Lies and damned lies

Apologies to Mark Twain for borrowing, for the title of today’s post, only the first two thirds of his Disraeli quote.

On the other hand, perhaps, for today’s topic, it is apt to play fast and loose with Mr. Clemens’ historical “quote”, since as far as anyone can tell, Disraeli never actually said “Lies, damned lies and statistics.” We are pretty sure, however, that the phrase was indeed penned in 1891 by Eliza Gutch, the suggestrix of the Folklore Society, in Notes and Queries, writing under her usual pseudonym St. Swithin (Mrs. Gutch having been born on St. Swithin’s day).

But I digress.

BG Porter made the observation yesterday that “Fargo” is an example of a fictional movie purporting to be fact. I would argue that “Fargo” falls into roughly the same exempt category as “Being John Malkovich”, since the Coen brothers are not actually trying to rewrite history.

Rather, they are playing an aesthetic game, starting off their absurdist black comedy by linking it stylistically to Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and similar modern works of Grand Guinol vérité. The important thing here is that the audience is in on the game. It becomes very clear as the film progresses that what we are watching is more Ionesco (or perhaps Jarry) than Capote.

In any case, the transgression of a film like “Hollywoodland” or “JFK” is not that it toys with history, but that it uses a veneer of sincerity to toy with our memory of a very well known historical figure.

Imagine, for example, a film about Nelson Mandela that invents a past for him in Vaudeville. Something like that could only work if it telegraphed that it is not history. For example, a rethinking of “Singing in the Rain”.

In our film, the character of young Nelson could take the Gene Kelly role, but the whole thing would really only work if he were teamed with the character of a youthful Tenzin Gyatso in the Donald O’Connor part. I, for one, would pay good money to see some high spirited young actor as the future 14th Dalai Lama singing “Make ’em Laugh”.

It goes without saying that the Debbie Reynolds part would feature a young Maggie Thatcher (Carey Mulligan would be excellent in the role, presuming she can sing).

So you see, we are now safely out of the realm of “rewriting history”. A claim that, alas, cannot be made by films like “Hollywoodland” and “JFK”.