Dem
51
GOP
49
Here is the question we put before readers many weeks ago:
D.P. in Sunnyvale, CA, asks: Following up on questions regarding histories being portrayed in the movies, what true historical event/person/story do you think could be turned into a good movie with little to no artistic liberties?
And here some of the answers we got in response:
O.O. in San Diego, CA: Rod Blagojevich, his wife Patti Mell Blagojevich, and her father Richard Mell. You might have to throw some money at them for their story. And throw some money at fact checkers. But the family drama is outstanding even without the crime.
M.W.O. in Syracuse, NY: Not political, but I would pay to see the Berry Gordy story. What a soundtrack that would be!
P.N. in Indianapolis, IN: The story of Robert Smalls, the politician who was born into slavery and stole a Confederate ship during the Civil War, would be a fantastic limited series or film. To the best of my knowledge there are not any pieces about his life.
S.T. in Ocean Grove, NJ: Perhaps Lin Manuel-Miranda could strike gold a second time with Lafayette. While much is known about the Marquis' role in the American Revolution, of course, he was very much in the "Room Where It Happened" during the French Revolution, culminating in the offer (and his rejection) of the French dictatorship in 1830. The ending scene is also already well-written, with a cross-Atlantic view of Lafayette receiving the same memorial honors in the U.S. as George Washington, while in Paris he was buried under soil from Bunker Hill.
M.S. in Knoxville, TN: The life of Robert F. Williams, described in Timothy Tyson's excellent book Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, would make a fantastic movie. The head of the NAACP chapter in Monroe, North Carolina, in the late 1950's and early 1960's, Williams was a progenitor of the subsequent Black Power movement. Although he would have preferred to have been a poet, he organized armed resistance to the Klan, who often paraded through the Black community of Monroe behind police squad cars. A fiery speaker, Willims toured the country, building a following. He had a particularly strong base of power among the Harlem intelligentsia. However he aroused the suspicions and resistance of the civil rights establishment, including Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, and Roy Wilkins.
Williams' insistence that he would protect his wife, family, home, and community by any means necessary led to his suspension from the national NAACP. Nonetheless, at a NAACP rally in Harlem a couple of years later celebrating the 7th anniversary of Brown v. Board, large numbers of "agitators" heckled the NAACP leaders and chanted "We want Williams!" The NAACP officials had to virtually beg Williams to speak, after which Williams was hoisted onto the shoulders of crowd, and the heckling resumed.
Ultimately, Williams was forced to expatriate to Cuba, from which he broadcast a radio show called Radio Free Dixie, filled with sixties jazz, soul, and rock music, and politics. During his exile, he shared platforms with Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, and Ho Chi Minh.
Williams later returned to the United States, and died peacefully in his bed. He was buried in Monroe in a suit given to him by Mao. Rosa Parks gave the eulogy.
M.M. in San Diego, CA: Robert Ballard, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, would make a compelling subject for a historical film—especially all the undercover work he did for the U.S. Navy locating lost submarines and other sunken vessels, which is how he came across the wreck of the Titanic and the Bismarck. He was the first to find hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, in 1977. He has had a hand in most ocean floor mapping projects, critical for submarine operations. And it was the Office of Naval Research that funded Ballard's deep sea submersible Alvin.
D.R. in Phoenix, AZ: Caligula, the story of a deranged leader terrorizing his people, would be perfect for our times.
W.V. in Andover, MD: For a very contemporary story with a powerful protagonist, I suggest a film about David Hogg, survivor of the Stoneman Douglas shooting in Florida, who has become a leading gun control activist. A documentary was done a year after the tragedy, After Parkland but I think we need a movie about a relatable and powerful hero, like David, who has done so much with his life following the tragedy that upturned his life trajectory. Perhaps a Sully for a young hero of the 2020s, starring a 20-something version of Tom Hanks.
D.R. in Chicago, IL: The story of the last battle of the Civil War, which took place in Alaska, 2 months AFTER the Civil War ended. The Confederate ship Shenandoah won the battle, but as they destroyed 22 Yankee whaling ships, they ended whaling in the U.S.
T.L. in West Orange, NJ: I nominate the life of physicist Richard Feynman. You've got him practicing safecracking at the Manhattan Project, making huge breakthroughs in theoretical physics while sitting in strip clubs, and being a key member of the Rogers Commission that analyzed the Challenger disaster. Given the successes of The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything and, of course, Oppenheimer, I think the time is ripe for a FeynFilm.
