By Cate Marquis
TRUTH examines the events around the 2004 “60 Minutes” report on then president George W. Bush’s military service, which led to Dan Rather’s resignation and producer Mary Mapes’ firing. But in truth, the film is as much about the pitfalls of news reporting under the pressure of the 24-hour news cycle, and journalism’s traditional mission, the search for truth. Viewers may think they already know this story but, like the document at the center, not all is what it seems, and the truth is more complicated.
Robert Redford plays Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett plays his long-time producer Mary Mapes, in this drama based on Mapes’ book “Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and The Privilege of Power.” The report, which aired in the heated atmosphere of a presidential election, purported to show that George W. Bush not only used family connections to obtain a slot in the National Guard, avoiding service in Vietnam during that war, but was actually AWOL during part of his service. The document that was shown as proof of the later was immediately scrutinized and questioned by people on the internet, the first case of citizen journalists vetting a news report. The resulting firestorm of questions uncovered flaws in the reporting, undermined Rather’s reputation and lost Mapes her job.
Response to this film is likely to be divided, based mostly on how the viewer feels about Dan Rather. Just as many were prepared to believe the document that Rather reported on had been fabricated by biased reporters, or a least by their source, bent on bringing down the president as soon as the internet questions surfaced (just as others were eager to believe it on face value), there will be those who do not want to see this film and risk the possibility there is something more complex underneath. But the curious, the more open-minded or those concerned about the state of journalism in this country would do well to give TRUTH a look.
Mapes produced the “60 Minutes” segment that exposed the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, which won her an Peabody award – or at least CBS, after they fired her. She is the real focus of this film, not Rather, and the story is told from her viewpoint.
Topher Grace plays Mike Smith and Dennis Quaid portrays Lt. Colonel Roger Charles, two of Mapes’ research team, whose cross-cultural bickering provide much of the comic relief in the film.
Director and scriptwriter James Vanderbilt uses a restrained tone, evoking earlier films about journalism like ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, although this is a very different kind of story. The film takes a straight-forward approach to events, starting with the seed of the story, and detailing the pressures of getting a story out in a timely manner while doing due diligence on fact-checking.
The document a source had brought to Mapes was a copy, which limited the kind of testing that could be done to verify it, and officer whose signature appeared on it had since passed away. On the strength of handwriting expert verification and with sources verifying the content, the decision was made to air the report despite imperfect documentation.
Questions were raised immediately and the media firestorm ensued. Once doubts were raised, Mapes found sources recanting or even revealing deceit. As the film reveals, Mapes and her team were able to clear up all the issues raised about the document eventually, but it did not matter – once the internet talkers seize it, the scandal became the story, not the content of the report. Fact-checking no longer mattered.
Blanchett does an excellent job as the woman journalist at the center of this scandal. She portrays the doubts and uncertainties she grapples with, balancing the time needed for vetting and mixed results from that process with a looming deadline and pressure to get the program on air before the election. Redford plays Rather like an old-school journalist, committed to uncovering the truth in Edward R. Murrow-style, but perhaps too trusting of his long-time producer and protege Mapes. Late in the film, there is a powerful, chilling scene where Redford as Rather talks about how television news morphed from a public service that made no money into profitable info-tainment. The film is worth seeing for that scene alone.
TRUTH is a strong film about the challenges of journalism now, told through a famous incident that brought down a man who had been seen as a giant of TV journalism and which marked a shift in who reporting was perceived.
TRUTH opens in St. Louis
on Friday, October 30th, 2015
OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS
