BALIBO The Whole Truth and Nothing But ISSUE 64 SCREEN EDUCATION the Truth? ©ATOM ‘Inspired by a True Story’

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henever I read the phrase ‘inspired by a true by a true ‘inspired the phrase I read henever the filmmakers give to I find I’m ready ­story’, having been of the doubt about their the benefit that some of the accept to even and ‘inspired’, events of the plot may be ‘true’, in the sense of similar events sense of similar events may be ‘true’, in the plot of the events That may in actual life. been recorded having happened and - but what I re in my approach, me sound liberal-minded make ‘story’. is the word over stumble ally – such as structure up concepts conjures in my view, ‘Story’, and an end – though as a beginning, a middle implying often in that order’. said, ‘not necessarily famously Jean-Luc Godard doesn’t vague nouvelle radicalism that freewheeling And even with it the sort brings The notion of order ‘order’. the word avoid the nar- a shape to in providing that is interested of structuring suggest to using parallelism a shape that may involve rative: cause organised carefully of a pattern similarities or contrasts, some of the from which will derive a defining tone and effect, much Film, like ‘voice’. and a narrational matters, preceding itself heard if it makes even its voice, fiction, will have novelistic ways. in different W What is ‘true’? context? present What about ‘true’? What does it mean in the of the that some of the facts suggest to it is intended Presumably – had their or character – whether of event narratives film’s were journalists Five and characters. events in real-life sources (Robert Connolly, 2009), Timor, and in the film Balibo (Robert Connolly, shot in East Blair did have Tony meet their end in this way. characters five add, one is sorry to and later, crucial meetings with Bill Clinton film, The Special Loncraine Richard Bush (the 2010 with George at the Ford was a strike There , seems sorry too). Relationship 2010 film Made in as Nigel Cole’s in 1968, just Dagenham factory - over VI to Lionel Logue did help George clear. Dagenham makes Hooper, (Tom Speech his speech impediment, as The King’s come us.2010) shows other films with countless all of these, and to to But in relation does and politics, where of people in the actual world their roots - re very four introduced deliberately ‘true’ begin and end? I’ve in that persists the point that this is an issue make films to cent – care – should we much do we How our film-going experience. with the and loose about whether or not the film is playing fast us whether ‘true’ is to them? Does it matter know we as ‘facts’ phe- of a historical acknowledgement than a vague no more use what they at liberty to entirely filmmakers nomenon? Are at will in and/or suppress elaborate want of the ‘true’, and to of drama? the interests would by actual events’ such as ‘suggested a statement Perhaps of what is going on. It would impression accurate a more give assume (rightly) in which we emphasis of ‘story’ the false avoid is included, and that whatever purpose to is a narrative that there will the major ‘actual events’ between matters ‘unimportant’ of what the I am reminded out. In this matter been edited have said about a journalist Michael James Rowland director their humanity by of deprive you can people about how who wrote always their banal characteristics, describing them in a denying by

Brian McFarlane matter? Brian stories – and does it even stories – and does it even ends reality ponders where begins. and invention But how accurate are these these are how accurate But events seem to fill our screens. events seem to fill our screens. dramas, films based on actual films based on actual dramas, From biopics to historical biopics to historical From the Truth? the THE KING’S SPEECH

For the film to be exciting, to be a coherent work in its own right, the filmmaker surely needs to find a unique voice, a unique point of view on the material being adapted, and to be courageous about what is omitted, or sidelined, or emphasised.

heightened dramatic sense, as victims or fighters or whatever. If The other item derived from the obituaries for Agathe, eldest you deny people their everydayness, you deny them the full spec- of the Von Trapp siblings, who recently died at the age of 97. trum of their humanity.1 Her reactions to how her family, particularly her father, and the children’s governess were depicted in the Hollywood block- What I am suggesting is that in real life the individuating buster The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1964) were mentioned moments in ‘actual events’ can be just as readily located in in numerous obituaries. the banalities as in the major action, and that not many film- makers examine such moments, which are revealing for their As one typical obituary wrote: own sake even if they don’t promote the forward march of nar- rative causation. So, something a little more tentative in In the film, all the names, sexes and ages of the children were ascribing sources might be less problematic. changed and Agathe, whose character was called Liesl, was played by Charmian Carr, who sang ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’. Agathe recalled however, ‘As a teen, I had never had a boyfriend, much less In the news a telegram-delivering Nazi.’ … Upon its release, the family was not

