Panel II

Historical Accuracy vs Dramatic License: Robert Redford's Quiz Show -- A Case Study

Albert Maysles Documentary filmmaker
Fred Zollo Executive Producer of Quiz Show
Richard Goodwin Author and historian
Judy Raphael Kletter Emerson alumna
Frank Annese Television and theatre actor
Jan Roberts-Breslin Documentary filmmaker; Division of Mass Communication

Moderator
J. Gregory Payne Division of Communication Studies

Respondents
Jane Shattuc Division of Mass Communication
Michael Kletter Emerson alumnus; business executive

Payne
As we have done in the early sessions, we're allowing people to give a five- to six-minute synopsis of his or her particular perspective. Then we are opening it up among the panel members. After that, the audience is invited to questions the panelists, after which the respondents give their perspectives. Jane Shattuc is a respondent, and also Michael Kletter is a respondent.

We're very fortunate now to have someone who's now heading to North Korea, but luckily we were able to get him here in central Boston to give his synopsis on this important dialogue on docudrama and documentary. He is Albert Maysles. Mr. Maysles? [applause]

Maysles
I remember many years ago I was making a film about Fidel Castro and I attended some Emerson functions. Only communist countries were there. Somehow a fellow Bostonian and I were the only Americans. I forget how we actually got in there, but I remember my friend from Boston came back to me and said, "I don't understand. I just asked this man from Korea whether he was from North Korea or South Korea and he got all flustered." Of course, the only person who would be there would be someone from North Korea and there is a big difference between those two countries.

But it's my way of saying, [as] someone has said, "God is in the details. Honesty is in the details." And if the details aren't right... I'm not accusing those who break the rules as being irreligious, right? But it's almost a religious sort of thing, for documentarians at least, to get everything exactly right.

I received an award not long ago and I was trying to figure out, if I only have a few words to say, what is it in one word that's the most important thing about making a documentary film? It's being exact. Not just close, but exact. [W]hen you're describing [a] character in a film, that's what history deserves. Absolute, total, exactness -- and nothing short of it.

Now that's, of course, one of the things that makes this discussion somewhat contentious. How exact can you be when you make a docudrama? Or do you want to be? Because you have to sacrifice in a semi-fiction film. The lines are so difficult to draw between fact and fiction when it comes to docudrama.

In documentary, you're obliged to be much more careful I believe about the truth. Now, I'm so nutty on this subject -- you won't believe it until I tell you right now. I remember, when I was 34 years old in 1960, I was so obsessed with this newfound discovery of making a documentary film with a camera that would be mobile: I could carry the camera; there would be a sound person with the tape recorder. There was no connection between the two of us. We'd go out and catch reality as close as one could, perhaps closer than it had ever been done before.

I had a date at that time. I didn't get married until quite some time later and now I have three children -- but on that date, we went to the movies, I think. We came back to her family apartment on Park Avenue and all I could talk about was the film. Film, film, film. Documentary. Wow, you can really capture reality. Isn't this great? So she said "See that photograph over there on the piano?" I said "Yeah." I saw this very stocky man; I couldn't describe him really him very much beyond that. "Well you've seen Citizen Kane, haven't you?" and I said yes. She said, "Remember that skinny little character that was so nervous, very Jewish guy, that was running around all the time? His name was Bernstein?" She says, "Well you see that man? That's my grandfather." But I said, "But your name isn't Bernstein, it's Berkowitz" -- and she said, "Yeah." I thought, "Oh, my God! -- How could they make such a terrible mistake?"

Anybody who's Jewish knows that there's a vast difference. The difference between North Korea and South Korea if you will, between a Berkowitz and a Bernstein. And for that guy to have violated that person's name. Now, it may have been for legal reasons. I don't know. But it just smacked me as terribly wrong and I don't know what to do about it.

I rarely go to movies, because it's like going to a dentist. I just don't go to any dentist. I want to know that the guy really knows what he's doing. And if I go to a movie I don't know that people really know what they're doing, and that they have God in the details. I was so furious about JFK -- without seeing it -- because Oliver Stone stated that it wasn't true. He said, "I don't intend to make here a film of fact. I don't even know what the evidence is. All I plan to do, and all I've done, is to create a counter-mythology."

My God, are we back to the Middle Ages? I mean, is that how you deal with a myth? And if it's a myth about the death of JFK, you know that's something we should get straight. We don't deserve to get misinformation. You're going to think this is crazy, [but] I've never seen JFK.

The letter I saw brought me to talk to Mrs. Kletter. [I had] doubts, and still have, until maybe [talking to] Dick Goodwin, who's a very good friend of mine; he's a high school buddy of my brother at Brookline High School. So I know and trust Dick very, very well. Until I have more information, and with the doubt that I have, I still haven't seen the film.

Now, my friends back in New York say, "You're going to talk about Quiz Show -- and you haven't even seen the film? You're crazy!" Well, you see the logic or the craziness of my not wanting to see a film -- and not wanting to see many films -- because of the doubts that I have as to the veracity of the material in them. That's it. [applause]

Payne
Now providing his viewpoint will be Mr. Zollo.

Zollo
Actually, I'm sorry you didn't see the movie.

Maysles
Of course I should see it, but I'm here to talk really about the issue.

Zollo
It's really good, though. [laughter] It's really a good movie.

Maysles
JFK was great. One of the best films ever made -- except it was wrong.

Zollo
Oh, JFK is a mess. This is a really good movie. [laughter] You know, I'm going to send you a video cassette and you know what you can do, you can watch it at your leisure and if it really begins to disturb you, you can just shut it off, or you can flip that little fast forward thing.

Maysles
At this point, I'm glad to see the film, and if I have questions I'll be able to get them answered by you.

Zollo
Sadly though, you're like a lot of Americans who haven't seen the film; and the film, I think, is worthy of being seen by a lot of people because it's just a good film. It's a good film as film. I mean, I was actually quite surprised by the response to the factual or nonfactual information in the film. As I said to Judy when she came to my office, "But, gee, [Kletter] got to be portrayed by Marty Scorcese!" I mean -- isn't that enough? Actually, it's really based on Charles Revson.

See, I have the same opinion as you do. Documentaries are far more scary to me, because they say they are documentaries. Then you see [one] which is riddled with inaccuracies -- [but] it's calling itself a documentary. Now we did not say this is a true story on the screen; we did not say it was a "docudrama." There's drama, and there's documentary. We tried to make a drama. I don't know what a docudrama is, actually. I guess that's a television word for bad television miniseries. [laughter] This is a motion picture about people's lives.

