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Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Ridge!
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Author:  Bradley Witherberry [ Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:27 am ]
Post subject:  Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Ridge!

Ben Affleck starts new project detailing CIA’s battle at Vimy Ridge

Quote:
BOSTON - Riding on the success of his Oscar-win with Argo, Ben Affleck has begun working on a new documentary detailing the heroic efforts of wartime CIA officers at France’s Vimy Ridge.
“This is a story I’ve wanted to tell for some time, and I think the world is finally ready to hear about it,” smiled Affleck, proudly polishing his best picture Oscar over breakfast at a local Boston restaurant. “When audiences discover how CIA-underdogs defied the odds in World War one, taking this crucial ridge with the encouragement, smiles, and emotional support of all four divisions of the Canadian Corps, it’s really going to open their eyes.”

Detailing his vision for the project, Affleck glossed over a number of plot points, including President Woodrow Wilson giving a pep talk to a trembling Sir Robert Borden, and the CIA agents humbly turning down Victoria crosses and offering them to the Commonwealth soldiers that looked a little glum.

“It’s not about the intimate details of every officer or battle, or whether the CIA was actually really a thing yet or not. It’s about the victories, the courage,and the sacrifices made by a few good men. …and, of course, the Canadians that helped alongside them, sure.”

Affleck concluded his award-polishing, and kindly asked his server for a thick, cornmeal-laden helping of “American bacon.”



For a more serious take on the depth of the propaganda in Argo, the following article lays out the bullshit clearly:

Oscar Prints the Legend: Argo's Upcoming Academy Award and the Failure of Truth

Author:  Flava'd vs The World [ Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Rid

A film based on a true story was not entirely accurate? Call the police!

Author:  Algren [ Sat Mar 02, 2013 10:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Rid

"Based on" and "Inspired by" are the worst things about true life movies, but people should also learn how to comprehend phrases. Going to see a movie that has the line (on the poster, no doubt) "Inspired by actual events", and then lambasting the movie for not being 100% accurate, these people are morons. Same goes for the producers for taking a perfectly good story and tweaking with it but still selling it on the story's prominence.

So I just enjoy the movie and do not care if it was real. Braveheart, while I know the inaccuracies, is a fucking awesome film.

Author:  Bradley Witherberry [ Sun Mar 03, 2013 8:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Rid

It makes me so proud to see that today's citizens are willing to stand up for historical inaccuracy - - after all, lies are what make the world go round!!!

The sooner we forget the bad old days when movies attempted to honestly depict history, the better off we'll all be....

Quote:
Oscar voters’ double standard gave Argo a free pass: Meanwhile, Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln were criticized for perceived inaccuracies.

I miss the days when moviegoers did go to the cinema expecting to find truth, or something very close to it, and not just from documentary films. From the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s, during the celebrated “New Hollywood” era, there was a cachet to depicting reality, even if it didn’t lead to a Best Picture win.

I’m thinking in particular about All the President’s Men, by Alan J. Pakula, a superlative movie and director acknowledged by Affleck as major influences on Argo. Based on the non-fiction book of the same name by the Washington Post’s Watergate sleuths Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the 1976 film makes journalistic accuracy the thrust of its story.

The Oscar-winning script by William Goldman accrues detail, fact by fact, relying on acknowledged truth rather than speculation. For his part, Pakula eschews the Hollywood tropes that Affleck so eagerly embraces in Argo. There are no car chases, airport showdowns or guns firing in All the President’s Men, unlike Argo’s imaginary scenario, and the CIA people are anything but heroic. Instead, Pakula and cinematographer Gordon Willis make imaginative use of light, space and structure to create an intense feeling of paranoia, of corrupt government vs. honest citizens.

All the President’s Men doesn’t begin with “based on a true story,” the cop-out used by Argo and many of today’s truth-challenged dramas. That’s because Pakula’s film isn’t “just a movie”; it’s an honest effort to depict events that actually happened.

Much of the film consists of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, as reporters Woodward and Bernstein, scribbling notes, dialing rotary phones and expending shoe leather as they doggedly chase down leads about chicanery in the administration of then-U.S. president Richard Nixon, a story that ultimately led to his 1974 resignation.

Pakula and Goldman may have taken a few artistic liberties, such as the narrative compression standard to all movies. But they didn’t invent major dramatic elements for a factual story that was already compelling enough.

Maybe this is why All the President’s Men didn’t win the 1976 Best Picture prize, which instead went to Rocky, the inspirational and mostly fictional boxing drama written by and starring Sylvester Stallone.

Author:  David [ Sun Mar 03, 2013 8:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Rid

Expecting a completely authentic history lesson from a narrative studio film is an absolute fool's errand.

Author:  Bradley Witherberry [ Sun Mar 03, 2013 8:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ben Affleck's New Project: CIA’s WWI Victory At Vimy Rid

David wrote:
Expecting a completely authentic history lesson from a narrative studio film is an absolute fool's errand.

True.

My expectations are for manipulative propaganda.


(Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to quite kill off my irrational hope for simultaneously historically accurate world building movies that are also slam bang entertainment. :( )

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