TCM is showing Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" tonight, my favorite among all journalism movies over "The Front Page," "Deadline USA," "All the President's Men," "The Paper," "Broadcast News" and "Absence of Malice," all fine films about fallible human beings reporting the news.
In an era when journalists are routinely reviled by political ideologists, it's easy to forget that, from A. J. Liebling on, they have always been their own severest critics in a calling that usually attracts young people interested in doing good in the world beyond doing well for themselves.
In 1951, I had just started working on newspapers and magazines when "Ace in the Hole" hit me hard with Kirk Douglas' portrayal of a down-and-almost-out reporter who sees a man trapped in a mine as his ticket back to the big time and ends up killing him by exploiting and stretching out his rescue.
Journalists as seducers and betrayers of their sources is a theme that runs through modern culture, from Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist and the Murderer" through the recent movies about Truman Capote and the making of "In Cold Blood."
When it appeared in the what-me-worry postwar era, "Ace in the Hole" was a commercial failure and, when released for TV, was given the more palatable title of "The Big Carnival." But it was and is a mordant reminder that there can be people in life-and-death situations behind the collection of words and images we call news.
Showing posts with label Truman Capote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truman Capote. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Liars and Fabulists
The continuing hoo-ha over the latest publishing fraud, the Valley girl who posed as a druggie gang member, brings up the question of where to draw the line between writers with vivid imaginations and out-and-out liars.
Truman Capote, who invented the non-fiction novel, was not always the most fact-checkable of journalists. As his editor and friend, I found he had a storyteller’s way with the truth. His writing and even his casual conversation abounded in astonishments, wondrous coincidences and weird juxtapositions.
He would tell colorful tales, unlikely but not necessarily untrue, often at the expense of macho figures: how Marlon Brando tried to get him into bed after an all-night interview in a Japanese hotel; how during the filming of "Beat the Devil," he bested Humphrey Bogart, who persisted in calling him Caposy, at arm-wrestling for $150 and sealed the humiliation of the actor, known for his nightclub brawls, by using judo to put him flat on his back.
But Capote was a novelist at heart, and his talent earned him some leeway as a fabulist in matters of little moment. In fact, the writing of "In Cold Blood" was, in part, a challenge he set himself to tell a journalistically pure story that would have the richness of his fiction. He knew the difference.
Today's fake memoirists either don't know or don't care, and their publishers are hard-pressed to verify their authenticity in an industry with a tradition of trusting writers to be truthful.
Under the headline, "Tracking the Fallout of (Another) Literary Fraud," the New York Times today reports the dismay of editors and agents who are embarrassed to find themselves vouching for lying writers.
Yet, a freelance reporter, who wrote a profile of the fake gang girl for the Times itself, did not question her story.
“The way I look at it," the reporter explained, "is that it’s just like when you get in a car and drive to the store—-you assume that the other drivers on the road aren’t psychopaths on a suicide mission.”
Sadly, the clubby world of book publishing is not in Kansas any more. It will have to do a lot more checking up on who is behind the curtain before putting into the book stores the story of the latest self-styled Wizard of Oz.
Truman Capote, who invented the non-fiction novel, was not always the most fact-checkable of journalists. As his editor and friend, I found he had a storyteller’s way with the truth. His writing and even his casual conversation abounded in astonishments, wondrous coincidences and weird juxtapositions.
He would tell colorful tales, unlikely but not necessarily untrue, often at the expense of macho figures: how Marlon Brando tried to get him into bed after an all-night interview in a Japanese hotel; how during the filming of "Beat the Devil," he bested Humphrey Bogart, who persisted in calling him Caposy, at arm-wrestling for $150 and sealed the humiliation of the actor, known for his nightclub brawls, by using judo to put him flat on his back.
But Capote was a novelist at heart, and his talent earned him some leeway as a fabulist in matters of little moment. In fact, the writing of "In Cold Blood" was, in part, a challenge he set himself to tell a journalistically pure story that would have the richness of his fiction. He knew the difference.
Today's fake memoirists either don't know or don't care, and their publishers are hard-pressed to verify their authenticity in an industry with a tradition of trusting writers to be truthful.
Under the headline, "Tracking the Fallout of (Another) Literary Fraud," the New York Times today reports the dismay of editors and agents who are embarrassed to find themselves vouching for lying writers.
Yet, a freelance reporter, who wrote a profile of the fake gang girl for the Times itself, did not question her story.
“The way I look at it," the reporter explained, "is that it’s just like when you get in a car and drive to the store—-you assume that the other drivers on the road aren’t psychopaths on a suicide mission.”
Sadly, the clubby world of book publishing is not in Kansas any more. It will have to do a lot more checking up on who is behind the curtain before putting into the book stores the story of the latest self-styled Wizard of Oz.
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