Truth in Historical Movies

How important is truth in a movie? Especially a movie based on history?

Take The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). One distraught viewer of the movie made this comment on the IMDb movie forums:

"There was a time that I really thought that this movie was excellent. I had given it a 9 star rating. That was before I watched a special on the History Channel with interviews with survivors. I have never watched this movie again, changed my rating to one star, and threw away the VHS tape that I had..."

That one-star rating is a pity. What this person failed to take into account is that the greatness of this movie doesn't lie in the precise facts of the historical setting.

Or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote:

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."

Art is contrived; there's no way around that. The trick is to artistically hide this fact. In a movie like The Bridge on the River Kwai, the story rides between the poles of both fact and fiction. This particular story is really more just a historical document about an event during World War 2. It's about how one man's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness.

A movie's purpose is to tell an engaging story. A great movie both tells an engaging story and strives to communicate a truth.

[Photo courtesy of Dave W. Clarke]

It's Comic Time | #3

Yes, Comic #3 is officially released!

There are two locations for this episode.

The first setting is Jakob's home back in the village. (That's Jakob's granddaughter, Marta, in the pic to your right).

The second location? You've probably guessed it... The prison. A place where Jakob and his fellow prisoners await their "trial" before being shipped off to a work camp in Siberia.

And as YOU wait for the release of the movie, we hope you enjoy Lizzie's third installment of the Under Jakob's Ladder Comic Strip!

» Read the full comic at our website

If you can't see the link above, please go to...
http://www.cubecity.org/ujl_comic3.htm

P.S. Once again, we thank Lizzie Hupcey for all her hard work!

What it Takes to be a Filmmaker

A filmmaking quote for this week's blog post...

"My three Ps: passion, patience, perseverance. You have to do this if you've got to be a filmmaker."
-- Robert Wise

Character Sketch

We are surrounded by a lot of talented people. Here are some sketches of some of the characters from UNDER JAKOB'S LADDER... done by one of our film crew, Jerald Johnson.

Jakob (played by Jeff Stewart). How could we not begin with Jakob? The teacher...

Nikolai (played by Christopher Elliott). Watch out for those piercing eyes.

Bruno (played by Sal Rendino). You can never be quite certain what's going on in his mind.

Wait! There are more sketches... You can go to our Facebook page where we've uploaded all eight of the characters that Jerald sketched. (If you can't see the link, go to http://bit.ly/jakob_facebookfanpg)

Thanks, Jerald. The sketches look great!