Quote:
Originally Posted by octothorp
Not sure how Dog Day Afternoon pushes the limits. It was based on interviews with the involved FBI officers and hostages, as well as television footage and bank security footage; the intent was always to follow the actual events as closely as possible. After the film's release, Wojtowicz disputed that two of the phone calls didn't actually happen and that his wife was portrayed as a negative character when she was actually very supportive, but about 95% of the film's screen time is depicting events and conversation that are documented as to have happened. I'd say the only other film that has a similar level of historical accuracy that's been picked so far would be United 93, where (other than the villainization of the european passenger) the directors were absolutely faithful to the information they had at the time, (although more inaccuracies were uncovered once the cockpit recordings were released).
I think we need to get a clearly defined decision about what counts as non-fiction, or else we'll get these sorts of arguments with every single pick in the category. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake not to limit it to traditional documentaries, but at this point too many non-documentaries have been picked.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to crap on your choice. I don't have a problem with Dog Day in the category. Like you say, they tried to stay as accurate as possible to the actual events (with some artistic license for story purposes, but even the tone of a true documentary can be influenced by the director's own biases -- see: Moore, Michael).
I just found it strange that of the recent picks in the category, the one that is being questioned the most is the one which is based on the life of one of the most well-known people of the 20th Century and features events that were well documented by the mass media.