Sparring Continues Over the Truth or Falsity of ‘Hurricane’

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Patrick Goldstein that perhaps the “dramatic liberties” Norman Jewison has taken with Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s story in “The Hurricane” are so crucial as to falsify the real events it purports to be based on (“Will This Fight End With a TKO?,” Feb. 8).

Nor does it occur to all the complaining makers of earlier films mentioned in Goldstein’s piece that their efforts may have suffered from the same kind of falsification.

Transforming real events into film drama is obviously a complex and difficult business. However, “based on” is an invitation to critical examination and judgment, not a boilerplate cover for any liberties a filmmaker may wish, for commercial or other reasons, to take. What is at issue is a far more important matter than a mere failure in PR, as the makers of “The Hurricane” would have it.

RICHARD ABCARIAN

Venice

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As a documentary director (who made a British TV film about the Hurricane Carter-John Artis murder case as long ago as 1977), I think Eric Harrison misses the point about truth in movies (“A Filmmaker Fictionalizes to Get at Difficult Truths,” Feb. 7).

If you invent characters or leave them out (as Carter’s co-defendant John Artis was left out of “The Hurricane”), we are entitled to wonder what else you have changed to suit your version of events. Once you make changes, for whatever reason, and those changes are not disclosed in any way, why should we believe that anything you have shown us really happened?

Of course, any account of real events will be subjective, but what is disturbing is when the necessity to tell the truth as you know it is abandoned. This robs a true story of its one single value: its truth.

FRANCIS MEGAHY

Beverly Hills

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Regarding Eric Harrison’s articles of Feb. 6 and 7: The concept of accuracy in art is oxymoronic. Standards of fact apply to history but are misapplied to drama. In drama, concerns of historical accuracy are peremptorily overridden by dramaturgical imperatives. The artist’s obligation to history consists in leaving it to historians, just as oil painters should leave accuracy to photographers.

Unless a filmmaker offers his work as a documentary, he forfeits the right to have it judged by factual criteria. And even documentaries must be mediated by documentarians exercising editorial judgment and determining which subset of the facts is relevant. Inaccurate films “don’t allow the society to see what really happened” (to quote Carter attorney Lewis M. Steel) only if society is stupid enough to use them as substitutes for history books.

JIM JOHNSON

Whittier

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The real problem is the refusal of the mainstream press to acknowledge that there are reasonable and convincing arguments on both sides of the Carter case. There is a solid body of evidence that suggests that Carter is in fact a triple murderer. There are also good arguments to be made suggesting his innocence. By so consistently presenting Carter as “unjustly imprisoned” and a victim of “false murder charges,” The Times and other mainstream media do the public a great disservice by attempting to make up our minds for us, instead of presenting a more balanced and unbiased point of view.

RICHARD BRULAND

Los Angeles

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All this controversy surrounding “The Hurricane” disturbs but doesn’t surprise me. Movies, especially about black males, that challenge our safe notions about the criminal justice system locking up bad guys and keeping good folk safe are unsettling for many.

“The Hurricane” is a powerful story of human suffering and ultimately of triumph. Knowing that it was based on a real story made it all the more moving for me. I don’t care whether each detail was verbatim. The man did 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. That alone makes it a remarkable story and one that should be told.

Unfortunately, I have no problem believing that similar situations exist throughout the American criminal justice system. Anyone who can’t acknowledge that is living in a fantasy world.

SYDNEY WILLIAMS

Los Angeles

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I’ve wondered for a long time what truth is. Somehow I thought truth might be something real, something that could be found in the facts of a situation. Clearly I’d missed what filmmaker Kimberly Peirce figured out in Harrison’s Feb. 7 piece, that “facts [are] in service to the truth. You can change facts, you can change characters, you can change everything, in search of the basic truth.”

What worries me about Peirce is her decision that as a storyteller, she is able to determine what motives and faults made for the murder of Teena Brandon and the other two other victims in Nebraska. She feels that with her art she can say what is buried behind the real events and is not afraid to speak of her conjecture as “truth.”

If art or the movies are really the myth Peirce claims they are, I think she has an obligation to stay clear on her roots in fiction. Her stories shouldn’t pretend to tell the real story, only that they are based on real events. Because if the storytellers confuse truth with a good tale, you can be sure that the audience will too.

SUVAN GEER

Santa Ana