ISSUE 64 SCREEN EDUCATION happy at the way that they had been portrayed. They were irritated by Two very recent items have led me to speculate on the based- the simplification of the story, about being represented as people on-a-true-story syndrome. The King’s Speech I’ve already re- who only sang lightweight music, and by the alterations to their fa- ferred to, and have pursued at greater length elsewhere.2 I was ther’s personality. He had been depicted as a detached, cold-blooded unsettled by just having read the memoir about Lionel Logue patriarch who disapproved of music, whereas he was actually quite written by his grandson and Peter Conradi, which drew heavily the opposite; he, in fact, helped them learn to sing. In an interview in

©ATOM on Logue’s diaries and revealed a very different figure from 2003, Agathe said she ‘could have lived with’ all the inaccuracies ‘had that presented by Geoffrey Rush in the film. I’ll return to this. it not been for the musical’s portrayal of my father’.3

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4 restraint when it comes to distortions distortions to when it comes no restraint feel Need filmmakers than usual in in- words of putting more I’m aware of ‘history’? na- uneasier about the problematic as I become commas, verted was justifiable In 1945, there thus enclosed. of the concepts ture (2003): the former recalls the Liverpool of his youth in exquisite exquisite in youth his of Liverpool the recalls former the (2003): the suggest to colour use to tends and images black-and-white story a has latter the and loved, he city the of debasing insidious well as knew scarcely Kahn father a for search the about tell to both are These triumphs. architectural his of exploration an as want they what make explicitly less or more but documentaries, are these that fact the maybe And experiences. own their of cautious. more be to need ison, lection and often a highly personal approach to the material. Just Just material. the to approach personal highly a often and lection Davies’ Terence as examples recent comparatively such of think My Architect Kahn’s Nathaniel or Of Time and the City (2008) compar by filmmakers, ‘fiction’ where latitude a them gives own ing actual events, involving real, possibly still living persons, into into persons, living still possibly real, involving events, actual ing taken be to need that issues ethical any there Are drama? film be can filmmaking documentary though as not It’s account? into zealously however that, truism a now is It either. hook this off let rela unmediated an of impression the give to tries documentary of act mere The kind. the of nothing is it reality, with tionship se shaping, implies anything about film documentary a making What about the concept of adaptation when it is a matter of shap of matter a is it when adaptation of concept the about What Adaptation and the ‘real’ world Adaptation and the ‘real’ As far as the adaptation of fiction to film is concerned, I have al- I have is concerned, film of fiction to as the adaptation As far adap- a fearless himself Welles, Orson the line that ways taken summed up by saying that once of plays and novels, tor of literature say about a work to has nothing new if a filmmaker stultifying me more to Nothing seems it alone. leave he’d best a sense of reverence film, than into when adapting, say, a novel fidelity one – the sort of slavish text the antecedent to in regard fiction. of classic versions in television has sometimes detected right, in its own work be a coherent to be exciting, to the film For a unique point find a unique voice, needs to surely the filmmaker be courageous and to being adapted, on the material of view is or sidelined, or emphasised. The novel about what is omitted, and events, characters real-life some if it features a fiction, even and it is another fiction, which can from and the film adapted I was pleased recently, merits. Very should be judged on its own writing the scripts for not for reason Tsiolkas’ Christos read to I’d already The Slap: ‘I felt the TV miniseries based on his novel [on TV], it work it to and for write, to wanted the book I written - trans other imaginations, another consciousness, have had to it.’ forming Adaptation and story: fiction and film Adaptation and story: One can understand Agathe’s resentment at the way she and her and she way the at resentment Agathe’s understand can One she had virtually that and at the fact represented, were family with what deal chose to the way Hollywood over no influence wonder me to It leads of the situation. the ‘facts’ be to she knew be- filmmakers history, recent of events to in relation if, at least em- anything but dramatic to no responsibility have they lieve returns. office phasis and box outrage in Britain at the way the Errol Flynn war-winner Hilary and Jackie (Anand Tucker, 1998), the story of the du Pré Objective, Burma! (Raoul Walsh) ‘invented a fictitious sisters, which excited outrage among London’s musical frater- American parachute regiment that was seen in the final nity; or of creating a cracking social drama as in the very recent stages of the film to be dropping over the jungle and win- The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010), supposedly the story ning the decisive battle on its own’,5 omitting reference to of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, who has questioned the the British collaboration. How, I wonder, would Australia film’s authenticity about his reasons for this pioneering work. react to a film version of history that sought to show the British as the heroes of Gallipoli and Australian troops as Rather than the conventions of biopic, I’m interested in the way indolent, loud-mouthed larrikins, or if Schindler’s List the screen has rendered ‘historical events’. By this latter term

There is no way of creating a ‘story’ out of the ramshackle events of the real world without imposing a level of order that was not there in actuality. In doing so, the truth as understood in the real world may be a casualty.