Now, in the case of Mr. Kletter, and as I said to Judy, it was certainly our fault. [I also told her] we liked the character of Revson, who had nothing to do with the 21 show. Revson, of course, was the sponsor of The $64,000 Question. Revson was just a fascinating character, and Dick had spent some time with Revson because he was not only investigating 21 and the scandals inherent in there -- but all the quiz shows, which were all corrupt. And so Revson was kind of a provocative character. That's really where Martin Rittenhouse, the character Martin Scorcese so ably portrays, emerged from. In all honesty -- I said it to Judy and I'll say it here -- it was an error in judgment, because it is the only character in the film who is fictionalized and created from whole cloth, or partially whole cloth, and it's terribly unfair to Mr. Kletter, whom I don't know.

Aside from the fact the man manufactured Geritol. I mean -- think about Geritol for a second. It's not exactly penicillin. Do you know what I mean? It's Geritol. As Herbie Stempel's wife says [in the movie], "Well, I was one of the suckers who believed you. I was one of those chumps, Herbie." And he says, "What are you talking about? Are people talking about my veracity? And they make Geritol!" Has anyone ever taken Geritol? Do you even know what Geritol is? It goes back to the old days of selling hair oil and snake oil!! That's what it is! It doesn't do anything. So let's remember these people manufactured Geritol, OK? Before we start talking about this in depth. They actually charged money for Geritol. They claimed it did things. Iron poor blood. I remember "iron poor blood" being mentioned. I'm not even sure what iron poor blood is. Tired blood. It helped tired blood, is what it did. In any case, they were high-priced snake oil salesmen, is what they were.

But the fact of the matter is: Mrs. Kletter is absolutely correct, and correct in her criticisms, and [it was] unfair of us, and I'll take all the blame and all the responsibility -- and some for Dick, actually, too. We should have called that character "Kletter" and we should have had his testimony precisely as it was given in the congressional hearings, and we could have indicted him only because he was there, and you would have believed he knew. But we chose to fictionalize him. In all honesty, I think we did a good deed to Mr. Kletter because we fictionalized him, in lieu of saying that was his name, putting him in the congressional hearing and then everybody who saw him saying, "Ah, he'd know! After all, the guy makes Geritol. He's gotta know!"

In any case we shouldn't have done that, and I apologized to Mrs. Kletter and I was pleased to see her letter. I'm actually rather surprised that Bob Redford didn't respond, because he's a very responsive sort. I will mention it to him. Unless your letter somehow didn't reach him and went to somebody else. The fact is, he's very responsible on this issue, and it's of great concern to him.

There are a number of points in the film where we altered facts, of course. As Faulkner once wrote, "It's not the facts that interest us but the truth." We chose to telescope events, for example. Dick's involvement in this scandal did not begin until, literally, years after the shows were even off the air. We chose to have Dick arrive when the shows were still on the air -- which was inaccurate. It didn't happen that way.

Joe Stone, who was the Assistant District Attorney at the time in Frank Hogan's office, had done an in-depth investigation, and in fact there had been a grand jury convened, but nothing had come of it. But Joe Stone isn't mentioned in the film to begin with. Both Dick and I would have liked to mention Joe Stone in the film. He was a pivotal character in this story [but] he isn't in the film. As it turned out, Redford chose to remove those characters.

Dick Goodwin made no attempt whatsoever to aggrandize his role in the scandal. His role is quite properly observed in his chapter. He sent the chapter to Joe Stone, who vetted it and he made a couple of comments and said, "Oh, this is exactly as it happened." It is true that we telescoped events, but the decision was made from a dramatic standpoint to have Goodwin's investigation continuing concurrently with the shows on the air. And if you see the movie -- and when you see the movie -- it really works. I mean, it's very compelling; it's very, very compelling. However, if you were to watch the rest of this documentary, the accurate sections that actually have to deal with 21, you'll be surprised I think at how amazingly precise the movie is observed on the key and most telling points of the period.

I could go on for some time, but you know you have a figure of history here. So perhaps Dick can take off on it.

Payne
I think we'll probably be returning to get some more insights from Mr. Zollo. It's very important to look at the documentary aspect, versus the drama, as Mr. Zollo says. Someone who did study this particular area, in a book chapter -- Mr. Goodwin, your perspective?

Goodwin
Thank you. I certainly am glad to be part of this effort at preserving the Kletter family name. The fact is, as Fred said, the entire company that was run by Mr. Kletter was a kind of scam. He was selling Geritol for tired blood, and Geritol made millions of dollars from these shows. He and all the sponsors met regularly with the producers of the show. So how much he knew or didn't know at the time, which I do know about -- I won't get into it, because that's not what the panel is about.

It's more about a very important question, which is in the creation of a work of fiction which is based on historical reality. How obliged are you to stick to the historical reality and to the facts? Now, you have to bear in mind that if we were to apply Al's standard here of exact accuracy -- precise, detailed accuracy to historical fiction, we would have to throw out [a lot], beginning with all the Greek playwrights, eliminate all the historical works of William Shakespeare, because I'm sure that Cassius' relatives probably felt that he was much, much maligned in the play Julius Caesar. And for Henry V being only a playboy when he was young -- well, we all know he was quite a serious and studious young man and never would have hung out with a Falstaff. And then we would have to go over into modern times, we'd have to get rid of War and Peace of course, because of his portrayal of the unthinking nature of the Russian military machine, when we all know it was intelligently guided. And as for the way in which he tears down the great Napoleon, that's unconscionable. And then we would go and get rid of Sherwood Anderson's Lincoln in Illinois, and then even in movies we would have to eliminate All The Kings Men, the wonderful movie based on the life of Huey Long, or The Last Hurrah, based on the career of James Michael Curley of Boston, and so on.

So the key, it seems to me, is that you are dealing with an art form -- sometimes an art form -- for movies always hover on that murky edge between being an art form and being pure commercial exploitation. But in any event the responsibility, if any, is first of all to present a good work of art, something that stands up like the various examples I stated which are much more elevated than quiz shows, of course, in their cultural importance do.

When you're dealing with fairly recent history, I think the most you can say -- or the only responsibility on the film maker or the novelist or the playwright -- is to be authentic. In other words, convey a real sense of what the people were like, or what the times were like or what happened. In that I think Quiz Show succeeds admirably. That was my first job out of law school. I did that investigation. I then went on to work for John Kennedy as soon as the hearings were over and I never looked back until I made the movie. So I haven't given it a lot of thought over the years.

But the movie does portray, I think, amazingly authentically, as far as I can remember in my own memory -- not just my memory of facts, or my emotional memory of the time -- what happened. We had a giant scam game, a fraud on television. It doesn't seem like much of a fraud, now, of course, compared to what goes on every day with the O.J. Simpson trial -- but back then it was very big, because people sort of believed in television. This was the first big break from that, and Redford chooses to call it "loss of innocence." At least it's symbolic of what was coming down the line. We were soon to run into things like the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, and Watergate, which of course were far greater frauds on the public than any quiz show. But Quiz Show was [about] the beginning, and in terms both of what happened there, it is essentially accurate and it's certainly authentic.

