Final Paper
For my final paper I looked at the relationship between true stories and cinematic representations of them.
I was pulled into that question because I was still very intrigued by the film Boys Don't Cry (which I wrote my mid-term about) and the fact that this was based on something that actually happened.
I examined 3 films, one documentary, one independent, and one Hollywood.
For the documentary I discussed Lourdes Portillo's Senorita Extraviada. I thought that this was a great example of women telling other women's stories and giving them a voice they didn't have.
She was ethically responsible to these women and had to go up against the government officials and big businesses that don't support the issue. I think that the film brought attention to the subject and achieved its goal of promoting change in Ciudad Juarez.
As I mentioned already my indie film was Boys Don't Cry. I examined the difference between telling the emotional truth and factual truth of a story with this film.
I found that Kimberly Peirce did research and knew the characters and story, but what really was important to her was to find the emotions and focus on that instead of getting every detail right. She met backlash for this with some of the real people involved, even the town, but I think that she achieved what she set out to do. As a filmmaker I think she has artistic license with the story and that in a lot of ways the audience should look into it further if they want to know exactly what really happened. (Like 3 people were actually murdered not only 2 as was depicted in the film).
The Hollywood film I included was Erin Brockovich. I thought this would be a good one because of its contrast to Boys Don’t Cry. For this film the main character is not only alive but very much involved in the making of the film. Because of this almost everything is extremely accurate (even copies of the certificates on the office walls). I felt as though this was an anomaly for Hollywood to be so factual but I attribute this to the story already being what they are looking for. It’s a “Cinderella� story that needed little altering to be marketable for mainstream audiences. Steven Soderberg therefore told it in a docudrama style way.
All three films were very different yet all claimed to tell “true stories�. That emphasizes the importance to investigate these things further, in any case, to really get the whole picture. The film will remain to be just one person’s view of the situation and then it’s in your hands.