(Steven Spielberg, 1993) had suggested that the horror of I mean an often disorderly series of events in which the causal the Holocaust had been grossly exaggerated? chain may not always be clear, and between which are sup- pressed all manner of quotidian trivia, or even just non-trivial My main concern here is not with the biopic genre, but it is per- matters that don’t happen to bear on the particular string of haps worth noting the remarkable licence that has been taken events that the general public are aware of. This is not to sug- in relation to famous ‘lives’: whether in the interests of white- gest conscious dishonesty, though that may well be the case washing, such as when Cary Grant played Cole Porter in Night on occasion, but that there is no way of creating a ‘story’ out of and Day (Michael Curtiz, 1946), which erased all reference to the ramshackle events of the real world without imposing a Porter’s homosexuality; or of pumping up the melodrama as in level of order that was not there in actuality. In doing so, the truth as understood in the real world may be a casualty.

Recent film histories – or histories on film

Among comparatively recent examples of what I mean are such titles as Good (Vincente Amorim, 2008) and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Mark Herman, 2008), both making drama out of the rise of Nazism and its effects on the lives of two families. Other recent examples are Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005) and Infamous (Douglas McGrath, 2006), both of which dealt with the cold- blooded murder of a Kansas family and Truman Capote’s inves- tigation of this. All four of these films are geared to produce, in varying degrees, powerful melodrama, mingling ‘known facts’ with fictional shapings. In the last year alone, I have seen at least a dozen films which in one way or other claim to be based on/inspired by a true story/actual events. These include such diverse titles as Nowhere Boy (Sam Taylor-Wood, 2009, tracing the pre-Beatles ambience of John Lennon), Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009, exploring poet John Keats’ love for Fanny Brawne), Beneath Hill 60 (Jeremy Sims, 2010, how Australian miners changed the course of WWI), Creation (Jon Amiel, 2009, how Charles Darwin upset the Genesis myth), Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater, 2008, the boy-genius’ ‘real’ Mercury Theatre and a fictional ‘Me’), Fair Game (Doug Liman, 2010, US political bastardry as experienced by CIA agent Valerie Plame) and the aforementioned The Special Relationship, Made in

ISSUE 64 SCREEN EDUCATION Dagenham and The King’s Speech. There are no doubt plenty of other titles that could be added, but that’s enough – numerical- ly, generically and nationally – to give a sense of how endemi- cally filmmakers ‘adapt’ true ‘stories’.

While watching the TV movie U Be Dead (Jamie Payne, 2009),

©ATOM which claims to be ‘based on a true story’, I was struck by one of the recurring characteristics of this (sort of) genre: the perenni- al use of captions, from titles giving dates and places to final accounts of what became of this or that person. Sometimes, of 32

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©ATOM 33 THE CAT’S MEOW THE CAT’S sensational events involving Hollywood celebrities on William celebrities Hollywood sensational involving events appeared there in 1924, when suddenly yacht Randolph Hearst’s and the depicted the events this disclaimer: ‘The characters, any actual persons Any similarity to fictitious. names used are - coinci is entirely any actual entities or events living or dead or to that accept meant to were So, we and unintentional.’ dental Charlie Chaplin, Louella Parsons with names like characters the film- Who are referents? and Marion Davies had no real-life litigants, possibly. potential Sharp-eyed fooling? makers and in- of selection all a matter say that it’s be easy to It would out of drama making persuasive of process in the terpretation far. get us very but this wouldn’t life, of real material the indocile go about the ways in which filmmakers me are What interests film. All films are into reality of adapting messy the business the most and for with reality based on some sort of transaction here My particular concern this unquestioningly. accept part we ‘true to their allegiances has been with those that foreground that effect. to with disclaimers often or ‘actual events’, stories’ All films designed for the entertainment of large audiences audiences of large the entertainment All films designed for as some of Andy works aside such experimental (leaving for films of the 1960s) will build up some sequences Warhol’s based on actu- This is as true of films effectiveness. dramatic Last biopic Mao’s Beresford’s Bruce as any other. al events between contrasts executed (2009), with its astutely Dancer China and the in rural regime communist in a rigorous life in ways in the US, is a case of Western easy indulgences A bunch of five course, this sort of thing is used in wholly fictional stories fictional stories this sort of thing is used in wholly course, Hanging 1975 Picnic at Weir’s Peter for the end titles (remember the retelling witnessed us thinking we’d leave to Rock, intended deal with but in those films which ostensibly of actual events?), by the their veracity accept to encouraged we’re ‘true stories’ comments. historical objective inclusion of these seemingly than appropriate is less ‘genre’ I suspect the word Actually, in the ways their existence the films that derive ‘mode’, since generic traditional cross easily quite can been discussing I’ve my I recall though, boundaries. Speaking of those captions, (Peter Meow The Cat’s for at the end credits arrive surprise to set of well-known 2001), based on a quite Bogdanovich, ME AND ORSON WELLES THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

