Sunset Boulevard - March 2, 2007

I'm going to take a break from my usual format to discuss an issue that's been very important to me in the past few months and that I think deserves some real thought and debate. I can't think of a good way to sum it up, but it comes up for me when I read scripts about Africa - in all of their permutations (evil dictators, child soldiers, poor rural villages), and it came up for me very acutely a couple weeks ago when I read a script about the 2000 election recount which created something near a frenzy of excitement in Hollywood. What do these two things have in common? In fact, not much, but in story - that is, as scripts or as potential movies I believe they have something significant in common: the fictionalization of current events.

There is absolutely a place for true stories in entertainment - for fictionalized dramas based on true events and real people. It is sometimes the most powerful way to tell an important piece of history, and I believe that this power is one reason why I chose film as a career. It is a tool to help us all explore and understand our world, and that cannot be underestimated. Saving Private Ryan will always be remembered as the movie which for the first time (at least in a big commercial movie) depicted war as dirty and gritty. Nobody can ever cut down the importance of a movie like Schindler's List. More recently, we saw Good Night, and Good Luck which drew subtle parallels between the era of McCarthyism and today. These films not only captured us for the two or three hours we watched, they also taught us something.

Yet there is something different to me about doing a film about historical reality and doing a film about current reality. When I read that script about the recount, I had to ask - why not a documentary? I understand that there may not have been cameras in the room at all times (although, to be quite honest, I wouldn't be surprised if there were), but all of those people involved are still alive and still harbor vivid memories. Who is more powerful to watch - an actor playing a role, or the real person? To me, it's unquestionably the latter. A few years ago the argument may have been that people don't watch documentaries, so to get that story seen, you have to dramatize it. That's not true anymore. Documentaries are experiencing unprecedented success, so why not take advantage of that outlet?

Africa is a different story, although similar. Let me preface my argument by giving you a little bit of my background. My family is South African; my parents grew up under apartheid. They were not rich, but they were white, and privileged. Appalled with the politics of the Nationalist Party, they fled the country as soon as my father was able to get a British passport. At the same time, they grew up in Africa, and it will always be home to them...and a bit of Africa is home to me as well. I spent six months living in Cape Town and traveling around South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania & Zanzibar. It was the best experience of my life. I say all this because I want you to know that Africa is important to me. So important.

I have many problems with Africa in the media - but the one I'd like to touch on today is in the way that they dramatize current reality. Is a movie the best forum to discuss the many issues that come up when we speak of Africa? (I'd like to be clear that I do not wish to generalize "Africa" into one homogenous continent as is done too often. There are thousands of different cultures and political situation, and not all of them are bad).

In an effort to keep this from being a dissertation, I'll use one movie as an example: Blood Diamond. I actually had a huge problem with this movie for two reasons. The first being that it couldn't make up it's mind about whether to be an action movie or a political movie, and striking the ground in between does neither genre any good. As an action movie, it failed when Jennifer Connelly's character popped in frame spouting statistics with no context, and as a political movie it was even more disappointing - which brings me to my second problem.

While I admit that it was an important movie because it brought a remarkable amount of attention to the idea of conflict diamonds, I was disappointed at its ultimate message. Let's break down the narrative - arrogant white guy who's moral dubiousness is never fully explored goes in and saves righteous disadvantaged black man. Are you serious? The implicit message here is that the black man can't save himself. He's a good person with a good heart - awww, shucks - but we have still robbed him of his sovereignty.

Yet, I don't blame the filmmakers for this. It is a cultural thing - and partly understandable. Movies are more powerful when we identify with the characters - and it's much easier for us to identify with the educated white man than an African from a rural village whose culture we know absolutely nothing about. Had Leonardo diCaprio not been in that movie - had his character been replaced by an African character from the city with the same sorts of resources that Leo had but the perspective of a different culture - would audiences have gone to see it? Would theaters have shown it?

The answers are probably no to both questions. Again, understandable. But at the same time - just because we understand the paradigm, must we continue to reinforce the status quo? Obviously my opinion is no, although I know other opinions exist and I see the reasons - after all, how many people knew about conflict diamonds before watching Blood Diamond? How many people knew who Idi Amin was before Last King of Scotland? So I don't know - maybe fictionalizing these situations is the best way to draw attention to them...but I just feel that the truth is getting smudged in the interpretations.

In the end, I guess my question is more of an opening to a dialogue. When is fiction the best way to tell a story? When is it harmful? To what extent are we responsible for telling the truth in a dramatization, and who do we hold accountable?

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Alex M., Movie Correspondent

Alex's column, Sunset Boulevard, published every Friday to Gather Essentials: Movies, is a weekly summary of the movie industry's biggest stories.

Alex is a film school grad working at a production company in Hollywood. She's been passionate about movies since she knew what they were and always has an opinion (for better or worse).

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