Movie adaptations of novels are generally very, very questionable in terms of true-to-the-original accuracy. And novels at least have the advantage of having been written for the kind of entertainment-driven everything-fits-together narrative that movies are compelled to conform to. Real life, with its terribly inconvenient nature for pacing and self-contradicting, does even less well when compacted into 2 hours for a primarily visual medium.
If you see a movie adaptation, you can be pretty sure it's inaccurate. The question of accuracy shouldn't be in the detail; it should be in the message that the movie was trying to tell.
"Ip Man - A Legend is Born", for instance, conveyed Yip Man's desire to spread Wing Chun better than any other movie biography, whereas "Ip Man" best discussed his philosophy of life and "The Grandmaster" put him into a historical context completely ignored by the other movies. They're all factually wrong, but they're wrong with different emphases and strengths because they're expressing different perspectives on the same life.
- Most characters didn't exist, they are *inspired* by real persons
- He never had visual hallucinations, only auditory
- The hallucinations started *after* college
- He and his wife divorced in 1963, they only remarried in 2001.
- The pen laying and the Nobel ceremony never happened
- Near the end of the movie, he say he's taking "new meds" while in real life,
he stopped taking them after the mid 70's and he's vocal about it.
The scenarist added it because he or she feared it would encourage people
not taking med.
- Etc.
Holywood story-makers don't believe that reality is good for the crowds. So you get a sugar version, of what it could be.
Some times you go so far as making movies like 'Argo' where a total fiasco which led to the demise of a president, is pictured in totally different set-up and served as a success.
And here is the beauty of the Internet. We wouldn't know that, if information wasn't freely flowing online.
> Holywood story-makers don't believe that reality is good for the crowds.
This probably makes it sound more intentionally evil than it is. I think the real truth is that "Hollywood story-makers don't believe that reality is good for the box office."
You will never get all the detail right about someone's life; the best you can hope for is to focus on a slice and the the spirit right. Nikki Lauda is pretty happy with Rush, as an example of something done pretty well, but it deliberately confined itself to a little background and a year in Lauda and Hunt's lives.
I assume every single one has bias of some description. Problem is, they are all written by humans. I think most are an attempt at some sort of honesty, but with the best will in the world, they are always going to problems....
Hang on... Have I been whooshed? Was that meant to be amusingly naive?