point. Jan Sardi’s screenplay adapts Li Cunxin’s memoir in relationship. And it inevitably recalls to us how the such a way as to provide some tightening of the narrative’s film had begun with Cole Porter’s lyrics ‘If you’re ever in a drama in certain key episodes, such as when Li (Chi Cao) jam, here I am’ on the soundtrack, and newsreel shots of debuts on a US stage as a replacement for the male lead at Churchill and Roosevelt, Kennedy and Macmillan, and a performance before the president. As the audience waits Thatcher and Reagan all cosying up with each other. A with bated breath, Li’s whole life seems to flash before him, ­structural parallel, details of mise en scène, a memory of and what follows has a kind of A Star Is Born quality to it. non-diegetic music and dialogue, along with a pair of skilful There is tension when China won’t extend his visa and Li is actors, all play their parts in establishing the film’s epony- taken away by consul staff, becoming an object of interest in mous subject with a conciseness that was unlikely to be the the US press, and a judge tries to restrain the consul from case in real life. It is the film’s function at this point to make returning Li to China. The film makes clear the conflict here us notice how different the two arrivals are and what this for Li: if he defects, he fears he will never be allowed to re- ­difference means. And the way the film ends with Blair turn to China. There is another major scene in Houston 1986 being matey with the newly elected Bush, the latter seen when he dances The Firebird and Beresford shows a re- only in news footage, reminds us that it began with news- markably sure sense of the sort of climactic moment a film reel material, and this is another important structuring like this needs, as he orchestrates an on-stage reunion be- tactic. It is a way of saying both that the film is crucially tween Li and his parents. It’s a heart-stopper in an old about the Blair–Clinton duo and that the UK–US alliance Hollywood tradition – and may just happen to be derived both pre- and post-dates this particular version of the from life. special relationship.

In last year’s The Special Relationship, Tony Blair (Michael In the last moments of Fair Game, set in March 2007, the film Sheen in his third incarnation of Blair) pays two visits to cuts from CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) standing Washington. On the first occasion, he arrives at the airport before a congressional committee of inquiry to a news ­report and looks about for a taxi driver holding a card bearing his featuring the real Plame. Perhaps this use of news footage is

ISSUE 64 SCREEN EDUCATION name upside down. Next time he arrives there about four one of the ways in which these films go about persuading us years later it’s a very different and astringently observed that we have been witnessing actual events, as is the fre- matter, his new status marked with due pomp. This time quent use of titles stating exact dates and places. The rest of he’s to meet Clinton (Dennis Quaid) who tells Blair, with re- the admirable Fair Game chronicles Plame’s outing as an op- gard to his forthcoming election: ‘The smart money’s on you’; erative, purportedly as reprisal after her journalist husband ‘If you need my help just pick up the phone’; and ‘We could put Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) outspokenly questioned the way the

©ATOM right-wing politics out for a generation.’ Whether or not this is Bush administration handled the so-called evidence of weap- the way the two arrivals actually happened obviously doesn’t ons of mass destruction in relation to the war in Iraq. As well matter much; rather, it is the film’s way of establishing, as the political action at the heart of the film’s narrative through its control over mise en scène, a crucial shift in the there is a tensely credible account of the effects of these 34 ISSUE 64 SCREEN EDUCATION

