately depicts Smitty taking secret notes that he kept secret from Cobb. In real life, he did keep the notes, and Cobb never saw them. In the movie, Cobb found them.
Shelton said, “You couldn’t have Cobb not see the notes.”
It’s known as drama. And whenever its a choice between accuracy and good drama, a good writer goes with the drama every single time. As someone once said, “if you need to violate history, violate it!”
Accuracy is vastly overrated as a value in fiction.
LBJ very gradually came around to become a champion of civil rights.
And even after his “conversion” on the issue, by all accounts (Robert Dallek, for example, or the interviews in the American Experience PBS Documentary on Lyndon Johnson), he loathed street demonstrations and protest marches. He favored more discrete activism - the sort that did not embarrass his administration. His relationship with Dr. King was certainly turbulent.
I think it would be a mistake to portray LBJ as wholeheartedly behind King and the Civil Rights Movement. He did have reservations about King’s tactics, even if he broadly agreed with his goals.
Another story that underlines LBJ’s ambivalence toward civil rights activism was his shameless ploy to deny Fannie Lou Hamer national coverage during the Democratic National Convention in 1964. Johnson feared her attempt to include black delegates from Mississippi would distract from a convention that was, in effect, a coronation. LBJ pretty bluntly used his power as president to call a network press conference to take the media off Hamer. Then he made a hasty and meaningless announcement and took no questions!
To be fair, President Johnson promoted and signed more meaningful civil rights legislation than any other president, with the arguable exception of Abraham Lincoln, but he loathed loud, outspoken activism.
It’s still 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes after a few weeks of being in Limited release, so at least 84 critics think it’s a good story well-told. ALL biopics/based on true events movie have inaccuracies (see The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything for two other biopics this year). The movie is not about JFK. It’s about the Selma march. Did she get that right? From the Hollywood Reporter story:
I understand the whole “This isn’t a biography” point but the main issue with the film (which I have not seen) it’s not that the history is slanted, or shaded, or open to interpretation it’s just out and out wrong… badly wrong. I guess I’m just puzzled how you would screw up something that fundamental.
Was no one making the film even doing a cursory review for accuracy? Was portraying LBJ as a villain based on serious ignorance or a willful storyline decision to go in that direction despite knowing better?
LBJ, for all his sins over Vietnam, was the mover in Washington in Congress and as President on civil rights. No US elected official ever did anywhere near as much for black people as LBJ, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln.
Was Inglorious Basterds really in the same lane as Selma as far as the type of story it was trying to tell? I assumed that Typo Negative was referring to certain types of films, not film or fiction in general.
It doesn’t have to be either/or. If indeed LBJ is portrayed as “the villain” or falsely portraying his actions regards to the Civil Rights movement, it’s a disservice in my opinion. The argument that you quoted, about the problem with previous films about Civil Rights that focused on white heroes doesn’t address the issue of inaccurately or falsely portraying the contributions of white supports of the movement.
You can focus on the Civil Rights Movement that was created, driven and shaped by black people, you can put the focus on black heroes, without having to portray the whites who helped it as the opposition. But it’s typical Hollywood, made for a general public who are averse to nuance.
I also have another problem with the quote. Should art such as film not be open to discussion, criticism and debate? Isn’t that what good art does? Gets us to think and talk about the issues, about history?
Me personally, I don’t enjoy historical movies like this because they often are too simplified into good vs bad, when the real life events and history are so much more complex and interesting. Unless there are some real standout performances in this like there were in Malcolm X, “Selma” is not really on my must-see list. Then again, I hardly go to the movies. I do hope that it’s successful though because the film is still focusing on a story that’s worth telling, as opposed to something like “The Gambler.”
My bad for making it sound like RFK was a total bad guy wrt civil rights. What I meant to say was that at least one specific “bad” action attributed to LBJ in the movie was actually done by RFK. From here:
As I noted earlier, it’s one thing for historical fiction to compress the actions of multiple people into one, fictitious person for artistic reasons, but it’s quite another to attribute the actions of one historical figure to another historical figure.
I have to wonder how many people commenting in this thread have actually seen the movie.
LBJ wasn’t portrayed as anti Civil Rights all. His portrayal just shows him as a politician instead of a saint. He came across as generally sympathetic with MLK, but annoyed when his activism stood in the way of his baby–the War on Poverty. So throughout much of the movie, he acted like politicians typically do when their agendas are stymied. Difficult and unpleasant.
I liked how the movie ultimately used George Wallace’s obtuse bigotry to catalyze LBJ’s turnaround, because that is how it works so very often in politics. We like to think elected officials are principled in their actions, but usually it’s a matter of appearances. You see what the public will perceive as evil and then take you take the opposite position.
So the movie showing LBJ sending the FBI after MLK is not a scene that happened? If the movie portrayed that as having happened we’re not talking relative degrees of “sympathy” here, that’s pure hostility.
From what I’ve read, including this supportive of the movie piece by Donna Brazile, the biggest accusation/possible liberty taken against LBJ is that he was responsible for sending Coretta Scott King the recordings of her husband’s infidelities and that he did it to strongarm MLK into backing down.
It is generally believed, including by Jay Edgar Hoover biographers, that Hoover did this but did so acting unilaterally and not at LBJ’s instruction.
IF TRUE, to show LBJ doing this is definitely beyond the Pale artistic license.
I watched it last week, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Honest question. Have you seen the movie? I need to decide whether I feel like investing time in arguing with someone over how hostile a character came across, when they haven’t even seen the full portrayal from start to finish.
It’s undeniable that the FBI did stalk MLK and his deputies. Regardless of whether LBJ was responsible for starting it or some other elected official, the FBI intensely monitored MLK while LBJ was president. So getting hung up on the accuracy of who did what, is missing the forest for the trees. Surely LBJ knew J. Edgar’s MO and it strains credibility to think he didn’t at least tacitly approve of his scrutiny.
The takeaway from the movie was that Selma required a lot of political strategizing, media interest, courageousness, and grassroot support to pull off. Anyone who leaves the theater thinking that LBJ was a bad guy or hostile to the civil rights movement, is clearly not paying attention.
What was unclear? The movie doesn’t open wide until tomorrow. Unless you’re a critic, it has only been playing in a handful of cities over the last few weeks, so few people will have seen it.
Judging from the trailer, the fake accents are godawful. Just jarringly bad. Is it really so hard to use actual Southern actors for these roles?
Which brings me to my question. I haven’t seen the movie yet. Are there any “good guys” with Southern accents? Maybe rewriting LBJ’s heroism into villainy is party of a “Southern accent=evil” mindset?
It was released on Christmas. Regardless of how you define “wide”, it doesn’t require one to be a film reviewer to have seen it; merely a resident in major metropolitan area.