What is more interesting to me is that, in terms of the emotions and feelings of the people -- and I speak from my own experience and what I know of the others involved -- it's also enormously authentic. I mean, Van Doren wasn't exactly as he was portrayed in the movie. But he was pretty close -- and in fact, if anything, the movie it is overly forgiving of some of these people, [when] I think of what Redford [was] doing. I once asked him why he was shooting that scene... I wonder how many people have seen the movie? ...Good. There's a scene with Stempel doing homework with his kids and I asked [Redford], "Why are you shooting that? It doesn't add to the story line." And he said, "Well, I'm trying to build lives here." So he was trying to build three-dimensional people, and he's taking some liberties with [my movie portrayal] which I think were necessary. He wanted to create characters with people who are as everybody is in real life: ambiguous, dimensional, multidimensional with shades of motivation...

[a short portion of the recording here is lost]

...the responsibility of the artist, the filmmaker, the novelist, the playwright -- whoever is doing it -- when you are dealing with historical subjects, as artists of various kinds have since the beginning of Western culture. So it's not like this is a new problem, or a new question. It's been confronted by people dealing with various art forms over the centuries -- and I think Quiz Show did a pretty good job of it. Now, I think to totally depart from that is probably irresponsible. I mean, to try to literally create someone who is inauthentic, on which you have no basis of belief.

But even so, I wouldn't overrate the harm that it's done. I don't think that the movie JFK, as bad as it may be, and as inaccurate as it may be, Al, doesn't fundamentally change the public's perception of what happened to JFK. We didn't know then -- and we don't know now.

Maysles
Surveys show that some 80% of people believe in conspiracy theories. Before the film, it was maybe 40% -- now it's up to 80%!

Goodwin
Gee, everybody I know believes in them!

Maysles
Do we want a nation of paranoids?

Goodwin
Well, I think we have to realize, too, that that may have been true on the eve of the movie, with all the publicity -- but they're pretty transient, these things -- I mean, this kind of a sense of what happened that's conveyed by a film. Twenty-five years down the line, people won't remember the movie, but they will remember Kennedy, and they will remember what happened to him -- at least in some basic form.

Maysles
[What about in] the last five years? Or two years? In that time, I would guess, the public is even more cynical. This is getting worse, and worse, and worse, and worse because, we're treading the line, from fact into fiction, and from fiction into fact... It's getting so damned confusing, you don't know one from the other.

Goodwin
Well, I think the public is cynical... In any event, whatever you may believe, the fact is there has been a whole torrent of books on the Kennedy conspiracy. I just read the new one about Oswald -- it's not even out yet in galley form -- so this is something that's a continual problem with this great mystery in American history.

I think Quiz Show did a good job, but I do think there is a question here of the responsibility of the artist to facts. It's a question that's bedeviled artists from the beginning of art. Maybe you'll be able to resolve it for us, Arthur.

Payne
It's very clear our panelists are anxious to talk to each other even though we're not finished with all of them as of yet.

To provide a perspective of what it's like playing a role in a docudrama, a dramatic mode, or a documentary, we will now turn to the actor on our panel, Frank Annese. Frank?

Annese
I saw a sign on the freeway today, on a billboard that said, "It is seldom difficult dealing with reality. It is often difficult to determine what reality is." Stop believing movies. [laughter] They don't deal in facts, nor do they deal with truth. We're trying to do something interesting, something that captures your imagination, we try to boil it down to essences, not facts -- we don't deal in facts, we deal in feelings. Movies try to terrify you. Movies try to make you feel great about yourself. They try to make you feel great about having love for another person. They try to move you to be a human being.

What is this fascination with other peoples' lives? What is the difference? Be concerned with your own lives, if you're actors or writers or directors or producers. It's your truth; it's your version of reality. People get hurt, families' names are dragged through... all kinds of conspiracy theories -- and what is the difference? What happened, happened.

The movie is seven dollars and fifty cents, a five-dollar box of popcorn, some Ju Ju beans and Goobers. You're going and looking at images on the wall where people work very hard, sixteen-hour days. To get a movie done, I can't begin to tell you what a producer -- like Fred Zollo -- has to go through. I've had development deals with three networks and two major studios, and gone through story meetings, and meetings with executives, and "Who can we get to play the movie, to get seven dollars and fifty cents into the coffer?" And that's great -- 'cause I love movies.

We are trying to make interesting movies. Artists -- artists! -- are trying to convey a feeling to you that they feel, so you also will feel that feeling. Why? I don't know... that's why we do it.

So whether something is true, or untrue, or real, or unreal -- is not the point. Louis B. Mayer did not make movies because he wanted to educate you. Irving Thalberg did not make movies because he wanted to educate you. We're talking about a multi-, mega-, international business.

If I write a book, and I'm happy with it, and if I get Fred Zollo with me to make my movie and Fred Zollo is connected with MCA -- then my movie gets into a pipeline. That pipeline has radios, and it has magazines; it has newspapers; it has video production companies -- it has everything. And we go out and we put this thing out there, and you determine whether I make another movie like that or not by whether you go to the box office.

Maysles
So it doesn't bother you at all that the movie misinforms?

Annese
Not at all! What misinforms?! You think your docudrama's gonna teach me something because you put a camera on someone?? Look at a trial! As soon as the camera gets there, reality goes out the goddam window! [applause] Stop this whole issue of...

Maysles
I've been using a camera for thirty-five years...

Annese
Tremendous!

Maysles
...and every time I come up with a film that's controversial -- to be very truthful -- the first thing that happens is, "Oh, the camera was bad..."

Annese
But wait a minute...

Maysles
It's the first method of denying the truth.

Annese
But I'm not concerned! What truth?? I get up in the morning, I put my feet on the floor... I'm a human being. Some days I wake up depressed; some days I can transcend that; other days I can come here and speak, and not feel insecure -- and life goes on. You have your lives -- The movies are not your lives. Television is not your lives. Geraldo is not your life! You're your life -- docudramas are not your life.

Maysles
It adds to it... that's why we have so much violence.

Payne
It is clear that we are going to have a very spirited discussion! And that's why I'm glad I'm sitting on this side! Maybe someone who can solve the issues that seem to [have] less than a consensus here [panelists are still arguing] would be none other than Emerson's own, Jan Roberts-Breslin.

Roberts-Breslin
[I have] a difficult act to follow here, and I'm not going to try to solve any of these questions, I think. I'm going to raise a couple of issues in a more general sense.

What occurs to me as I listen to the people on the panel here is that there are certain questions being asked, and I'll try to organize them into some kind of structure. One of the things that occurs to me -- one thing that we're talking about -- is the expectation of the audience, when its sees a particular film or videotape. I think that expectation is somewhat tied in to the genre they are watching. A couple of people have touched on this -- that the expectation of the audience is different when they view a traditional documentary than it is when they see a Hollywood narrative film.

You can say that some of these categories or genres are starting to break down somewhat, as you talk about docudramas, and news and entertainment overlap on television, but I still think there is that kind of expectation.

