The Benshi

Ben Affleck may make his movies, “in the spirit of the truth,” but what about when nature filmmakers do it?

SHARK EATING ITS OWN TAIL IN SEA OF MONEY. What channel could Der Spiegel possibly be referring to?

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IN THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUTH?

I loved it last fall when Ben Affleck at the Toronto Film Festival, talking about the accuracy of his movie, “Argo” said it was made, “in the spirit of the truth.” That is one of the most wonderfully carefree quotes ever about accuracy, a topic that really shouldn’t be considered carefree. It’s the equivalent of, “she’s kinda pregnant.” Either we can trust the accuracy of a movie or we can’t. Which is it?

Who knows what to make of today’s information-saturated, and increasingly error-saturated, world (see David H. Freedman’s excellent article, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science” which pulls back the covers on the accuracy problem in the medical science world).

When it comes to the accurate depiction of nature in films, veteran nature filmmaker Chris Palmer wrote a really great book on the issue called, “Shooting in the Wild.” But his pleas for genuine reality in the presentation of nature appear ignored by a couple of British nature filmmakers who concocted a film about chimpanzee behavior in the wild that German critics have just pointed out is kinda bogus.

And sadly guess who was one of the advisors on the project — the recently tainted Jane Goodall.

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