Watch the hollywood version of "Memphis Belle". Then watch the documentary "Memphis Belle" which was filmed by cameramen going on actual B-17 missions and getting shot at. All the footage is real, there are no actors. You can see the fear in their faces, the bravery, the hurt, the relief when they return. It's all terribly real.
My dad few 32 missions in B-17. He said the documentary nailed what it was actually like. The hollywood version, nope.
Okay? Some WW2 veterans couldn't watch the Normandy invasion scene in Saving Private Ryan because it was too realistic. My dad said Apocalypse Now had its moments of accuracy regarding Vietnam.
I don't know why you keep repeating this incorrect notion that fiction cannot depict things in a historically accurate manner.
Some fiction is trash. Some documentaries are also very misleading and have their own narrative. One should reference multiple sources when possible.
> this incorrect notion that fiction cannot depict things in a historically accurate manner
This is a misunderstanding of what I wrote. I didn't say that fiction cannot do this. I said it is wrong to cite it as the truth. If you've got evidence of the truth, cite the evidence.
> He said the documentary nailed what it was actually like. The hollywood version, nope.
Here you are comparing a fictional film with a documentary and dismissing the ability for fictional film to accurately portray the experience. This is not the case with all fictional films, and not all documentaries are actually superior or free from fiction/embellishment themselves.
You cannot ask your dad or my dad or WW2 vets if it's an accurate depiction? People shouldn't assume fiction is fact, but that doesn't mean fiction cannot contain facts. I don't think anyone is saying you should cite fiction alone, but it can be used to spur interest in a topic.
32 is a crazy number of missions, your dad sounds interesting.
I don't know that I'll find time to do that (I'm not sure if that's on my streaming services, and I don't like war dramas but the documentary does sound interesting) but I appreciate the creative suggestion. I do think you may be missing the point; it's not that fiction is necessarily (or even ever) a better way to learn history or to understand the subjective experience of people in a historical moment, but that there are kinds of truth you can address with a novel that are difficult to address in any other way. Was the primary goal of the fictional film to "put you in the boots" of a solider - or was it to be a thrilling action movie? (Of course I haven't seen it, so I just don't know.)
Documentary is also a weird genre because it's a blend between fiction and nonfiction, and the seams can be difficult to detect. My understanding is that the sound design in nature documentaries is often artificial for example, to deliver the experience of hearing something - not to convey the literal sound that was picked up by a mic in situ.
I'll share with you that my favorite novel currently is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. I think about it often; I think there is immense wisdom about adapting to a changing world, bearing hardship, and maintaining a certain kind of hope (not per say that things will get better, but that you will get better at responding to them regardless) in that book. Understanding that that particular kind of hope was possible, that hope could be something other than a naive optimism, reconfigured my conception of hope from something I had long ago discarded as useless into a tool of thought I use every day; that alone has had a profound effect on my life and outlook. (Here's a 12m summary if you care to see it https://youtu.be/6iVGuMyKFgA)
I imagine it would have been possible, in the abstract, for someone to write a book with that same wisdom as a how-to guide or self help book. But it wouldn't have been Butler who wrote it, because Butler was a science fiction author and Sower was a science fiction project. It's a kernel of her unique perspective, from a life different from my own in virtually every way, and for that reason it teaches me things that nothing else can teach me. And being a portion of her genius rendered in print, no one else could have produced it, so in practical terms this self help book is impossible (except, I suppose, as a derivative work).
Other times I understand things that have happened to me because they've happened to characters in novels I've read. In high school we read Catcher in the Rye, and I despised it because it seemed to be a book about absolutely nothing. I couldn't fathom the decisions the character made or his general misanthropy. As I got older and became familiar with depression in myself and others, the book clicked, and I find myself compelled to reread it. It helped me contextualize what I was experiencing and observing.
Watch the hollywood version of "Memphis Belle". Then watch the documentary "Memphis Belle" which was filmed by cameramen going on actual B-17 missions and getting shot at. All the footage is real, there are no actors. You can see the fear in their faces, the bravery, the hurt, the relief when they return. It's all terribly real.
My dad few 32 missions in B-17. He said the documentary nailed what it was actually like. The hollywood version, nope.