HBO is “manipulating history” to “create a false narrative and attract viewers,” said SarahPAC treasurer Tim Crawford in a statement. He’s right, of course, as the 2 minute, 38 second video released by SarahPAC in a statement below. “Game Change” is “fact change,” but it’s worse than that.
It assumes that the facts were there at the beginning. How can you change facts that were simply invented? “Game Change” is a work of “fiction,” but fiction at least tries to get to a truth of the human condition.
As David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun writes, “Game Change,” “pushes the limits of docudrama.” “As the producers deftly blend actual news footage and dramatic recreations, “Game Change” vaporizes the lines of fact and fiction as you watch,” Zurawik writes. He also points out that neither screenwriter Danny Strong nor director Jay Roach ever talked with Palin before the film was written, shot, directed and distributed. In other words, they never even bothered to get it right.
It’s treasurer Crawford’s second order -that HBO label the film a work of fiction – that might prove a tall one for the media outfit in its in-kind contribution to the Barack Obama re-election outfit. We’ve come to expect this kind of work from Roach, who, after all, directed the fabulist “Recount,” which Slant Magazine called, “a screechy example of liberal Hollywood condescension.” Troy Patterson of Slate said “Recount” “grovels for the approval of political junkies while flaunting the shallowest of interest in politics, and everything flow from there in the most silly fashion.”
But when it comes to re-writes of American history of which “Recount” and “Game Change” are now famous, there’s nothing silly about the methodical and pathological dishonesty present on the silver screen. “Game Change” tries to make McCain political consultant Steve Schmidt the hero, but as everyone knows he failed overwhelmingly to get his candidate elected president. How heroic can you be if you are a failure? The man gave us Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for another term, for goodness sake.
We’ve all known that Hollywood tends to strain credulity with what passes for a true story these days, but from totally fabricated scenes, to strained dialogue, it seems they didn’t even make much of an effort to get the truth of what actually happened. Does HBO have no standards? Is this as pathetic as it seems?
Actress Julianne Moore, cast as Palin, has heard everything the former Governor said but understood nothing. She reportedly listened in the car to Palin speeches on her iPod, so she must have known how electrifying the former Alaska governor was for the 2008 ticket.
It’s a shame that none of Palin’s authenticity rubbed off. But then again, maybe it wasn’t supposed to? It seems a common problem with Hollywood.
Woody Harrelson admitted on Charlie Rose on Feb. 9, 2012 that it was far harder to play Schmidt, a Republican consultant, than the corrupt cop in “Rampart?”
Why is that? Could it be that to the Hollywood left, we’re an exotic, endangered species no less so than some of the fauna of Palin’s native Alaska? Maybe they should get out more.
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