How is the “truth” conveyed in movies?
‘Truthful’ storytelling in film is more than just reporting an event exactly as it happened. One must consider several aspects—imagery, facts versus nonfacts, and themes carried through the tone of the film—to determine whether the telling of a story is truthful. These thematic facets can be observed in James Cameron’s 1997 epic Titanic. In the beginning of the film, there is an exploration in the ocean that leads to new discoveries in the wreckage of the Titanic. Some of the undersea shots of the Titanic wreckage were fake. James Cameron did in fact personally take a dive down to see the actual Titanic. However, new technology had to be developed to take the underwater shots at a depth of two miles, which were shown in the movie. It was only possible to take 12 minutes of film at the time. Some might have been disappointed by the lack of true footage of the actual Titanic in the only place it could have been obtained, since the image of the ship for the rest of the film obviously had to be computer generated. For a film to claim itself as “based on a true story” one would hope that it would stay as close to the real-life event as possible. The Titanic film has a love story in the foreground that was completely created on paper with each of the major characters being a work of fiction; saying it is “based on a true story” is a loose statement in this case, since the tragedy of the sunken ship is the background to the love story. Finally, an underlying theme of Titanic was the strife that encompasses immigration, similar to that of the actual feel of the age of the actual Titanic. The classes are separated on the ship throughout most of the film, with posh dinners taking place literally higher up on the ship than the immigrants who are having casual drunken fun in the lowest quarters. However, once the Titanic collides with the icebergs and everyone is frantically trying to climb aboard the lifeboats, social standing isn’t taken into account while the ship’s staff gathers as many individuals as possible. This reality strikes a chord with viewers who want the “based on a real story” feel of a film.
based on a true story feature films 