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7 BRIGHT STAR FAIR GAME, FAIR and his is a real story, story, and his is a real It is, in the light of the social reality of the time, un- of the social reality of It is, in the light CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MADE IN DAGENHAM, , Metro Since writing this review, I keep coming across references to the to references across coming I keep writing this review, Since therapies. and/or Logue’s problems of the King’s reality - his perfor for and a Golden Globe an Oscar Colin Firth has won VI, but not without George Albert, later Prince as the troubled mance - a London news Awards, the Academy to in the lead-up controversy: that alleging smear campaign internet ‘an apparent paper reported had Nazi sympathies ... and that he actively the wartime monarch for for Logue’s shift is a very in the way the film presents interesting There in his grandson’s emerges that with the figure character in comparison diaries. The film own – Logue’s material book and its primary source … Logue coarsens . As I said in my review of this film of this film Speech. As I said in my review mind is The King’s to would assert his equality so quick to have Logue been quite that likely the man. of and vivacious account compelling as he does in Rush’s - Caesar, his radi slabs of Welles’ us show is to can’t that the novel us be- make to enough staged And it is strikingly production. cal – and crit- its feet to an audience brought have to in its power lieve ‘inspired is a film partly here have their knees. So, what we ics to a wholly which is inserted into actual events treated by’ seriously with a structure story, – and his is a real story fictional character’s with such ‘true- as he mingles causality, and a sense of narrative and Joseph Cotten. as Welles characters life’ thoughts random all these somewhat The film that has brought

That is, it’s not just the the not just That is, it’s 6 with a structure and a sense of narrative causality. narrative of and a sense with a structure into which is inserted a wholly fictional character’s story – What we have here is a film partly ‘inspired by’ seriously treated actual events actual is a film events partly seriously treated have here we by’ What ‘inspired events on the marriage. One reviewer raised this issue: ‘Whether ‘Whether this issue: raised on the marriage. One reviewer events extremely couple, at this real-life look can today even moviegoers - distor without the and Sean Penn, by Naomi Watts well-played beliefs is uncertain.’ tion of political A fascinating but tangential film among these titles is Richard is Richard film among these titles but tangential A fascinating one easily how , based on (notice Me and Orson Welles Linklater’s charming 2003 novel. this usage) Robert Kaplow’s slides into main nar- the followed has not only that Linklater the fact Despite wholesale, dialogue but has also lifted of the novel contours rative point in adducing My real is no sense of slavish adherence. there but work of a literary it as an adaptation discuss this film is not to - fiction with a persua pure combines the novel, as a film that, like the phenomenon. The ‘fiction’ involves of a real-life account sive opt out of 1930s US, wants to who, in late engaging ‘Me’ of the title from is derived material The ‘real-life’ career. a stage school for with which included the 1937 founding, career, boy-wonder Welles’ among Here, York. in New Theatre John Houseman, of the Mercury - ver a modern-dress he produced work, iconoclastic other notably this setting that Julius Caesar. It is into sion of Shakespeare’s foul his way in, falls works the ‘Me’ character, (Zac Efron), Richard opening night in time for McKay), is reinstated (Christian of Welles do things the film can One of the great again. and is then sacked Jez and John-Henry Butterworth that are at issue – their sympa- at issue that are Jez and John-Henry Butterworth us put before shape the narrative to no doubt worked thies have - re we will play their part in how – but our beliefs and prejudices of a ‘true story’. this version ceive political sympathies of director Doug Liman or screenwriters Doug Liman or screenwriters sympathies of director ­political Everyone will approach a film differently and take from any film a unique set of responses. All I am suggesting is that knowledge of the ‘factual’ or the ‘actual’ or the ‘true’ will inevitably colour how one receives films that are ‘inspired by a true story’. For starters, I’d recommend getting rid of that word ‘story’. The ‘­story’ is created by a filmmaker who has removed all that might muddy the clear waters of the drama – the story – in hope of making a killing.

