Telling a lie: Based on a true story

[Bryan Mitchell]

Is it illegal in anyway to say that your movie is based on a true story, when it's not? Example: Fargo. I don't think it is, but can it get you in trouble for any reason.

[Keith Loh]

Japanese woman hunting "Fargo" movie loot dies in Minnesota

[Sharon Fraats]

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/fargo.htm

[Rob Belics]

This topic sounds like a good story and title:

"Lies: A True Story."

[Christopher C. Murphy]

I think the answer "lies" with Japanese woman dying because she believed Fargo was really true - if the filmmakers hadn't said it was "true" she would be alive today! ;)

[Keith Loh]

Anyway, I don't think it's illegal but at some point the gig has to be up. i.e. if someone asks you about it you have to do the wink.

[Harry Settle]

I believe that if you watch Fargo carefuly, you will see plainly that it is "Based on a tru story". At the end there is the standard disclaimer. This has had people wondering for quite a while. It's almost an Urban Legend now.

[Peter Koller]

Did anyone see Peter Jackson's mocumentary "Forgotten Silver"? So much for truth and imagination... lots of people around the world believed this film to tell the truth and fell for the joke!

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Hidalgo is based on the tales of Frank T. Hopkins. Though Disney claimed the story to be true, there's no evidence to support any of Hopkins's story. No proof Hopkins worked for Buffalo Bill in a travelling show, no proof Hopkins was a champion long-distance horse racer, no proof of the existence of either of the races portrayed in the film.

Not a bad movie though.

[Keith Loh]

I remember seeing U571 but I don't recall if it said that it was based upon a true story. I remember the British people being up in arms because the film portrayed the Americans acquiring the Enigma codes when in history it was British and Canadians.

There is also an upcoming film about an American pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain that will star Tom Cruise. The Brits are again worried that it will show that the Americans won the battle. :)

[Harry Settle]

It doesn't matter what they say in the Beginning (anything before the very last frame) of the film. . . You have to read the fictional disclaimer at the end.

[Patrick MCMurray]

going out of my way to sound like a heart-less bastard:
good... Darwin at work! This woman was clearly out of touch with reallity and not very bright. if she wrer smarter she might have either studied the movie better and found the disclaimer at the end or realized that fargo probably thaws out some time during the year and some one would have already found the bag. that a side, if she didnt die looking for a mythical bag, she might have decided that our yellow sun has strenghtened her kyrptonian body and she can now fly. no being smart enough to test this from THE GROUND ... well, you get the idea...

ps: has any one heard of the Darwin Awards? some one sould nominate her!

[Mike Butler]

Peter K., I just noticed that there is now a LONG wait on Netflix for "Forgotten Silver" prolly due to Jackson winning the Oscar for LOTR. I gotta see it, it sounds like one of the better mockumentaries.

Keith, speaking of changing countries for the movie, I think they also did that in "Master and Commander" (yes I know, the book was fiction too.)

Hey I've got a title: "True Lies"...ooops, that one's already been used! :-)

[Sharon Fraats]

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/fargo.htm


Fargo
opens with: "This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred."

Great opening. And not a word of truth to it.

Fargo's creators, the Coen brothers, are known for their playfulness, the inclusion of "little touches" that add to a film. Given the Coens' reputation for this, you'd think any responsible film reviewer would have made at least a stab at confirming this bold claim before blithely passing it along as fact. (Had they done any checking, they would have quickly discovered that nothing so much as vaguely resembling that level of carnage had occurred in Minnesota. Not in 1987. Not ever.) As a result of those reviews, an even greater number ended up believing what the Coen brothers had to have thought no one but the incredibly gullible would fall for. Their little leg-pull went over big time.

[Ken Tanaka]

Haw! And all these years I imagined it to be true (but didn't recall hearing about such a case).

I hope you're happy, Sharon. You've burst my bubble. What are going to tell me next? There is on Santa or Easter Bunny? You're a mean lady. <g>