As we find ourselves in the midst of awards season, movie theaters tend to become increasingly populated by films based on true stories. Serving not only as a popular slice among the academy, but also among ourselves. Films that recount true events capture a thrilling emotion that history books fail to forge.  Whether Lawrence is in Arabia, or Lincoln is abolishing slavery, these films don’t stand as PowerPoint presentations on historical events. They’re simply fabricated dramatizations. 

And lately they haven’t been treated as such. 

This word “fabrication” has practically been synonymous with biographical and docudramatic films since the birth of cinema. With every year and each release comes a publicly scrutinized debate over the dramatic twisting of history presented on screen. This line between what’s acceptable to twist and what’s not is far from bold.

Michael DeAngelis, an associate professor at DePaul in media and cinema studies agreed that the issue was far from black and white.

“It’s hard to verify whether a film goes too far. The main goal of the screenwriter is to tell a good story, and plenty of films recreate the story a few steps removed from the truth,” DeAngelis said. “People have to understand that the truth is not absolute. There are different perspectives. People aren’t solely good or evil; they’re a grayness of both.”

Some recent releases have already hit this highlighted discussion.

The Martin Luther King Jr.  biopic, “Selma,” is currently under fire for its portrayal of President Lyndon B. Johnson, specifically regarding his role in the civil rights movement. In the film, Johnson, played by Tom Wilkinson, is depicted as being reluctant toward MLK’s planned march from Selma to Montgomery. History says otherwise: Johnson was rather supportive of the entire operation from the start. 

Mark Schultz, whose story is the subject of “Foxcatcher,” publicly denounced Bennett Miller’s adaptation. Real life Schultz, played by Channing Tatum in the film, served as an aid to the filmmakers throughout the shooting of the movie, yet after the film was released, Schultz took to Twitter to exclaim the film’s numerous discrepancies, mostly concerning his relationship with John DuPont, which a number of critics pointed had homosexual undertones.

A number of other acclaimed films have been under similar criticism for their depictions of history. “The Imitation Game,” a film about Alan Turing, an code-breaker for Britain during World War II, received criticisms for creating entire fictional characters and alternating the timeline of different events. “American Sniper,” a biopic of U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle, split viewer’s opinions in half.  Considered the deadliest sniper in U.S. history, Kyle, who was deployed to Iraq in 2003, was recorded to have killed 255 people during his six years there. While the film depicts Kyle as an American hero, many have interpreted his real life actions and ideologies toward Iraqis as both racist and psychopathic.

These debates could go on routinely and perhaps they will, but the iniquitous attempt to discredit a film’s value due solely upon accuracy is unjustifiable.  This argument is not with the veracity of a film; it’s with the perception.   

“Nobody should see any movie based on a true story expecting the documentary truth,” Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips said in an email. “Sometimes the fictionalizations hurt, and sometimes they don’t.”

“For example, I don’t have a big problem in the case of ‘Selma,’ because the movie has a good, honest soul and it works as effective drama.”

Of course, there’s a cloudiness that emerges between the line of fictionalizing too far, and the effects it can have upon the audience’s perception. Films can capsulate our memory a lot stronger than a textbook can, resulting in a misunderstanding of history.

“With the Internet and all the resources at our feet, the average person today should be smart enough to understand films aren’t truth for truth,” DeAngelis said.  “Although with children it’s a little different.” 

“There’s an irritation when it comes to children’s films, like say ‘Pocahontas,’ that have some sort of political consensus underneath the basic truth. These kids are going to take exactly what they get from the film as the honest truth.” 

Without a doubt, this measure of importance through historical accuracy varies from film to film and person to person. The problem lies far beyond Hollywood, but with us. These re-enactments of historical events and representations of real people’s lives offer a window of the past through the lens of a camera.  They do not offer the truth, nor are they obligated to. 

“As screenwriter and playwright Tony Kushner told me, a lot of grief could be avoided if the phrase ‘based on a true story’ was banished,” Phillips said. 

‘“Instead, movies inspired by history should start with, ‘This is a fictionalized version of real events.’ Both say essentially the same thing, but the second one puts people on guard a little, which is good.”