A Surge of Reality Overtakes the Movies

Maybe Hollywood was listening to David Puttnam after all.

In 1986, the crusading British producer launched his stint as head of Columbia Pictures with a plea for movies that hew closer to real life.

Now, Puttnam is gone. But studio release schedules are suddenly heavy with--of all things--movies that hew closer to real life.

“It’s amazing. I . . . think it’s our influence,” said Catherine Wyler, who headed Columbia’s nonfiction movie department--the only such division at a major studio--during Puttnam’s brief tenure.

High-profile projects among the current nonfiction movie crop include Warner Bros.’ “Bird,” about jazz great Charlie Parker; Universal’s “Gorillas in the Mist,” about naturalist Dian Fossey; Orion’s “Eight Men Out,” about the 1919 World Series scandal, and Atlantic’s “Patty Hearst,” about the kidnaped heiress.

But that’s not all. Between now and Christmas, at least a dozen more “reality-based” feature films will cover topics that range from sordid crime (“A Cry in the Dark”) and wartime heroics (“BAT 21,” “Hanna’s War”) to run-at-the-mouth radio (“Talk Radio”) and religious rapture (“Bernadette”).

In fact, the current surge in “reality-based” film making may owe less to Puttnam (“The Killing Fields,” “Chariots of Fire”) than to pressure from maturing audiences and a sharp increase in the total number of films being made.

“These films generate a lot of media attention. That’s a big plus when there are a lot of movies out there. . . . There’s also an audience swing toward more realistic movies. People like real stories,” said Tri-Star production president Jeff Sagansky. His studio is planning to produce a Mel Brooks-directed comedy based on the true story of a woman who murdered her philandering husband. “It’s called ‘I Love You to Death.’ It’s a very black comedy,” said Sagansky.

Wyler, now an independent producer, said studio executives in the pre-Puttnam era sometimes seemed reluctant to invest the effort required to think through, let alone make, many nonfiction films. “These movies are very rarely what you’d call high concept. They generally take more than five words to explain,” she said.

(For the record, the movie Wyler most regrets not making at Columbia is the real-life drama of Lillian Leitzel, a Ringling Bros. circus star of the 1930s who thrilled the crowd by twirling from a tent pole until her wrists were bloody. “She was the Madonna of her day,” the producer explained.)

As “Tucker” proved, however, “reality-based” movies sometimes get more attention from the media than from audiences. “Traditionally, (nonfiction films) just don’t have as much wide appeal. People want to be entertained,” said John Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations, a Los Angeles-based theater consulting firm.

They also pose a classic Hollywood problem: Exactly how much reality is enough?

Among the current nonfiction crop, some films aim for dead-on realism. “Patty Hearst,” directed by Paul Schrader, for instance, is rigorously faithful to the heiress’ book, and star Natasha Richardson is a startling look-alike for the kidnaped Hearst.

But the facts are allowed to evolve a bit more loosely in other cases.

Tri-Star’s “BAT 21,” for example, is based on a novel that, in turn, was based on Air Force Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton’s odyssey behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War. The real Hambleton braved infection, starvation and hand-to-hand combat while hiding from the Viet Cong for 12 days. In the movie version, Gene Hackman crams the same woes into about a third as much time--but that’s entertainment.

Among the other offerings:

“Imagine: John Lennon” (Warner Bros., Oct. 7): Timing couldn’t be better, coming on the heels of Albert Goldman’s Lennon-bashing biography. David Wolper’s film remembrance of the ex-Beatle promises to be downright reverential. It is based largely on footage from Yoko Ono’s private films of her husband, who would have been 48 years old on Oct. 9.

“Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie” (Goldwyn, Oct. 26): Documentary look at the Nazi “Butcher of Lyons,” by German-born director Marcel Ophuls (“The Sorrow and the Pity”). At 4 1/2 hours, this is probably the longest film of the fall, nonfiction or otherwise. But relax. It was 120 hours before Ophuls started cutting.

“Talk Radio” (Cineplex, December): Oliver Stone is back, with a movie based on an Eric Bogosian play, which, in turn, was loosely based on the 1984 murder of Denver radio talk-show host Alan Berg. Bogosian plays the fictionalized hero, Barry Champlain. Stone has kept unusually quiet about this one: One associate says that’s because the writer-director believes that excess publicity hurt “Wall Street” last year. To judge from the snippet Cineplex showed at the Cannes Film festival, Stone (“Salvador,” “Scarface”) hasn’t mellowed a bit.

“Mississippi Burning” (Orion, December): Gene Hackman again--this time as a Southern-sheriff-turned-FBI-agent, who comes to terms with a Northern-born superior during the red-hot summer of 1964. The film deals with the real-life disappearance and subsequent killing of three civil rights workers in a Mississippi town. Directed by Alan Parker--whose “Midnight Express,” also based on a true story, was produced by Puttnam.

“U-2: Rattle and Hum” (Paramount, Nov. 4): Directed by USC whiz kid Phil Joanou, who caught Hollywood’s eye with a hot student film, but bombed with his first feature, “Three O’Clock High.” This one documents a concert tour with one of the world’s hottest bands and coincides with a double album to be released on Island Records. Paramount’s hoping to outdo “Raw,” which grossed $50 million for the studio in 1987.

“To Kill a Priest” (Columbia, Oct. 21): Christopher Lambert (“The Sicilian”) plays Polish priest Jerzy Popieluszko, who was murdered by secret police in 1984. The film is directed by Polish-born Agnieszka Holland, best known here for her “Angry Harvest,” which was nominated for a best foreign-language film Oscar in 1968. Even Wyler concedes this may be one of the toughest sells left over from the Puttnam regime.

“The Beast” (Columbia, Oct. 7): A fictional, but highly topical, film about a Soviet tank crew dogged by Moujahedeen guerrillas in the wilds of Afghanistan. In a weird twist, Columbia tried to bring the film closer to home by having the Soviet tank crew speak in American slang, while the Afghans speak their native language, with subtitles. It all started when writer William Mastrosimone saw videotape of an Afghan boy run over by a tank, and wrote a play about it.

“A Cry in the Dark” (Warner Bros., Nov. 4): Meryl Streep and Sam Neill replay a bizarre Australian case, in which a mother tries to prove she is innocent of killing her infant daughter. Directed by Fred Schepisi (“Roxanne”), based on a book by John Bryson.

“Hanna’s War” (Cannon, Oct. 28): According to director Menachem Golan, Israeli freedom fighter Hanna Senesh was a combination of Joan of Arc and Anne Frank, who might have rivaled Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir if she hadn’t been killed by the Nazi puppet regime in Hungary. With reality like that, who needs fiction? In the movie version, Senesh is played by Dutch-born Maruschka Detmers.

“Bernadette” (Cannon, October). Jennifer Jones won an Oscar for her touching 1943 portrayal of Bernadette Soubirous (“The Song of Bernadette”), a woman who saw the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes. This time around, Cannon decided to stick with the facts. “Our movie is more from a historical perspective. It’s based on written transcripts, the police and doctors’ reports, that sort of thing,” said a Cannon publicist. Sydney Penny plays Bernadette.

Times intern Tammy Sims contributed to this story.