But that expectation is also related not just to whether it's a narrative or documentary, but to the style, or the form, that a particular film or video takes in that, one that is open in its inherent subjectivity, whether in the techniques that it uses -- the filmic techniques -- or the narration, gives a little more of a sense that this is inherently a subjective undertaking.

History is subjective, I believe; history is fraught with inaccuracies. Once you start to do research in historical areas, you see that. There isn't just a set of facts that can be delivered.

I think, too, whether through the form, or through just overtly saying it, that subjectivity, kind of acknowledge that inaccuracies exist is one way of, maybe, responsibly dealing with some of these issues.

A lot of the points that are being made today really underscore the importance of ethical education as part of a communication degree, and as part of any other type of degree as well, for creating critically thinking audience members who can raise issues of genre, and form, and voice of the filmmaker.

Very much of what we do here at Emerson is creating makers of the media who have been schooled in this kind of critical thinking, and ethical thinking as well -- because what it comes down to is that these decisions are made by individuals. At some point, a certain individual is saying, "OK, this person is going to represented in this way." "In this instance, we're going to stick to the facts as we know them, and in that instance we are going to allow for a little more artistic interpretation." It's important that the people who are making those decisions on an everyday basis, have been at least brought to the point where they're thinking about these issues and questioning them. [applause]

Payne
Prior to opening it up for questions, let's entertain some dialogue among the various panel members. We've already seen they're very excited about that.

I have a question that Helen Rose would like to ask figures of Quiz Show: If one has the right to use dramatic license, and also to weave it into historical fact, how does the audience member know when historical accuracy is being [adhered] to, and how does one know when suddenly there's a dramatic composite character? Frank has said, "Who cares?" Helen's wanting to know... Maybe Mr. Zollo could tell us from that perspective.

Zollo
Quiz Show captured the period -- if I may say so myself -- beautifully. Quiz Show told a story about three young men who were at a moral crisis -- immensely accurately. If you were to analyze where Herbie Stempel was -- frankly, where he is today, if you have the misfortune of meeting him -- or Charlie Van Doren, or Richard Goodwin, in 1956, '7, and '8, the film captured these verities. That's what the movie's about.

Yes, we made a mistake when it came to Mr. Kletter. It's a mistake that I regret -- because, in all honesty, it's an excuse to criticize something that is very powerful and true -- and it's very hard to make good movies in this world. And the tragedy is that when you actually make one, people find this sort of fault with it. I don't mean to underestimate the implication that an individual was involved in a scandal when he was not as a small problem, because it isn't a small problem. But when people criticize the movie because, "Oh well, those events were telescoped in time," [they should recognize that] really, this movie is about these three young men and their moments of moral crisis. That's what it's about. And it concentrates on the events that surround them.

It captures a world in a very authentic and startling way that we haven't really seen before. It's immensely moving, when each of the three has to face the ambiguities of their time -- the rising ambiguities of their time. It was quite simple for Charles Van Doren when it first started. He was this beloved figure, his face was on the cover of Time magazine -- I mean, he had achieved everything his father has not -- he was rich and famous! His father had won the Pulitzer Prize, [but] no one knew who he was (hardly) and yet, here, Charles Van Doren has come face-to-face with the penalties for his actions.

These verities are in the movie -- this is what the movie's about. This is why we made the movie. We, in all honesty, did not make the movie to show the world that these events occurred in the mid-50s revolving around quiz shows, because, in all honesty, by today's standards -- the Vietnam War or the Watergate scandal, or whatever -- these events seem really kind of silly, and small.

In fact, one of Redford's great accomplishments in this film -- and one of the reasons why it's been so... honored (most say it's the best film of the year, even though it probably won't be given the awards next week) -- is that he managed to capture the moral ambiguity of the time around an event that is by today's standards, rather small. Yet he draws a world where we believed these people. You know what happened -- you know what the producers said the moment the scandal broke? They said, "Oh, you thought 21 was a real quiz show?! Oh, no.... It was entertainment all along! We didn't mean to fool!" The fact of the matter is, they wanted us to believe that we knew all along that it was fixed -- that we were getting into it being fixed. But that wasn't the case at all. Americans believed these contestants -- they wanted to believe they were smart.

Isn't it a vicious irony that the one time in American history where smart people were heroes -- and that's a terrible, sad afterthought of the quiz show scandals -- was that smart people were considered heroes. People liked smart people. They wanted to be around smart people. They wanted to know them. They wanted to stand on the street corner, and see Charles Van Doren walk by -- because he was smart. Now that's an amazing thing.

And now, we've actually degraded ourselves to such a level where we actually want to stand on the street corner, and see Kato... -- whatever his name is -- walk by. The president of the United States has to ... take second fiddle to the man who came to dinner! I mean, this guy lives in someone's guest house, and sleeps with the Playboy bunnies as they leave -- and he's now being feted by a news organization! CNN, no less.

Now supposedly a reporter was there -- someone who actually calls herself a reporter -- and then people have the audacity to criticize Quiz Show?! I mean, it's amazing to me that no one has attacked CNN! They bring in this little creep -- Kato Kalein... I assume he's named after the character in The Green Hornet -- is he not? I mean, someone who's named after a character in The Green Hornet! This is what's happened to America!

The networks are dominated by this! Every network -- first story -- is about the O.J. Simpson case. Now, I'm sorry, but there is nothing about that case that is too interesting at all -- to any larger, newsworthy focus, yet has anyone criticized the networks that every single broadcast begins with it? It has wall-to-wall, gavel-to-gavel coverage? The fact of the matter is we live in a time of total shit! [audience laughter]

And what we try to do is to focus [applause] on a time when people actually had virtues! They lived on the corner of High and Elm Streets, they didn't consider themselves racists every minute of the day. They weren't politically correct. They liked their wives! They wanted to stay married! They liked reading to their children at night! This was the world that was inhabited in that movie!

And all of that, seemingly, came crashing down around us when all of these heroes -- these momentary heroes -- proved to false. That's a terribly powerful thing! (With the exception of [Kletter]... I'm going to erect a statue to him! And he's going to be holding a bottle of Geritol!)

With the exception of that, we stand by our story. What does Jason Robards [character] say at the end of All the President's Men?... "Stand by our story -- and don't you guys fuck up again!" (Isn't that the last line in the movie?)

Annese
It always fascinates me. We've recorded now a new... epic... which is, we shall now call it now the "Era of Shit"?

[But] these [events] are necessary! Do you think this is the first "Era of Shit"? Don't you think there were horrible Greek tragedy writers? Do you think every word Shakespeare wrote was flawless?

I will tell you: I had a deal at NBC on a very personal Movie of the Week I wanted to do, about an infertile couple. This was about twelve years ago. We went through it all, and Universal had an option for me, and we went in with NBC, and they came back and said, "Well... infertility is not really a sexy disease. Couldn't she have something like leukemia, or something like this?" So I mean, this is the time that we are living in.

