The Canadian Caper
The Academy award winning movie ARGO continues to be written about in Canada and by others who know the real story as a inaccurate account. Canadians have know that the escape of the American hostages from Iran was a Canadian enterprise which we have always called the Canadian Caper. Former President Carter, President of the United States at the time, has confirmed this public.
ARGO is loosely based on the facts. It is in fact an American propaganda film, which shines a good light on the CIA and a rather negative light on the Iranians.and no light on Canada. All of this is very appropriate at of time of great hostility toward Iran, if you want to keep beating the drums of war.
There is nothing wrong with taking dramatic license with an historical event but the film should have been presented at a fiction based on an historical event. Instead, the film creators went out of their way to promote it as a true account, time and time again, ad nauseam.
I decided to review some of the events of the escape when I heard the CIA agent involved interviews with him saying the CIA was very happy to see the Canadians take credit at the time as if credit was not due.
It is not as if the creators of the movie did not have lots of information available to create an accurate account which was just as thrilling as the fictional account. A docudrama has been made in Canada, with Gordon Pinsent taking the part of Ambassador Taylor. (This can be viewed on You tube) Many of the participants are still alive today and could have been interviewed.. Below is an interesting video which has the actual people involved explaining what transpired.. It is fascinating to watch. How sad that only about 30,000 people have cared to hear these first person accounts.
I hope you took the time to watch this video
Canadians are accustomed to being under appreciated by Americans. We certainly are used to Americans puffing themselves up with all their sense of exceptionalism, the national political myth. BUT when an historic event is claimed to be true it should do it best to be true to the historical record. Sadly many will accept this film as the historic record for years to come. Just as the untrue reasons for dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are repeated today, The propaganda for that tragedy began right away after the event. It does not take much research to discover the historic truths. History deserve better and more careful treatment.
Here is Jimmy Carter speaking about the film ARGO in a speech at Queen University, which he has repeated several times.
posted by Tossing Pebbles in the Stream @ 12:41 p.m.
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6 Comments:
Philip--this is always the challenge of a movie based on an historical event. I have read reviews here that note that two main Canadian diplomats were combined into one character in the movie.
I enjoyed the movie, though I was deeply disappointed that a far more important movie--Lincoln--did not win. Incidentally, the historical facts in LINCOLN were also tinkered with.
So it's not just Canadians--more likely it is that Hollywood thinks it can make a story more dramatic than reality can.
You are so interesting! I don't believe I have read through something like that before. So great to discover another person with a few original thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. many thanks for starting this up. This web site is one thing that is required on the web, someone with a bit of originality!
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Thanks, Philip. This was on my mind as I just heard Ben Affleck talking this up on a podcast.
Some Americans come down hard on Jimmy Carter, Philip, because they don't like what he says.
That simply indicates that they don't like hearing the truth.
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