Hollywood Can’t Handle the Truth, but Who Cares?

There is an ongoing controversy and debate over alleged “historical inaccuracies” in a number of top Hollywood films that will soon be up for awards. I gather that either the writers or directors of these true stories took a few liberties here and there, using artistic license.

I feel for these filmmakers. They do the best they can.

For example, for “The Hurricane,” a film about the falsely imprisoned prizefighter Rubin Carter, at least they didn’t make Carter a rich, blond 17-year-old from Beverly Hills.

As for “The Insider,” a story about a fired employee of a tobacco company, I’m positive that no person connected to this project ever seriously considered having Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes” sing the movie’s theme song.

“Boys Don’t Cry,” meanwhile, a true story about a Nebraska woman who pretends to be a man, was probably never pitched to Disney by a producer as a story about a cartoon dog who pretends to be a cat. (Although I bet somebody did suggest a Nebraska-woman-who-pretends -to-be-a-man computer game.)

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Historical inaccuracy is an unfortunate thing. I know of one dolt, for instance, who in a recent newspaper column twisted a couple of facts. He wrote that a ship leaving Panama in 1857 sailed 60 years before the Titanic sank in 1912--duh--and, in identifying a port at the northern entrance to the Panama Canal, made it seem that the canal existed then, when it didn’t open until 1914.

With this writer’s former math and geography teachers in hiding and unavailable for comment, please accept his assurance that these were honest mistakes, not deliberate distortions of reality.

I do know what it is like, though, to attempt to tell the truth and feel a temptation to lie.

At a meeting once, in the office of a producer to discuss a project about a famous athlete, he kept asking if the man ever had an extramarital affair.

“None I know of,” I said.

“He must have,” the producer said. “Imagine all the women who must have thrown themselves at him.”

“Not according to his wife,” I told him, having spoken with the athlete’s widow and read several biographies.

“Sure,” the producer replied, “like he’s going to tell her.”

Athletic prowess alone not being enough to fill a film, there was obviously a need for conflict, for romance, for something. And I actually began to mull it over. Perhaps a strange woman could keep coming on to our hero. Maybe we could invent a groupie who lures him with her charms. Or maybe we could. . . .

And that’s how truth-bending begins.

I am a dues-paying member of the screenwriters’ union, the Writers Guild of America, even though my only real success in Hollywood is that I once sat through an entire movie without asking the person behind me to shut up. As a member in good standing, I get to vote for films nominated for WGA awards.

Am I to disqualify, say, “The Insider,” one of five WGA nominees announced Wednesday for best screenplay based on material previously produced someplace else, just because certain facts may have been fudged for dramatic effect?

If so, then I might need to question every true story ever told, including “Titanic,” the film made by James Cameron that won so many awards 60 years ago--sorry, I mean in 1998.

Must every detail be correct? Must nothing be exaggerated? The answers are yes, if a film is to satisfy every member of its audience as well as every human involved in its making. But exact truth is never easy to tell, particularly in a span of two or three hours.

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I’m a guy who gets upset when fiction is changed. “Forrest Gump” in the novel was a 6-foot, 6-inch oaf who became an astronaut. Roy Hobbs in the pages of “The Natural” didn’t homer in his last turn at bat; he struck out.

The screen version of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”--also a WGA nominee--features key characters, such as one played by Cate Blanchett and another an Italian woman, who aren’t even in the book.

But eventually I get over it. True or false, a film is mere storytelling. I would never trust one “based on a true story” to mirror the truth, but simply to interpret it.

Therefore, if perhaps “The Hurricane” or “The Insider” doesn’t ring 100% true, that’s OK. As long as they don’t go too far, like having Hurricane Carter win the championship of the world with a 12th-round knockout of Mike Wallace, I won’t cry about it.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com