There are some people doing fabulous things. There are some people writing great plays again! There are some artists singing some great songs again! It's just not possible that everything is going to be wonderful and terrific.

Artists are artists. They make mistakes. We tell lies. We try to make it interesting. We struggle. We weep. We have to fight guys like Fred all the time -- who won't give us this, not enough money, not enough time -- and that's what goes on!

Zollo
As long as there's some sex in the infernal, troubled story...

Annese
That's it! Look, I did...

Zollo
... nothing that prevents you from having sex, right?

Annese
No.

Zollo
Good! Don't fall for it.

Annese
I did a two-hour Movie of the Week, on Bay Watch. This is the number one...

Maysles
It surprises me...

Annese
....syndicated show...

Maysles
It surprises me so much...

Annese
...in the world

Maysles
...that there is so much, adoration, of this thing called entertainment. Here at a college -- are these guys -- all these students here -- to be entertained? Is that why they're here?

Annese
No!

Maysles
Is that the highest thing we can get to? [applause]

Annese
Wait a minute... No! ...No!

Maysles
I might just parenthetically say that television is two things -- two things -- and what these kids are learning -- should be learning -- here.

Annese
What?! It's a marvelous medium!

Maysles
It's entertainment -- and it's news. It's two things...

Annese
Today, right?

Maysles
Yeah, right!

Annese
Well, change that!

Maysles
Is there anything else... Is there anything else but entertainment?

Annese
Yeah, ...There's what you do... and I'm sure your documentaries are fabulous!

Maysles
That's not just me....

Annese
Well, I know it's not just you... I just said it's what artists do...

Maysles
That's not what I do.... That's not just what I do....

Annese
Artists are doing marvelous things!

Maysles
There's a vast world other than just entertainment

Annese
Absolutely!

Maysles
My daughter, when she was four years old... I remember going to get The New York Times, as I used to do every evening in New York City at ten thirty, quarter of eleven. One day, the Times wasn't there on time. So she said, "Don't get so excited, Daddy. The people haven't been killed yet." Does that mean something? Does that mean something??

Annese
No!

Maysles
It means that the news is bad news -- period! And there's nothing else between bad news and entertainment. That's it -- period!

Payne
All right, now we will move back for a second. Judy Kletter has a question, and then Richard Goodwin has either a question or a response.

Kletter
I believe in truth, and I believe in fiction -- but the thing that really bothers me is the stand that Robert Redford took on this when he made it a morality, and an ethical issue. He said "I just want people to learn about ethics and morality at a time when ethics are in danger." And because of his grandstanding -- that's why I think this issue should be addressed, and I was also wondering why, if this is a fictitious movie, why did they use the names of real people, and not have any disclaimers? That's my only problem with the movie.

Payne
So we go back to the issue of some people are real, and some people aren't -- and how do you know the difference?

Zollo
Everyone was real in the movie -- except for one character.

Kletter
I think we know that.

Zollo
His name was Charles Revson.

Maysles
I'd like to make one tiny point to give some perspective and clarity. The word "authentic" has been used several times. Dick said, first "art," then "truth," then making it "authentic." Now Dick, when you say "authentic," and when fiction filmmakers say "authentic" -- do they mean that should it should appear to be authentic? Or are they talking about authenticity?

Now I heard on the radio, not so long ago, an advertisement for a book. And these are the words, and I'd like you to comment on it: "This book is so authentic, that you won't believe that what's in it actually didn't happen."

Goodwin
Let me say Al, that you'd be better able to answer your own question if you would go see the movie. It would be easier here to discuss it, I think, once you had seen it. But I associate myself with what Fred said, and most of what Frank said -- except for his denigrating comments about Shakespeare, which I don't agree with at all.

We're talking about -- when [we] get on a different plane than entertainment -- ... "What is reality?" Well, the fact is, you're never going to know what the reality of the past was, or probably even the reality of your own past, much less of historical past. The best you can do is approximate it through all means of investigation.

I just looked at that [PBS] documentary [screened at the conference]. What that documentary said about Joyce Brothers is not accurate. It's not what happened. It does not reveal the extent to which she had complicity in the scandal, and in fact I could have subpoenaed her quite easily for that investigation -- and for other reasons did not.

No matter what form you are dealing with, you are only going to approximate levels of reality. Now, part of the reality in Quiz Show was "What was going through Van Doren's mind? What was his relationship with his father?" "What was moving Herbie Stempel?" You're not going to find that in a book. You're not going to find it in the Congressional Record, or testimony. You can only do it by trying to understand the relationships of these people, understand their nature. How do I know about Mark Van Doren? He wrote books of poetry, he wrote books of criticism, he was a well-known figure, and by looking into that more and more, you get some sense of what he was like and how he was likely to react in that situation, and then you try to recreate it, knowing you're not recreating a factual reality -- he didn't say those words to Charlie. That's pretty much how the artist, or the writer, feels he would have felt, knowing what he would do about it.

And even then to say that people's emotions and feelings are not a part of the historical reality?! Either you say that we can't investigate them at all -- and thereby completely blind ourselves to reality -- thinking that everything is factual in the hardest sense -- or, we try to understand it.

And that's all that a film can do -- and I think Quiz Show, indeed, does it well. I think All the King's Men did it well with Huey Long. And if you wanted to know the extent to which it departs from what really happened, then you walk up and do your own lengthy, historical investigation. But you're not going to find it laid out anywhere for you -- any more than the people who do the film or the book were able to find it.

Roberts-Breslin
The question I would ask, though, is, "Is there a responsibility on the part of the maker or the producer to acknowledge that subjectivity, that inherent interpretive aspect of the process -- or is there not, and in what ways can that be done?" I think there are a lot of ways this can be done is with something as straightforward as disclaimers, or through changing or manipulating -- evolving -- the genres that we use to take that subjectivity, and put it in the forefront of what's being said, instead of something that's left to chance for people to discover.

Goodwin
You mean to put a line saying there's no relationship between what you see [here] with what you see in real life? That makes it all right?

I just read a new book by Henry Roth in which he said, "This book is not an autobiography." And you know what -- it is an autobiography. If you think you can get over this entire problem by putting a tag line on a movie or a book, then it wouldn't even be a problem any more.

Maysles
Well, it wouldn't be done because no one would want to see it.

Goodwin
Oh I doubt that... that they won't go see it because...

Zollo
I made a movie, six years ago, and we put a tag line on it, and we still got viciously attacked.

Goodwin
Mississippi Burning ... a wonderful movie...

Zollo
We changed the names to protect the guilty -- and they still jumped all over us: "Now, wait a minute -- that didn't happen on that Tuesday, on July 17th! -- it happened on July 18th!" And we said, "Well, we said it in the front of the movie! This is a fictional account. All the names have been changed to protect the guilty. It is not a docudrama -- it is not a documentary -- it's not attempting to be. It's just a story. As Hackman says at the beginning, "It's just a story about my Daddy" -- that's what it is. But still, they came out, and they couldn't help it -- every little bit of it had to be examined, for it's factual content.

