Realism and (Historical) Accuracy: “Based on Actual Events”?

Like Theresa, I also found moments of Eisenstein’s use of montage in October disorienting—the number of cuts did, at times, confuse for me the progression of events and spatial and temporal relationships in the settings. This being noted, I also found the film (like Potemkin) a highly evocative narrative, and I can see it functioning as effective propaganda, though that is not, of course, the focus of our viewing for class. But the content of the film—the events of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, October 1917—and especially the manner in which that content is represented—in the unabashed glorification of the party-line—begs a question that seems to me to be related to our discussions thus far in class: where does accuracy in events depicted enter into the discourse regarding realism in film representation?

This is really separate from the question of realism as we have considered it so far; the question of realism, or of realist film, deals with the realistic representation of a physical reality, regardless of the events progressing in the film (and assuming a narrative film, of course). But while watching October, there were several moments when I wondered if what I was seeing was historically accurate, something I find myself doing for every other nonfiction historical narrative I’m exposed to (I’m holding out on seeing Frost/Nixon until I can Netflix the original interview tapes). So, I think the presumed realism of film—to clarify for the sake of argument here and not assume all film is realist, let’s say non-avant-garde film—weighs heavily upon the viewer’s acceptance of the narratives events, or story, presented. And with the ubiquitous mainstream film purported to be “based on actual events”, this question seems pertinent*. The average viewer may not be as prone to question the veracity of the history in films that claim accuracy (at least, not to the extent of those of us in class being trained to critically analyze texts), so perhaps the viewer’s acceptance or skepticism of a film’s content depends upon the narrative discourse, or the way in which the story is told, and this may be the tie back to our previous consideration of reality in film. If the physical reality, that is the setting and existents of the narrative, are presented in a realist manner, then the implicit acceptance of reality that this creates will also apply to the narrative events or storyline. In the case of October, maybe the moments of excessive cuts and symbolic montage successfully disrupted the representation of reality so that I also questioned the diegetic events. It seems to me that Bazin would think so…

*especially pertinent because the reality disclaimer apparently often goes unquestioned or even can be at times assumed based on suggestive Hollywood marketing: my brother-in-law for quite some time believed M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable (2000) to be a true story. The film’s tagline, “Are You Ready for the Truth?”, is what I imagine (and am hoping) tripped him up. I bring this up as a simple personal experience thought, and not to consider or speculate as to the response of any “average viewer”—placing my brother-in-law in that category would just insult too many people.