Brian McFarlane is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. His most recent book is his memoir Real and Reel: The Education of a Film Obsessive and Critic (2010, Sid Harta). •

Endnotes THE KING’S SPEECH 1 Quoted in Brian McFarlane, ‘A Road Movie Without a Road: An “stymied” efforts by Jews fleeing Nazi Germany to settle in Interview with Michael James Rowland’, Metro, vol. 153, p. 24. British-controlled Palestine’.8 Now, there is no reason why the 2 Brian McFarlane, ‘The Odd Couple: Language and Life Lessons film should be required to give us a fully rounded characterisation in The King’s Speech’, Metro, vol. 168, pp. 8–12. of the king, but it is significant that the cinematic rendering of a 3 Martin Childs, ‘Agathe von Trapp: Eldest daughter of the family real-life figure should attract this kind of attention. If what this who inspired “The Sound of Music”’, The Independent, London, report suggests was in fact the case, this is simply another exam- 4 January 2011, ‹http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ ple of the filmmakers’ need to achieve dramatic structure and, in obituaries/agathe-von-trapp-eldest-daughter-of-the-family this film, to maintain sympathy for the stammering king. On the -who-inspired-the-sound-of-music-2175129.html›, accessed matter of the stammering, a speech pathologist has written, 13 September 2011. ‘Stuttering is ancient, but its treatment has now evolved away 4 Quoted in Paul Kalina, ‘The Slap set to leave its mark on the from stuffing your mouth with marbles and you don’t have to small screen’, The Age, 22 January 2011, p. 11. swear to deal with it,’ going on, however, to praise Firth’s perfor- 5 Clive Coultass, Images for Battle: British Film and the Second mance: ‘Although the stammer may have sent critics’ thumbs a- World War, 1939–1945, University of Delaware Press, Newark, wagging, it was more Firth’s portrayal of the social and emotional NJ, 1989, p. 193. implications of being a person who stutters that nailed the part.’9 6 Kirt Honeycut, ‘Fair Game – Film Review’, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 October 2010, ‹http://www.hollywoodreporter. In the same day’s newspaper were two other related items. One com/review/fair-game-film-review-29648›, accessed 13 reported on the way in which ‘similar accusations [to the pro- September 2011. Nazi smear] are a popular trick of orchestrated smear cam- 7 McFarlane, ‘The Odd Couple’, op. cit., p. 12. paigns’.10 The other item made the claim that the film ‘air- 8 John Bingham, ‘Nazi claim threatens to ruin Firth’s brushed from history a Scottish surgeon who many believe was Oscar night’, London Telegraph, reprinted in The Age, the key figure in transforming a stammering, sickly prince into 20 January 2011. an imposing wartime monarch’.11 This article did not deny that 9 Simone Lees, ‘Stuttering doesn’t need royal expletives to be Lionel Logue’s role in curing the king of his stammer was ‘cru- overcome’, The Age, 24 January 2011, ‹http://www.theage.com. cial’, but claims that it was Sir Louis Greig ‘who gave Prince au/opinion/society-and-culture/stuttering-doesnt-need-royal Albert the confidence to overcome his frailties’, whereas ‘the -expletives-to-be-overcome-20110121-19ys3.html›, accessed film shows Mr Logue … single-handedly coming to the rescue’.12 13 September 2011. Another of these pieces to come my way was a sympathetic ac- 10 Garry Maddox, ‘Smears are no surprise to King’s Speech count of Logue as ‘a mini-celebrity in isolated Perth in the early producer’, The Age, 24 January 2011, p. 7. 20th century … [one whose] gentle, compassionate tempera- 11 Robert Mendick, ‘Hit film silent on man who saved a king’, ment led him to work with shell-shocked ex-servicemen who had The Age, 24 January 2011, p. 11. developed speech defects’.13 12 ibid. 13 Helen Trinca, ‘Performer from Perth gave voice to a king’, The point of adducing these newspaper items is to draw atten- The Weekend Australian, Inquirer, 1–2 January 2011, p. 5. tion to what are seen as serious suppressions or distortions of 14 Tom Ryan, ‘The King’s Speech’, The Sunday Age, M, Logue’s dealings with George VI. Such suppressions or distor- 26 December 2010, p. 18. 15 ISSUE 64 SCREEN EDUCATION tions are no doubt made in the interests of drama, perhaps with Mark Logue & Peter Conradi, The King’s Speech, Quercus, the aim of illustrating, as one reviewer wrote, ‘how the Brits go London, 2010, p. 228. about making a buddy movie’.14 The memoir, drawing heavily on Logue’s diary entries, makes clear that his dealings with royalty were deferential, even on occasion to the point of ‘fawning’.15 It is the interaction of the real and the reel – how the latter de-

©ATOM forms or re-forms the former – that accounts for the sorts of commentary I’ve been quoting.

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