Zollo
So it doesn't help to put disclaimers.

Payne
It's very clear we've reached a consensus among the panel members on how we should approach this. [laughter] I'm wondering if we could, open it up to audience members. If you have particular questions, we would need to have you come here or to this particular microphone.

Q1
Hi. I'm Tami Ecrary. I'm a Public Relations grad student. My question is: Does anyone on the panel believe there should be some sort of measurement system regarding the amount of story that's based on truth? My other question is, "Is there a fear in the filmmaking industry that total truth won't sell?" -- that you need to fabricate some aspects of it in order to make it commercial, or to be interesting to the public?

Goodwin
To tell you the truth -- we'd sell it if we could find out what it was! And you could sell it quite well. But, I don't know who could do such a measurement. Even the people involved in the film would have very different views [between them] of how much of the film was fact I mean, the form... Why shouldn't you ask the same thing of a novelist? Or a playwright? I don't think it's very practical. Do you Fred?

Zollo
I like the measurement idea though. I think we should have a pie graph.

By the way -- you're a grad student in public relations? That just sounds fascinating to me. I mean, is there a course in "Sliminess 101"? [laughs and hisses] How do you get to be a publicist? I'm sorry... this is just amazing to me.

Maysles
I must say that Dick and I are great friends, so we don't need to spare anything that might appear to be punches. But I'd like to ask you Dick, have you read -- certainly you know of -- the McGuinness book on Ted Kennedy? One chapter, I understand, was devoted to reading the mind of Ted Kennedy, and stating in such a fashion that the reader would think they were actually in touch with his thoughts and feelings, and how do you feel about that?

Goodwin
The problem with the McGuinness book is that he said he was writing a work of history -- not a work of fiction, or other work -- and therefore he was representing that these things were accurate and that he had sources for them (my wife writes history books; she has long footnotes after everything that she cites, having the character saying, or has written) and I think that that book was a misrepresentation on his part. But I think it's interesting, because there have been more books written condemning Ted Kennedy than any other contemporary elected official, and he still won by 20% [in his most recent election], so maybe [Kennedy] still doesn't have the impact that [McGuinness] thought.

Payne
Any other questions from our audience?

Q2
My name is Greg Thompson. I am a senior. I have a question for Mr. Zollo...

Zollo
What are you studying, by the way?

Q2
TV journalism.

Zollo
TV journalism?

Q2
Yes. I have seen Mississippi Burning, and personally, I liked it. But, in Mississippi Burning the FBI agents Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe -- the FBI in general, you might say -- are portrayed as sympathetic to the civil rights movement, when reality wasn't anything like that, as most of us [here] may already know.

Hoover had tabs on Martin Luther King. He considered him a communist. What about the three families' victims -- isn't that doing a disservice to them? And what about the people after the civil rights movement who have no idea what it was about? If they see that movie won't they get a wrong idea of what really happened?

Zollo
Just some random thoughts, since it's been a long time since I dealt with these questions. One, a Mississippi Burning should not be the only motion picture that has anything to do with the civil rights era. Sadly, it's one of only a few. Secondly, there are lots of filmmakers of color who chose to make apparently stupid, insipid comedies, instead of dealing with these histories. Three, when they do make films about (supposedly) historical moments in their history -- if it can be their history -- like Malcolm X it's riddled with such inaccuracy that it's virtually unwatchable. Mississippi Burning was really very much about a war between two, primarily white, organizations -- the FBI and the Ku Klux Klan. It was primarily based on a book called The KKK Versus the FBI. The fact of the matter is, the FBI spent a lot of time threatening civil rights workers and threatening Martin Luther King.

But on the other hand, they brought to justice the murderers of Goodwin, Schroeder, and Cheney. The State of Mississippi refused to prosecute them -- and still has not done so. And if it was not for the federal indictments, on civil rights violations, none of those people would have gone to prison. So, it's a difficult line. We tried our best to create a combination of characters who were FBI agents, and I think we might have erred in making them a little too nice.

The movie was about how "un-nice" they really were, and how they really weren't terribly concerned about law and justice, they were just concerned about kicking Ku Klux Klan butt, which is one of the rare areas that Hoover was actually interested in. He actually despised the Ku Klux Klan; he held that in common with Lyndon Johnson. As children, apparently something happened to them... You would think that both Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover would actually love the Ku Klux Klan -- but they hated them. And since the very beginning of Hoover's reign as the head of the FBI, he was torturing the Ku Klux Klan at every possible place. So he was an "equal-opportunity" creep. He hated the Ku Klux Klan, and he hated the students, and he hated the civil rights workers -- equally.

As it turned out he got a chance to deal with the Klan in Mississippi in 1964, and in fact, as historians will tell you, he eliminated the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Mississippi -- it no longer existed. In fact, it's interesting to note, that the largest Klan membership currently in the United States is in the state of Connecticut.

I'm glad you liked the film, though! Greenwich is a big Ku Klux Klan... They're burning crosses all the time, in Greenwich, outside The Gap! [laughter]

Q3
Hi. My name is Howard Miller. I'm a teacher as well as an employee here at Emerson College. I'd like to address a question-slash-comment to Mr. Zollo.

You were saying, in comparing the O.J. Simpson criticism to the criticism of this film, that you made a mistake in using a different name and not using the Kletter name. Now, this seems like it was a conscious decision to use the name of all other characters, and not the name of this person...

Zollo
No. No, it wasn't. It was an unconscious decision. There was no consciousness involved with that.

Q3
You actually chose to use names of all the characters except one?

Zollo
We wanted to portray Charles Revson. We really wanted to portray Charles Revson, who was not a sponsor of 21. He was a sponsor of The $64,000 Question.

We portrayed Charles Revson, is what we did. We just didn't call him Charles Revson. And the reason we didn't call him Charles Revson, is that he wasn't the sponsor of 21 -- he was the sponsor of The $64,000 Question.

Goodwin
And it was done in the interest of historical accuracy.

Zollo
That is correct. [laughter] What I'm trying to explain to the Kletter family, is that we've attempted -- we've actually created a fictional character. But we were really portraying Charles Revson. We wanted Charles Revson in the movie -- and so we put him in the movie anyway.

Q3
This isn't really the "Beat Up Fred Zollo Time," but by the...

Zollo
Oh come on! ...OK, I'm sorry I criticized the Public Relations department [laughter].

Q3
We're all sitting here criticizing O.J.! Everybody is!

Zollo
I've read a lot of truthful press releases in my day!

Q3
Everybody, Mr. Zollo, is criticizing the attention that has been paid to O.J. Where have you been when you say no one is? The attention being paid to the O.J. Simpson trial...

Zollo
So why don't they just take it off the air? Drop the story to the tenth story?

