Well, sure. I would have used an example of a historical narrative, if I'd had one as handy and influential as I did Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I didn't, so I didn't.
Historical narratives -- a narrow kind of historical fiction -- aren't exactly uncommon. Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels comes to mind. Shaara wasn't around to record the words (or, for that matter, the thoughts) of his (largely but not totally fictional) characters.
Consider, for a moment, the miniseries Band of Brothers. and the remarkable (nonfiction) book on which it was based. Most -- but not all -- of the characters shown in the series were intended to represent specific real people (all of the 506th PIR soldiers representing real, specific folks; a few of the American officers senior to them were; very few others).
Basically none of the dialogue was contemporaneously recorded, and many of the microincidents were fictional creations (that so-and-so ran into that particular foxhole and had a conversation with that specific other guy, say).
On the other hand, the broad -- and many of the fine -- outlines of what happened, and to whom and when, are supported by the historical record, even though probaby less than 1% if the dialogue is.
Which means that, sure, it's not a documentary or even a recreation -- even though some of the cinematography was done specifically to make it feel like a documentary (the color pallet, some of the camera usage, etc.).
A legitimate criticism, I think, would be -- for either -- that the dialogue or other parts of the movies are inconsistent with what's known about what went on, or misleading. The Band Of Brothers series was criticized -- legitimately -- for the simplistic treatment of Herbert Sobel, which perhaps exaggerated his flaws and pretty much certainly minimized not only his virtues, but what Easy saw as his virtues (the men generally credited him with having trained them well, and made them effective later on; that doesn't come through on the screen).
The onboard dialogue on Flight 93 could be legitimately criticized as being inconsistent with what's known about what went on, if that's the case.
But criticizing the writer of Flight 93 for things like putting invented dialogue in the mouths of the characters is sort of like criticizing a stage production of "Harvey" because the lighting makes the rabbit somewhat difficult to see.
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Re: Well, yeah
Date: 2006-04-27 03:51 pm (UTC)Historical narratives -- a narrow kind of historical fiction -- aren't exactly uncommon. Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels comes to mind. Shaara wasn't around to record the words (or, for that matter, the thoughts) of his (largely but not totally fictional) characters.
Consider, for a moment, the miniseries Band of Brothers. and the remarkable (nonfiction) book on which it was based. Most -- but not all -- of the characters shown in the series were intended to represent specific real people (all of the 506th PIR soldiers representing real, specific folks; a few of the American officers senior to them were; very few others).
Basically none of the dialogue was contemporaneously recorded, and many of the microincidents were fictional creations (that so-and-so ran into that particular foxhole and had a conversation with that specific other guy, say).
On the other hand, the broad -- and many of the fine -- outlines of what happened, and to whom and when, are supported by the historical record, even though probaby less than 1% if the dialogue is.
Which means that, sure, it's not a documentary or even a recreation -- even though some of the cinematography was done specifically to make it feel like a documentary (the color pallet, some of the camera usage, etc.).
A legitimate criticism, I think, would be -- for either -- that the dialogue or other parts of the movies are inconsistent with what's known about what went on, or misleading. The Band Of Brothers series was criticized -- legitimately -- for the simplistic treatment of Herbert Sobel, which perhaps exaggerated his flaws and pretty much certainly minimized not only his virtues, but what Easy saw as his virtues (the men generally credited him with having trained them well, and made them effective later on; that doesn't come through on the screen).
The onboard dialogue on Flight 93 could be legitimately criticized as being inconsistent with what's known about what went on, if that's the case.
But criticizing the writer of Flight 93 for things like putting invented dialogue in the mouths of the characters is sort of like criticizing a stage production of "Harvey" because the lighting makes the rabbit somewhat difficult to see.