James Vanderbilt, “Truth” (2015)
An ambitious film for James Vanderbilt’s directorial debut, though he is well known in Hollywood as a script-writer, “Truth” is a fictional retelling of the drama behind the decision made by CBS TV network’s news program “60 Minutes” in late 2004 to broadcast an episode investigating the then US President George W Bush’s military record during the early 1970s, and the uproar it created that led to the ruin of long-time CBS TV news anchor Dan Rather’s career and the sacking of “60 Minutes” producer Mary Mapes. The film is well made with solid performances from lead actors Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford and a backing cast that includes Dennis Quaid and Stacy Keach. Based in part on Mary Mapes’ memoir, the film can be expected to put its political biases on full display and lands squarely on Mapes’ side.
Mapes (Blanchett) and her team of reporters are pressed for time in developing a story on anomalies in Bush’s career with the Texas Air National Guard during the late 1960s / early 1970s. At the time, Bush was of an age where he could expect to be drafted for military duty and be sent to Vietnam to fight there. Instead he was shunted into the Texan institution where he apparently did not fulfill all his service commitments. Mapes relies heavily on former Texas Air National Guard officer Bill Burkett (Keach) to supply copies of documents that incriminate a number of people including the then Texas Governor Ben Barnes (Phil Quast). The story is rushed to air and almost immediately the reaction to the story is vicious: Mapes and her team are forced to prove that the photocopies are not faked and are compelled to break their promise to Burkett and his wife that they would protect them and keep their identities secret. Handwriting experts and document analysts are brought in to verify the documents’ origin. CBS buckles under pressure from its owner Viacom and the White House to back-track on the story and conduct an internal inquiry. As a result, Mapes and the people who worked with her on the story are fired and Dan Rather resigns from CBS the day after Bush’s inauguration in January 2005 for a second 4-year term as President.
The film flies through the plot in political thriller fashion, with the emphasis on personalities and a confrontational approach favouring Mapes and her team. As a result, the theme that truth and fair reporting run a distant second place to ratings and making money and profit is lost behind the more personal story of Mapes who is made out to be a crusader for justice because of past childhood issues with an abusive alcoholic father, and who finds herself beset by numerous enemies within and without CBS after her story goes to air. Also lost is any suggestion that the social and cultural environment within which the CBS TV network operates – one where chasing profits is privileged over finding and analysing information properly to arrive at the “truth”, and moreover an environment in which shooting the messenger over technicalities substitutes for proper debate over any uncomfortable information uncovered and broadcast by that messenger – is itself corrupt and poisonous, and enables bullies and psychopaths, lies and propaganda to steamroll over victims and facts that threaten the comfort zones of political and financial elites.
The possibility also that the documents might have been faked deliberately to set up Mapes and her team, and any other journalist or group of journalists choosing to go down the route of investigating a sitting President’s past, is beyond the film’s scope in the way its narrative, based on a structure of individuals fighting for truth and justice against shadow villains, has been framed.
The cast pull through impressively in Vanderbilt’s debut and the narrative, though fast paced, is easy to follow. The dialogue is often unnatural and there are occasions where Mapes and Rather become little more than mouthpieces for Vanderbilt’s political views. Redford is not given much to do as Rather and tends to be reserved and stoic. Dennis Quaid as the military expert adds a distinctive smoky flavour to the cast while Topher Grace hams up his role as a young eager beaver freelancer. So often with Hollywood flicks the orchestral music soundtrack is overbearing and inappropriate for the subject matter and so it is with “Truth”. Editing and transitions from one scene to the next are sometimes quite clever with some unusual camera angles.
Within its limits, the film is valuable in demonstrating how censorship works and how the media has become a propaganda arm of government in massaging news for profit.