By Benton Davis
In 2019, HBO released a five-part miniseries about the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. In the opening minutes of the first episode, we see a Soviet scientist hang themselves, deliberately doing so two years later to the second from the initial disaster. The scientist, named Valery Legasov and portrayed by Jared Harris, did commit suicide, but not until a day after the two-year anniversary. Another character in the show, soviet scientist Ulana Khomyuk, serves as Legasov’s primary scientific assistant. This person, however, did not actually exist. They were synthesized to represent the dozens of other scientists who served with Legasov. The final episode focuses mainly on the trial of the Chernobyl plant operators, and the testimony of Dr. Legasov features heavily in the dramatic frame of the episode, as he describes in detail how the reactor works, how it went wrong, and how the Soviet government might be to blame. This, too, is a fabrication, as Legasov was not present at the trial, his role being filled instead by other scientists and government officials. All these choices undercut the historical accuracy of an otherwise obsessively detailed series, but it’s clear to me why they were made. Each one enhances the drama, the gravitas, of these moments. They provide us with more traditional literary heroes to focus on, reducing some of the gray murk that is all-too-present in real-world people and events. However, when dramatizing historical events, is it responsible to alter them in these ways purely for dramatic effect? How might these alterations affect public knowledge of these events? This problem is not unique to HBO’s Chernobyl, and in fact Chernobyl is, in my opinion, a better example of historical dramatization. Other biopics and historical drama run into this issue as well, where real life just isn’t interesting enough to be put on the big screen.
This is largely an issue of creative intent. Though media that is about or features real-life figures that are still living may run into defamation suits – such as the Queen’s Gambit lawsuit that focused on a misrepresentation in a brief mention of a real female chess-player’s career – pieces that are primarily about long-dead figures have no set rules dictating how their stories are handled. It falls to the creative team, then, to decide if their focus is to educate or to entertain. Some choose to entertain, such as the 2006 film 300, which is more about big burly white men defending their manly macho culture from an exoticized foreign power than any realistic representation of ancient warfare or Spartan culture, and to its credit never tries to convince you otherwise. Pieces like Chernobyl, Hidden Figures, or The Imitation Game seek to sell themselves in no small part on their accuracy, and their ability to entertain you while also educating you about a real person or event. If we are going into these films with the expectation of seeing real historical events, and there is no clear distinction between what is real and what is creative license, how are we to separate the two on our own?
The stakes here may seem small, as no matter how accurate you set out to make your piece, unless it is a real-footage documentary, your audience is likely desiring entertainment over education. So, when you decide to alter details for dramatic effect, they win, at least in terms of getting what they want from you. And it is unlikely that small inaccuracies will have a significant impact on the cultural reach of your film, cutting into the profits for yourself and the other people invested in the film’s success, so long as you are not misrepresenting living people and are protected by necessary disclaimers. However, it is important I think to examine the possible long-term ramifications of these inaccuracies. Most history classes in American schools are broad, covering large swathes of cultures and time periods. It usually isn’t until college that classes are allowed to dive deeply into a particular event or culture, spending an entire semester on Spartan society or the series of events leading to the fall of the Soviet Union. Most people, I would argue, when it comes to specific historical events, know more from entertainment media than pure education. This isn’t inherently a bad thing – edutainment is a perfectly valid form of education when done right – but this fact means that entertainers can easily, and accidentally, skew the public perception of an event. If we can expect at least a portion of our audience to take the story we are telling them at face value, are we responsible for misinforming them?
Are some events more important than others? How are we affecting the real participants in the events we are dramatizing, even if they are long dead? In the 300 example, there might be value to mythologizing a culture that was itself steeped in and obsessed with myth. In Hidden Figures, too, there might be value in making the struggles of segregation more present and visceral, to greater engage the audience and lead them to sympathize with the protagonists. The primary power of entertainment media is the emotional response it can create, so it might better serve our audience and the stories we are trying to tell to alter the reality to create a stronger emotional impact.
The value of Truth is obviously central to this problem, as we seek to balance it with the often converse virtue of Entertainment. Success, too, can be a motivator in this decision, as we make changes based on what we think may make for a more interesting or impactful story, drawing both greater financial and critical success. Personally, I try to prevent success, or at least financial success, from holding too much sway over my decision making, striving instead to focus on the quality of my work and the emotional core of it, and hoping that that will lead to enough commercial success to support myself, and the others invested in the work. But on the topic of Truth, it is my opinion that medium in part dictates content, and therefore if I wanted perfect truth, I would go out and research and write an academic dissertation on the history. I don’t really want truth, though. I care far more about the “Why” of these events: why are they important, why are they relevant now? I think Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a good example. Though it is rooted in the history of the Salem Witch Trials, its intent is to make a dramatic statement about 1950’s McCarthyism, and makes changes to better serve that aim. Chernobyl, too, wants to focus, a bit ironically, on the value of truth, and therefore makes choices that highlight the lies of the Soviet Government and the isolation of the people striving against it.
To me, the most powerful philosophical tool to use when considering this question is Aristotle’s “Golden Mean.” I think we as entertainers should, when broaching historical topics, do our due diligence in finding that medium zone between pure boring history and shallow flashy entertainment. The choices we make should be rooted more in supporting the dramatic and cultural meaning of the historical events or figures, rather than cuts to make production easier or to boost a profit margin. We should learn from the “good” of historical drama, media in my opinion such as Chernobyl, The Crucible, and Hidden Figures.
Historical Drama is a subject that has interested me as a creator, so this question is likely one I’ll have to answer to some degree in my real career. I think that it is foolish to place the full burden of truth onto ourselves as creatives. We should trust our audiences to be skeptical as well as curious, to focus on our emotional center rather than our historical one. The “Truth,” long and winding and hard to nail down as it may be, is out there, in the realm of the historians and documentarians. We are entertainers first and foremost, creators of an emotional engagement with our audience, and that should be our foundation even when working with historical subjects. I believe it is possible to honestly represent the core of a subject without obsessing over its tiniest details.