J.T. in Marietta, GA: A great movie could be made of the life of almost ANY European woman artist up to the twentieth century. These days, many people may know of Artemisia Gentileschi, who was famously raped as a teenager by her father's studio assistant in the early 1600s (and in fact she has already had a biopic made about her, though with great license). Less known is the fascinating Italian Sofonisba Anguissola, who invented a new form of portraiture and whose fame led to a position as painter to the queen in the sixteenth-century Spanish court. Upon her return to Italy in her fifties, she impetuously married a much younger sea captain! Her fame was so extensive that Anthony van Dyck visited the elderly Anguissola to pay his respects and draw her portrait. Finally, if even half of the memoirs of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun are to be believed, her story would make a fantastic movie about court life in ancien régime France (as well as the aftermath of the French Revolution). Less is known about many other early women artists, but their lives would also make fascinating filmed portraits, even if more fictionalized.
J.P. in Horsham, PA: Harry Chapin. Everyone knows the song "Cat's in the Cradle" but that's actually a very small part of his overall career. In the late 1970s, Harry personally lobbied Congress to establish the Presidential Commission on World Hunger, got it established, and was the only person on the commission to attend every meeting, laying the groundwork for the anti-hunger movements of the 1980s. Indeed, it may be commonplace now for musicians to advocate on behalf of worthy causes now, but back in the 1970s, it was just Harry; that probably wouldn't be happening today were it not for his efforts.
M.C. in Reno, NV: The day Stanislav Petrov saved the world. Petrov was a Soviet lieutenant colonel who was the duty officer at the Oko nuclear early-warning command center on September 26, 1983. The system detected a missile launch from the U.S., followed by around five more. Petrov judged the report to be a false alarm (because it did not make sense to launch such a small first strike) and disobeyed standing orders to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike in the event of a U.S. first strike. A later investigation proved that he was indeed correct about a malfunction in the early warning system.
G.R. in Clive, IA: There are so many possibilities that I found it easiest to limit myself to people, relatively recent, with a decent amount of known—or, at least, findable—history. I also tried to stay with people who have not had a major film treatment so far (thus eliminating Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, among others). Following all of those criteria, I ended up deciding on Ulysses S. Grant. Came from nothing, failed at many careers before finding his calling. Almost certainly the greatest military leader in the history of the United States. Underrated as a president, though that is changing thanks to recent scholarship. An extremely ethical man for his time (How many men near bankruptcy would have given a slave his freedom, when selling the slave would have provided the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars?), but with enough flaws to make him interesting.
L.D. in Bedford, MA: I'm somewhat astonished we haven't yet gotten a movie about Andrew Johnson's impeachment. I think you could produce a serious Oscar-bait film out of that, especially with all the impeachment in the air recently. Jerk president trying to preserve the power of the office against a power-hungry cabal who by today's standards were doing the right thing on racial issues, plus the Republican Senators who voted not to convict for a variety of reasons. Where is Aaron Sorkin?
S.S. in West Hollywood, CA: There is no true historical event/person/story that could be turned into a good film with little or no artistic liberties. Films simply don't work that way. They have only 90 to 180 minutes to tell the story. People don't live their lives, and events don't occur, in 90 to 180 minutes. Even the best "based on a true story" films will have timelines condensed and details/various characters created/combined and edited to maintain the history in a logical and entertaining way. Otherwise, the film won't work. At best, you'll end up with the worst type of biographical films. Films that are a string of events—and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, etc.—without ever coming together as a cohesive whole.
The films that work best, think Elizabeth (1998) or Frost/Nixon (2008), are basically historically accurate, but not at the expense of good character and story. They both include the usual condensed timelines, as well as key plot elements and characters created for the film. In Titanic (1997) everything was historically accurate with incredible detail, except the completely fictitious love story at the center of it all. What makes any film good is the quality of writing and filmmaking. However, films about a historical event/person/story will always require some artistic liberties. If that's not what you're looking for, there is probably a good book on the event/person/story that you'll find more acceptable.
Here is the question for next week:
(V) & (Z) ask: What would be a good Secret Service code name for Tim Walz, and why?
Submit your answers to comments@electoral-vote.com, preferably with subject line "Secret Agent Man"!