Knowing the score of Fair Game
December 13th 2010 05:54
I’m not sure how closely anyone paid attention to the series of events that the film Fair Game is based on when they were actually news, but I got caught up in it big time. I followed it pretty religiously for the four or so years it was occurring. This isn’t really like me. I’m not big on news and generally get by on whatever Yahoo thinks I might find interesting. Not that I don’t like current events, I pay attention, I just don’t get absorbed in it very often. I don’t really know what it was about the Plame Affair, maybe it was the idea that at any moment she might just get tired of the whole situation and get all Jason Bourne up and in that. Whatever the reason, I paid attention. She then wrote a book about the whole thing, which I read so I could get the whole picture.
Now the film is out and I know the score. For me this wasn’t like the whole scene with Titanic where I knew that somewhere in the movie, presumably near the end, the boat was going to sink. In this instance I was actually fully aware of the back story, the plot points, the chronology and the surrounding events before I even bought the ticket. In the film I wasn’t really about the story, but about what they had decided was going to put into the film. I ended up leaving because I wasn’t really enjoying the film.
Listening to people talk about it afterwards it occurred to me that perhaps people liked it so much because it was attacking the Bush administration and people are still have hard-ons for all that stuff. I kind of go the opposite way I suppose. It’s not that I support the Bush administration or even have a terribly informed opinion on US politics in general. Except for the fortnight leading up to each election, when I do some study to make sure my compulsory vote isn’t completely uninformed, I wouldn’t say I’m actually clued in on Australian politics either. I’m Australian, by the way. I guess I’m just against the whole Hollywood myth making thing. There isn’t an obligation to be 100% accurate, but people don’t take that on board and the film drifts into the public opinion as 'fact'.
It seems like every few years a film like this comes out and we have to endure the fallout of semi formed opinions and sincerely idiotic conversations about the people and events that they are based on. I tire of this. I don't like it. If it actually encouraged people to go and find out more about it that would be great, but for most people all it's going to inspire is a quick trip to Wikipedia, which by the time most of them get there has probably already been updated by people citing the film as a source. As I mentioned earlier I'm not the most informed guy out there when it comes to current events, and I am fully aware of the target I am painting on my back when I gripe about people voicing poorly informed opinions as a blogger... on my blog, but you choose whether or not to come here and read my opinions on things, mostly not according to my daily hits, but it's when these things permeate every our lives, polluting bus trips, birthday dinners and even online gaming that I get my ire on. The internet is already a cesspool of idiocy. I'm just maintaining the average.
This isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy the film or have a better idea of the events in question if you didn’t previously know more than the headlines, but it’s a hundred-something minute film chronicling events that unfolded over years. It’s not thorough. Sean Penn is good. He’s always good. It’s a drama, and the drama is good. As good as Sean Penn is, I do feel like the guy he portrays is a knob though. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him. It’s like kicking a bear. Even if the bear stole your picnic basket and you’re totally in the right, you’re still gonna go through a world of hurt. In the end even though I felt the pacing was ridiculously slow, it may have been because I was trying to think of everything I had ever taken in about the whole incident over the last seven years.
Amusingly, there are a couple of scenes in the film where people are portrayed negatively for having poorly informed conversations about current events that are very reminiscent of the conversations I have with people for whom the film constitutes their major, if not sole source of information on the Plame Affair.
Now the film is out and I know the score. For me this wasn’t like the whole scene with Titanic where I knew that somewhere in the movie, presumably near the end, the boat was going to sink. In this instance I was actually fully aware of the back story, the plot points, the chronology and the surrounding events before I even bought the ticket. In the film I wasn’t really about the story, but about what they had decided was going to put into the film. I ended up leaving because I wasn’t really enjoying the film.
Listening to people talk about it afterwards it occurred to me that perhaps people liked it so much because it was attacking the Bush administration and people are still have hard-ons for all that stuff. I kind of go the opposite way I suppose. It’s not that I support the Bush administration or even have a terribly informed opinion on US politics in general. Except for the fortnight leading up to each election, when I do some study to make sure my compulsory vote isn’t completely uninformed, I wouldn’t say I’m actually clued in on Australian politics either. I’m Australian, by the way. I guess I’m just against the whole Hollywood myth making thing. There isn’t an obligation to be 100% accurate, but people don’t take that on board and the film drifts into the public opinion as 'fact'.
It seems like every few years a film like this comes out and we have to endure the fallout of semi formed opinions and sincerely idiotic conversations about the people and events that they are based on. I tire of this. I don't like it. If it actually encouraged people to go and find out more about it that would be great, but for most people all it's going to inspire is a quick trip to Wikipedia, which by the time most of them get there has probably already been updated by people citing the film as a source. As I mentioned earlier I'm not the most informed guy out there when it comes to current events, and I am fully aware of the target I am painting on my back when I gripe about people voicing poorly informed opinions as a blogger... on my blog, but you choose whether or not to come here and read my opinions on things, mostly not according to my daily hits, but it's when these things permeate every our lives, polluting bus trips, birthday dinners and even online gaming that I get my ire on. The internet is already a cesspool of idiocy. I'm just maintaining the average.
This isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy the film or have a better idea of the events in question if you didn’t previously know more than the headlines, but it’s a hundred-something minute film chronicling events that unfolded over years. It’s not thorough. Sean Penn is good. He’s always good. It’s a drama, and the drama is good. As good as Sean Penn is, I do feel like the guy he portrays is a knob though. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him. It’s like kicking a bear. Even if the bear stole your picnic basket and you’re totally in the right, you’re still gonna go through a world of hurt. In the end even though I felt the pacing was ridiculously slow, it may have been because I was trying to think of everything I had ever taken in about the whole incident over the last seven years.
Amusingly, there are a couple of scenes in the film where people are portrayed negatively for having poorly informed conversations about current events that are very reminiscent of the conversations I have with people for whom the film constitutes their major, if not sole source of information on the Plame Affair.
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