Q3
I think it's clear that it's a money issue, and it's so inexpensive to put on the air, that it's on the air and anybody watches it, and they make money.

Zollo
You mean, it's like the quiz shows of the 90s -- it's cheap, and entertaining?

And the way they're covering it, it's incredibly cheap. I watched about five seconds of F. Lee Bailey... I don't know what happened to him. Does anybody know what happened to him?? Is he taking drugs, do you think? Did he and Kato go out the night before and hit McDonald's? The worst cross-examination... did you [to Goodwin] see it?

Goodwin
I saw it.

Zollo
Dick! I mean, the former clerk to [Supreme Court Justice] Felix Frankfurter here -- how would you rate that cross-examination?

Goodwin
I'd agree with you. McDonald's -- all the way.

Zollo
The guy's [Bailey] made racist comments all his life!

Payne
Mr. Maysles, you had a comment?

Maysles
You can't say, on the one hand, the idea... that you can't get facts, that you can't get truth. For God sakes -- it's the first time we've ever been in a trial, which is so important -- it has race... It has all these things that are giving us insight into the actual process of what goes on in a courtroom. It's fabulous! I think it's probably more important than the Watergate hearings. Those are incredibly important things. They were factual. They were truthful. You watched it, and you saw the thing happening right there before your eyes. It wasn't Hollywood make-believe. It wasn't an attempt to fictionalize. It's an opportunity to see...

Now, everybody's wondering: "What about the jury system? What about the legal system? What about the lawyers? What about money? How do these things affect... ?" I think it's great! The only problem is, that we're not seeing enough of it -- that is, we should be inside the jury room, as well! That's where it fails! We're getting accurate information -- we're getting it directly -- there's no question about the veracity of it, right? Thank God. And it's authentic. It's authentic. It's not trying to be authentic -- it's not playing to be effective. It's not playing the part of that. It's giving us the basic elements of what goes on in this trial. Sure, it's sensationalized, and all that. In a way, it seems to be too much, but in another way that's more important -- we're not getting enough.

Payne
We do have time for one more question and we do have a reception afterward, so you can continue to ask questions of these bashful people up here, you can see they are reluctant to answer. We'll ask this one person back here, and then we'll ask Jane Shattuc to come give her response, as well as Michael Kletter.

Q4
I'm a graduate student in Mass Communication, here at Emerson. I want to thank the panel for one of the most entertaining panels that I've ever seen at this school.

As I try to make sense of this, the dividing issue that I believe we can draw from this panel is -- as Mr. Annese said -- there is no definitive sense of reality, whatever type of film you're making -- documentary, docudrama, narrative... You are, through the mediation process, doing some sort of mediation; you're changing the truth somehow.

The difference, as I see it, is that in the films that Mr. Maysles tries to make, he tries to change his sense of what reality is as little as possible. And the films that Mr. Zollo and his friends in the narrative film community try to make -- God bless them, more power to them, they can have my $7.50 every evening of the night -- they're not as concerned about that. They will in fact, admittedly, try to change the presentation of reality to reflect a more entertaining, and a more compelling sense, of what has happened, as Mr. Redford has said, in order to draw out greater truths.

My question, then, to you Mr. Zollo: Is there any story you can think of, in the whole history of humanity, that could be produced [audience laughter], and that would in fact be entertaining enough, for the people you see in front of you -- is there any story in the history of mankind, that could be produced as a movie, that you would not in fact have to take the liberties that you take in Quiz Show, and you take in Mississippi Burning?

Zollo
There are dramatic liberties that one always takes when one tells these stories. I mean, Richard III didn't have a hump, apparently -- didn't have a limp even -- apparently was a pretty nice guy -- but now we think of him as this creep, you know?

It varies from movie to movie. There were decisions made on Quiz Show, in which my greatest concern about them -- and we talked about them a long time -- was the telescoping of the time. The way we originally thought about this movie, and went back to it after Paul Attanasio wrote a couple of drafts, was, perhaps we should have a first act and show the quiz shows and how exciting they are, and then have the screen go black for a minute, and say, two years passed. And then have Dick Goodwin pick up, in essence, a absolutely cold trail, and he goes to Joe Stahl and he's sort of like Columbo -- which is really how I saw him, when I asked, "what did you do?" and "what did you do?" But it was decided -- and I think Bob made the right decision -- to have the events concurrent. I think that's our greatest sleight-of-hand. The next movie I'm doing, however, will please you, if this is a concern of yours. And I think it's an overwhelming concern that you should actually drop as you leave Mass Communication, and enter into communications.

Q3
... enter Public Relations ...

Zollo
"Mass Communication"? I was thinking, "Does Mussolini teach a course here, [in] 'Mass Communication?' "

Q3
The pope, actually -- we're bringing in the pope.

Zollo
Actually, it's Massachusetts Communication.

We're going to do a movie about the murder of Medgar Evers -- one of my great heroes -- and the thirty-year pursuit of his murderer. I don't know if you know about this case, but Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963 by a man named Byron de la Beckwith, shot in the back from long range, and he survived two hung juries in 1964 in Mississippi, and basically went about the state for the next two years and said basically, "I shot the guy... and fuck you!"

Until his widow, Mrs. Merlie Evers, Mrs. Merlie Evers Williams, actually, by then, and a young district attorney named Bobby Lawler -- kind of a white racist kid -- decided, "Enough of this shit!" and they began to pursue him. And eventually, a year ago last week, they convicted him of murder -- after thirty years.

Now, we're going to tell that story, and I think you'll be pleased, because I think your standard... Hopefully, we won't fuck it up and it'll be a boring movie after this. But there won't be one moment that anyone can say, "Hold on a moment -- I don't that it happened that way." We may push a few events around, and something happens on a Tuesday that may have happened on a Wednesday, but I think by your standard -- the Mass Communication standard -- I think you'll be pleased. So, yes, there is a story.

And then after that we're going to handle the story of Christ. [laughter] After all, there's no doubt what happened there, right?! [applause]

Payne
Professor Shattuc?

Shattuc
I'm probably not as funny as Mr. Zollo, and my job is to be the academic -- so I'm going to do this in short, limited sensibility.

I'm in a post-modern dilemma here: I'm talking about a quiz show scandal that a movie is based on. So, first of all, you have the lie, and the issue on an ethical level, of a quiz show; then, you have the reproduction of that lie in a film that's questionable, in potentially having lies within it. Then we sit here and talk on a panel, where we start reducing everything to falsehood and fiction, and "Why do you believe in anything?"

As a person who teaches ethics, and one who is working right now on a book on talk shows, and trying to understand talk shows, let me just say one thing: I was at the Jerry Springer Show this summer -- you'll appreciate this -- and I started out to say to a producer, and I said "What are the ethics of talk shows?" and she stopped me right away, and she said -- "Don't be so incredibly naive. There are no ethics. We do what we have to do. We're entertainment."

