Truth: 2 hrs & 1 min, color, 2015
Martian: 2 hrs & 10 min, 2015
Truth! That is not a
strange title for a story about the perils of journalism. Facts as opposed to deception, facts as
opposed to fiction, facts as opposed to pretense, facts as opposed to outright
lying! At the very minimum, it is the
reporter’s job to disclose the verifiable news, to be accurate in every
detail. But there is another definition
of this much repeated and respected word.
There is truth as a recognized principle at work in human discourse, or
as a transcendent quality of human aspiration.
Truth that is ennobling and inviting but elusive, something to be
striven for but impossible to bracket or encapsulate!
There is nothing abstract
about the specific body of fact with which this Sony release is concerned. In 2004 CBS caused a scandal when it
published supposedly incriminating information about the Vietnam War record of
George W. Bush. Did he pull strings to
have himself given preferential treatment when he signed up with the Texas Air
National Guard, later to shift to the Alabama Air National Guard? Did he find a dishonest way to get out of
combat? Under the supervision of Dan
Rather (played by Robert Redford) the allegation was made; for a spell the
findings looked like a slam dunk expose of nefarious activity. But the network ran into questions and
objections from various quarters that cast doubt upon the accuracy of the
report. This was after the story aired
on 60 Minutes.
All those who were involved
in the making of the report came under deadly fire once the seemingly air tight
case fell apart. Chief among the
participants who suffered repercussions was a CBS journalist by the name of
Mary Mapes (portrayed by Cate Blanchett).
A long time contributor to the network, she fell victim to an
independent investigation. The ordeal
resulted in her being fired from the CBS staff and in Rather’s removal from the
anchor position. Professionally neither
ever really recovered. That much, as I
have stated, is irrefutable fact. What
really happened among members of the military on Bush’s behalf during the
Vietnam conflict remains a muddy question.
The affair is recreated with
great dramatic punch by Director/Writer James Vanderbilt, who gets top quality
performances out of his sizeable cast, in particular Blanchett, who in any film
in which she appears can seemingly do no wrong.
I confess to being a fan of well made and explosive docudramas. “The Insider” and “All the President’s Men”
are two of my very favorites. Those two
classics covered a wide spectrum of investigation, and they depicted stories
that the public had already digested through newspapers and coverage in all the
media. There is no use made of innuendo
or hearsay. The narratives already
belonged to the viewers; all we craved from the film makers were the exciting
particulars, blow by blow.
“Truth” on the other hand
suffers from trying to construct a scenario based upon only one primary source,
and that is the memoir Mapes wrote and published a year after her dismissal,
“Truth and Duty: The President and the Privilege of Power”. It appears from circulated information that
Vanderbilt bought into her claims and conclusions about the former President
and set out apparently to clear her name and reputation. This makes the film, despite its raw, bare
knuckle treatment, somewhat slanted in its point of view. There are many more voices and editorial
treatments that could have been consulted.
Where is the objectivity that such a controversial subject about such an
unsettled controversy calls for?
I look for a docudrama not
only to fill us in on what really happened but to point us toward questions and
issues of timeless concern. What kind of
society are we? How do we handle
disclosures that challenge the claims we as a democracy make about standards of
honesty to which we allegedly hold ourselves accountable?
Mapes relayed the truth (that
is, the facts) insofar as she perceived and understood it. I am not demonizing her labors of love. In fact, I get that her outright firing was
rather unfair; what she created was not yellow journalism. And the question of Bush’s culpability still
lingers in the minds of political commentators.
Despite any misgivings I may have about the thoroughness of the film’s
coverage, Blanchett’s dynamite performance makes it dramatically worth the
viewer’s attention.
There was a time when it
would have been foolish to raise the question of what redeeming social value an
outer space science fiction movie might possess. When I was growing up they were little more
than jerky make believe sideshows that existed for little more than the kid stuff
at the Saturday matinees. During my teen
years they began to demonstrate some keenness of imagination and raise
questions about the perils and the prospects of interplanetary travel, but they
were still flimsy narratives pasted together by circus carnival
showmanship. Science had not yet caught
up with the restless vision of the story tellers. But then came “2001: A Space Odyssey” in the
late 1960s, and space adventure on screen has never been the same since.
That landmark production
ushered in a no-nonsense approach to what was conceivable for the future;
nothing since then has looked cheap and tacky, not even the Star Wars
franchise. And now we have a shrewd and
fast-paced yarn set apparently in the late twenty-first century (though no year
of speculation is ever given) after travel to the red planet has become
feasible, with a portrayal of advanced technology that it requires a highly
trained scientific mind to even grasp much less to follow.
Matt Damon is an American
astronaut unintentionally marooned on Mars by his space crew, who are sure he
has been killed in, and buried by, a dust storm.
Perhaps in my approach to the
movie I got misdirected by expectation.
For months I waited to see what I thought would be a tale of personal
survival. I was prepared to see the
struggle Damon goes through largely from his point of view. What goes through a man’s mind, heart and
soul when he has to live without human contact of any kind for what amounts to
approximately a year and a half? How
does he cope with the problem of preserving life’s necessities, within only a
limited time before not only his food and water but his oxygen supply are
depleted? I was prepared for a lot of
flow of consciousness, as memories of his family are made vivid in
flashback. I was prepared for him to be
accosted by nightmares and to demonstrate a goodly amount of near panic and
maybe desperation as the day by day grind wears away at him. I was expecting to be deeply embedded with
him in every sense of the word. But such
was not the case.
The lengthy film is instead a
depiction of an elaborate and almost fantastic rescue operation, as the
officials at NASA and the crew of the ship debate different modus operandi for
pulling off the stunt. The screenplay
keeps cutting us away from Damon and showing up in various places in the
panoply of outer space engineering. It
escalates to a marvel of a climax, with little doubt left in the viewer’s mind
as to the outcome. But it turns out that
the technology is the star of the film, a technology that is as foreign to my
comprehension as an alien solar system.
The stranded astronaut gets what I consider the short end of the stick
in the final analysis.
Jessica Chastain does get in
a few fine moments as the pilot of the rescue operation, who has made the
original decision to blast off from the planet, assuming Damon to be dead. After learning that he is still among the
living she is driven by a feeling of guilt to be assuaged by nothing less than
bringing him back into the arc of safety.
But even in her case character development is in short supply. This is a plot driven film, technically
proficient, with lots of momentum and kinetic energy, all under the directorial
hand of veteran Ridley Scott and based on a novel by Andy Weir. That is
probably enough to satisfy many unimpeachable tastes.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the
blog entry for August 9, 2013.
