Must the Artist be Factually Accurate?
In thinking about the portrayal of the Rosenbergs in “The Book of Daniel” and “Angels in America,” and all the emotions of the Cold War, do we hold artists responsible to get it right, to be factually accurate, as if they are historians, journalists, and lawyers, or are we asking them to provide us with different kinds of truths?
January 19th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Says:
Absolutely not. We have historians, journalists, and lawyers to fulfill the duty of accurately chronicling the factual details of events. Accuracy is so crucial to historians and journalists in part because we expect and demand accuracy by virtue of their profession–were a journalist to provide a “colorful interpretation” of history, s/he would be misleading us.
I expect an artist not to recount facts: I expect him or her to illuminate or entertain or add to my understanding of a situation by expanding my perception. As long as the artist’s license is not disguised as the naked truth, the artist fulfills his purpose by challenging our perceptions.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Says:
But when an artist derives material or characters from the real world, fictionalizing as, say, Kushner does Roy Cohn in “Angels in America,” perhaps audiences should expect at least a core of truth in representing historical fact or persons. Artistic license is of the utmost importance, of course, but do we want people to come away from a piece misinformed? Complete disregard for factual accuracy could lead to popular misconceptions regarding the character of real people if these artistic interpretations become sufficiently well-known.
January 20th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Says:
I tend to agree with Mr. Peiser. When artists are trying to express a greater truth by use of historical events or characters, they implicitly are passing judgment on those events or characters. This judgment, whether approving or disapproving, inevitably arises from a comparison with the circumstances faced by the person or nation or institution involved in the events. Changing material facts about the earlier events deprives the resulting story of that essential comparison, and creates instead a naked moral statement. Such naked moral statements are fine, but why the need to dress it in the garb of the past events? The artist then seems to be “borrowing” the gravitas of that earlier event, when in fact he or she is really simply introducing a fashion of his or her own creation without the effort of creating his or her own context for its launch.
January 21st, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Says:
Of course not, the artist has a right to interperete things the way they see them. What would happen if everyone had to be factully correct? The world would be a dull boring place. The work of an artist will always have mystery. The facts don’t come from the artist, the artist produces what comes from thier heart. To tell a artist to state the facts would be like telling a person to go get groceries when there is no grocery store. The artist has a moral duty to tell something different and say what a situation means to them.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:34 am
Says:
When an artist bases his story on actual events and people, and uses real names of those involved, there cannot but be confusion about where the facts leave off and the artist’s imagination enters. This is a purposeful blurring of the line between fiction and fact. One has to question the merit of this blurring, both on artistic and on social grounds. Why not simply use fictional names and remove ambiguity? Could it be that the artist wants to increase the credibility of his contention? On artistic grounds, the organic development of plot or character may be imaginatively compromised by constraints of fact. On social grounds, there is something self-serving in this mystery blend, for in couching his polemic in an unknown mix of fact and fiction, the artist can fake support for his argument, giving it greater impact than it deserves. How artful of an artist engaging in this smudging of reality and fiction to then play the pundit in bemoaning the blurring of truth and lies among those purporting to present fact.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Says:
I take issue with the assumption that we get factual accuracy from historians, journalists and lawyers. Perhaps we claim to hold them responsible to get it right, but I’m not even sure about that. At least with artists, we’re likely to take their historical depictions with a grain of salt. I hope we read histories, journalism and lawyerly correspondence with the same skepticism and discernment.