Even when based on actual events, classical Hollywood movies never strive for painstaking factual accuracy. This is best exemplified by the ever-present legal disclaimer “The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to the name, character and history of any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental,” which appears not only in horror, sci-fi or musical extravaganzas, but also in biopics and historical reconstructions. In the latter two cases, the contradiction is only apparent. While using the above disclaimer (or variations thereof) to protect themselves from defamation lawsuits, the studios openly acknowledge what any person of common sense knows already: in the filmmaking business, dramatization and other poetic licenses are essential to tell and sell exciting stories to an audience, since reality is too boring and complex for an evening's entertainment. In other words, a commercial film is not a...
- 7/9/2015
- by Michael Guarneri
- MUBI
Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, and Jean Arthur in The More the MerrierWriting about acting is hard. Or rather, avoiding bad writing about acting is hard. When starting this article I nearly fell into that dichotomous peril of guessing which little actions were choices made by the actor himself or the director in charge. That’s a dumb, unfruitful game that would warrant nothing more than self-congratulation if some historical figure were to admit how correct I was. Yet, that dumb, unfruitful notion was the first frame of this article, likely spawned from the innumerable like-minded articles about acting. I’m being this transparent because I’ve taken the call-to-arms from Kent Jones in the most recent issue of Film Comment. In his article, Jones lists the pratfalls critics take when talking about acting, more often than not relying on conventional wisdom about the mythos surrounding certain actors and conventional wisdom...
- 4/13/2015
- by Zach Lewis
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.