Affleck does a drive-by on 'ZDT'

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January 16, 2013

Affleck does a drive-by on 'ZDT'
Posted by Staff

Terry Gross’ interview with Ben Affleck on Tuesday’s “Fresh Air” is a uniformly interesting discussion about the making of Affleck’s “Argo,” and the effort and ethics that go into bringing quasi-historical depictions to the big screen. But it becomes particularly interesting about halfway in, when Gross asks Affleck about his approach to handling history in a motion picture. He admits to taking creative license with the movie:

Affleck: It’s OK to embellish, it’s OK to compress, as long as you don’t fundamentally change the nature of the story and of what happened.

Gross: … As a viewer whenever I see a biopic or a historical film, I’m always wondering what’s true and what’s false, and what can I trust. Because I think movies that are historical have usually a dual goal, one is to like enlighten you about this really interesting story that actually happened and the other is to entertain you, because it’s a movie. As someone who is interested in historical accuracy and journalistic accuracy I know that movies aren’t journalism except for documentaries . . .

Affleck: Unless they say they’re journalism, yeah.

01/16/13 6:11 AM

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