The Envelope: To get ahead in movie awards season, rivals argue facts and defend truths

Last year, the protests started around mid-awards season. The movie “Selma” didn’t tell its story right, the buzz went; it unfairly portrayed President Lyndon Johnson. And by the time all was said and done, the only big award “Selma” took home was for its stirring song “Glory.”

But in 2015, awards season crankiness got an early start. After seeing the trailer for Danny Boyle’s “Steve Jobs” in July, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told the Guardian that “accuracy is second to entertainment” — and ever since then, it’s been like an open season on big-game pictures. “Jobs,” “Black Mass” and the Christmas release “Concussion” — among other awards season hopefuls — have all suffered slings and arrows sent their way over questions of accuracy, details or outside influence.

SIGN UP for the free Indie Focus movies newsletter >>

What’s behind the nitpicking? “Oscar politicking,” says Michael London, producer for the Cold War blacklist film “Trumbo.” “You anticipate there’ll be a certain amount of blowback [when you tell the story of real-life events], but you just hope the criticisms are fair and people see the movie.”

“Trumbo,” which opened earlier this month, hasn’t found itself in the crosshairs — yet. But a movie about censorship and blacklists in the McCarthy-era U.S. is bound to find itself under the gun eventually. “There are a lot of people who like to write nasty stuff, and these movies do create targets for people to make rash judgments about,” London adds.

Decrying a film’s accuracy does add a strange twist to the usual seasonal melee. After all, there are categories designed for nonfiction storytelling — documentaries. Non-docs, by definition, require at least some level of suspension of disbelief; even when “based on a true story,” these movies are ultimately works of fiction.

“There are plenty of lawyers around, especially when you’re dealing with a story like this,” says Boyle. “[‘Jobs’] is an impressionistic portrait, not a documented photograph that’s trying to resemble reality.”

Additionally, there already has been a documentary made of the Apple co-founder; “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” was directed by Alex Gibney and released this year. Similarly, “Freeheld,” the fictionalization, is based on “Freeheld,” Cynthia Wade’s 2007 Oscar-winning short.

Fictionalization is necessary when a film isn’t a documentary, says “Freeheld” producer Stacey Sher, who has done just that in the past with such movies as “Erin Brockovich.” Compression of individuals into one character or multiple events into a single one makes it possible to squeeze a life into two hours or so, which is something everyone who watches movies knows by this point. “There were a lot of conversations Cynthia couldn’t delve into,” says Sher. “We got to show the love story that is the backbone to [our characters’] fight, and we got to dig into their hearts and minds.”

Yet Brad Weston, president and chief executive of New Regency Productions (which is behind the Christmas release “The Revenant”), says the focus on mistakes or omissions is press-related as well. “There is more reporting on awards than there’s ever been and it’s part of the campaigning process — which is negative campaigning,” he says. “The volume of outlets now covering awards season and the immediacy of trying to get an interesting story — this is the result.”

Boyle agrees: “I can only imagine it’s because the season tends to be protracted and there tends to be time to explore these films more than you might do normally. Whether that’s natural curiosity or sponsored, I wouldn’t want to guess.”

Still, while the media could take some blame for exploring every conceivable angle, in the end, the question is one police detectives might ask: Who benefits from the crime of rubbing out a particular film? The competition. And so, we circle back around to negative campaigning between studios.

“‘Selma’ made some mistakes in terms of how they depicted Johnson and his attitude, but it felt like rival studios exploited whatever that modest issue was to discredit the picture,” noted one filmmaker, who didn’t want his name used for fear of harming working relationships.

“People want to cut down someone else to make their own project look better, which is unfortunate,” says Bill Pohlad, who directed and produced the Brian Wilson bio film “Love & Mercy.” “We should let films stand on their own. People are going to have opinions, but they’re just opinions.”

And as Stanley Kubrick once noted, the truth of a film comes from the feel of it, not the “think” of it: Judging even the most historically accurate of films with journalistic standards discounts the emotional effect it has on the viewer. It isn’t so much that something in a fictional film happened exactly as filmed — but that it feels emotionally true to portray it as such.

Still, that’s a hard needle to thread in the heat of awards marketing campaigns.

As producer of “Straight Outta Compton,” Ice Cube is new to the whole awards-season fracas, but he has no problem with any historical naysayers out there.

“Trying to squeeze 10 years into 2 hours and 20 minutes — no way you’re going to have a linear story that runs like a documentary,” he says. “There have been several movies about Elvis. So if someone wants a crack at it, the world can accept another N.W.A movie. To all the people who don’t think we got it right: Be my guest.”

calendar@latimes.com