“Truth” is many things, including highly entertaining, but not subtle.
It’s a movie with enough fodder for a semester-long journalism class. It’s a movie with a standout performance by Cate Blanchett and a very good one by Robert Redford, only because it’s hard to forget he’s Robert Redford and not Dan Rather, whom he plays with a hint of accent, courtly manner and stiffness of his neck, all reminiscent of the veteran newsman.
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford.
Rating: R for language and a brief nude photo.
It’s a movie with speechifying but a reminder about changes in the news business, what one principal player has called a “digital lynch mob” and how easily the conversation can be changed. It goes down the rabbit hole in fall 2004 when a “60 Minutes II” report raised questions about President George W. Bush’s service with the Texas Air National Guard, and turned into a story about whether the network’s sources had lied and the supporting documents had been faked.
Producer Mary Mapes and anchor Dan Rather were among the CBS staffers who either lost their jobs or saw their reputations tarnished in the process.
“Truth” is based on Ms. Mapes’ book about the events that transpired behind the scenes and on the air. She sold the film option in 2006 to screenwriter James Vanderbilt (“Zodiac,” “White House Down,” “The Amazing Spider-Man”), who wrote the script and makes his directing debut here.
It recounts the origins of the TV report, which alleged the president had used family connections and political privilege to avoid the Vietnam War and then had ducked out of National Guard duty for a period of time, and the firestorm that followed.
Given how polarized the country was — and is — about the news media and the 43rd president, it’s unlikely “Truth” will change anyone’s mind. And given the source material of Ms. Mapes’ book, it’s not surprising that her screen counterpart, and Rather, get all the best lines.
Mapes, played with fiery intensity by Ms. Blanchett, tries to take her lawyer’s advice and remain calm when appearing before a panel convened by CBS. It was co-chaired by Richard Thornburgh, the onetime Pennsylvania governor who also was U.S. attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
But she cannot resist giving a modern twist to a McCarthy-era question: “Aren’t you going to ask me about my politics? Do you mean am I now or have I ever been a liberal?”
Rather, for his part, laments the changes in the business and how news once was a public trust.
“I was there, Mary, I was there the day they figured out news could make money.”
And if you interview “Survivor” contestants instead of survivors of genocide, the ad rates will go up, he says, more to the audience than to the longstanding producer.
“Truth,” filmed in Australia, which explains the odd look to New York from Rather’s balcony, makes the point that the truth about the initial story was lost amid Internet and media-fed arguments about typewriter fonts and forgeries. It can be argued the story was rushed to air — ironically to distance it from the election and to plug a hole on the schedule — and that not enough was made of copies vs. original documents, but also that CBS panicked and bowed to outside pressures.
The truth won’t be revealed in a two-hour movie, but it certainly will reopen the Pandora’s box and let a little light shine in, and allow audiences to see how news is made and careers unmade.
Movie editor Barbara Vancheri: bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632. Read her blog: www.post-gazette.com/madaboutmovies.
First Published: October 30, 2015, 4:00 a.m.