Should 'true story' films such as Zero Dark Thirty and Argo be rated L for lie? | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Should 'true story' films such as Zero Dark Thirty and Argo be rated L for lie? | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

• Journalists are told they are making "the first rough draft of history", with the implication that a proper historian will soon be along to take over. Both are now overwhelmed by a tidal wave of film-makers, claiming the same licence to the word truth, but without any of its disciplines. The French director, Jean-Luc Godard, declared that cinema was "truth 24 frames a second". Bigelow, like Stone and Sheridan, feels justified in using possible inaccuracy to advance a cause. If they got it wrong, it was art. I wish I had that get-out. Keats has a lot to answer for in nonsensically identifying truth with beauty.
• It insults reason to maintain that some filmed images are harmless fantasy while others can drive viewers to action. We ban incitement to violence and race hatred in other forms of performance as likely to influence behaviour. We likewise ban tobacco advertising. We know visual images influence how people see the world. As Woody Allen grimly reflected: "If I have made one more person feel miserable, I'll feel I've done my job."
• When communists rewrote history and wiped leaders from old photographs we ridiculed them. Yet we do the same. Claiming the lie as art leaves the door open for Chinese and other censors to pick and choose their own comforting "truths". Nothing should be banned, but the British Board of Film Classification should make itself useful and revise its categories. If "true story" appears in a film's preamble and is clearly wrong, the film should carry certificate L, for lie. We would then know where we stood.
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