What I've heard tonight is the concept of entertainment: "Don't get upset at it. It's just entertainment." Nevertheless, we are a generation that understands history through entertainment. We now understand World War I, the Civil War, through Ken Burns' rendition, through movie renditions. The students I see here as a professor only follow history through entertainment forms. My students do not know about JFK, but they do know about Oliver Stone's rendition -- and for them, that is "truth."

I'm scared of this. Because in the postmodern dilemma, we have Hollywood's production of Hollywood now. We have Hollywood's rendition of television. We're already in a fictional industry working in a fictional medium that's driven by lack of ethics, talking of another industry reproducing in fictionalized form -- there is no longer a notion of the center, the original object. This is what's known as the postmodern dilemma; [or], in our culture right now, what constitutes "the moment."

Let me pull this back to a central question that's being debated right now [among] cultural historians of mass communication (or whatever Mr. Zollo chooses to extrapolate to). If I could pull it through one point -- and this is always what is pulled down to the questioning moment -- "the Auschwitz issue," In Germany right now, it's called the "Auschwitz[ ]." In Germany today there's a law that one cannot lie that the Holocaust did not take place. You will be arrested -- because it did take place. And there's a general sensibility in and among a number of right-wing people in Germany that the Holocaust was a production of Hollywood. That it does not exist, and it never existed, but it is a rendition by the entertainment industry.

If we can't go back and retrieve the notion of the original moment -- because we do make judgments based on fact... What O.J. Simpson is ultimately about, is the moment of fact -- I make my moral judgments: "Did this or did this not take place?" "Is this person guilty based on facts?" We have to return to that.

I'm sitting here in this vertiginous sort of stomach, and I'm here and I can't [take it] any longer... Nevertheless, this is about history and this is about moral judgments and the words are being used tonight, it's crap, it's shit, or it's not. This disturbs me -- this kind of talk -- and Hollywood has incredible power, and they have to start setting the standards of what constitutes truth, and what constitutes history. Yes, it is a fictionalized medium, but it is being played with too easily, and it is becoming the chronicler of art history. [applause]

Payne
Michael Kletter.

Michael Kletter
There's a very famous Geritol commercial in the 70s that ended with the line: "My wife. I think I'll keep her." And that's how I feel today. I wasn't going to talk about Geritol, but Mr. Zollo brought it up, and I feel I have to defend Geritol, too.

Geritol was a great marketing success. It could be studied in an advertising class here; one could spend a whole semester on it. Here, a product was developed for any area that nobody ever thought about. Who ever thought about vitamins and iron, "Let's mass market it to America!" ?

Yes, it had a resemblance to the old medicine man days: a guy going from town to town, "Here's what I'm going to do for you!" and "Take this you'll be like a twenty-year old again." They used the vehicle of television. Television was the horse and wagon. But Geritol had iron, it had vitamins... and it started the modern vitamin craze. It started what fills your shelves today. We are all so vitamin conscious, I guess, so we can thank Geritol for a little bit of that. It was a marketing miracle.

I'm sure everyone would love to create a product today that would fill a niche and be so successful. It had a great phrase, "tired blood." That's an advertising genius of a term. It was appropriate for the 50s, and as the 50s turned into the 60s, and advertising refined itself, all these grandiose claims also got modified.

But is it any different than a Volvo ad that was on five years ago that showed one those huge, big-wheeled trucks going over a line of cars, with the Volvo was in the middle, and the Volvo did not get crushed, but every other car got crushed? Then we find out that this car was rigged and that it had steel beams put into it, [although] it was a reenactment of a true event that had happened up in Vermont. But they didn't say that in the commercial...

Goodwin
I always wondered what Geritol did for people, for tired blood -- and then I found out it had alcohol in it.

Michael Kletter
Only in liquid form. Not in the tablets. [audience laughter]

Goodwin
It did make people feel better. There didn't seem to be any other explanation.

Michael Kletter
Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. Since Mr. Zollo brought up Geritol, I felt I had to defend that a little bit... That's what put me through Emerson. [audience laughter]

Zollo
That's the best thing I've ever heard about Geritol!

Michael Kletter
I would deeply like to thank all the participants here. For Mr. Zollo and Mr. Goodwin to come by, and be bombarded with these things, is just great on their part. It shows an openness to discuss this, and an openness to hear the comments.

Just by having you [students], listening to a very lively exchange of ideas, will give you a chance to think, and when you go out and do your public relations, your producing, your directing, whatever you're going to be doing in mass communications -- you'll think: "Is that ethical? Is that not ethical? Why should I do it? Why should I not do it?" That's what this is all about here. And I hope even Fred Zollo might give a second thought when he's doing another movie: "Gee, what did I do wrong, as in Quiz Show, that might come back to haunt me? That might make me come back to Emerson and submit to more of this?"

Humans are a curious form. We are constantly challenging things; we are constantly pushing the envelope to the edge, going as far as we can take something, and see how much we can get away with. And that's great -- otherwise, America would not be discovered, the moon might never have been walked on, television or movies might never have been invented.

But just as Columbus and the astronauts who walked on the moon needed to address their goals, we have to adjust our goals, and our course. In this seminar, I think we're attempting to put ethics back on its correct course. Ethics is a very big, lumbering, cumbersome ship. As in a law of physics: an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless it's acted upon by an outside force. Today's conference is one of these outside forces that is trying to correct the course of ethics, and putting a it little bit more back on the straight and narrow.

I would like to thank Emerson College, President Liebergott, Dr. Gregory Payne, the Communication Studies department, for hosting this today. I think it was terrific. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If there's one thing, it's the family structure that is so important. Without the family, ethics doesn't matter very much. And I think that was what we were trying to show here, in a way. Thank you for coming. Have a good day. [applause]

Payne
I'd just like to second everything that Michael has just said on behalf of the college.

It was nine years ago that we had a media and ethics conference at Emerson that looked at the ethics of docudrama. At that particular moment we had Fred Friendly come and discuss that.

We continue to push ahead. It's probably one of the rare characteristics at Emerson, that we are constantly mulling over historical accuracy and dramatic license, and I would like to thank Judy embodying all that energy and fervor to put that on the burner today, because it forces all of you who are going to be professionals in a variety of areas to figure out exactly where you stand in regard to the panel, and also come up to your reaction to an important word that many of you have asked me: "Who's responsible for these types of entertainment," which I think Professor Shattuc outlined.

We have of course an evening session, at which Professor Andersen will be outlining some ideas on ethics, politics and press. We will be moving over to the First and Second Church -- I don't know if the structure is symbolic of where we are with regard to the press and politics in America. I would invite all of you to stay with the panelists. We have a reception especially for the writing students, as well as the film students to my left.

And there was one [last] question for Mr. Zollo: We have 168 Public Relations majors, who want to know what was your major, and would you meet them behind the building?

Zollo
Tell them whoever writes the best release...

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