First of all, I read this (excellent) article: “Remembering the bold, corroded soul of Joe Cocker.” The AV Club site is often full of snark, so this was especially surprising and pleasing.
The image of Cocker shuffling to the mike stand and grabbing it as if for support, that made me think of Kirk Gibson limping out of the dugout in the 1988 World Series, bottom of the ninth inning, his team down, injuries in both legs, to hit a home run to win the game. A game I was watching at the time.
Which made me think of Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass, with no time left on the clock, to win for Boston College (Boston College! — not a traditional college football powerhouse). I was watching that one also, just because Boston College was my father’s alma mater.
And I just read an article about the 1914 Christmas Truce during World War I, when many soldiers of opposing armies, spontaneously, stopped fighting and instead visited with each other, played games, sang songs, and exchanged gifts.
What do the home run, the Hail Mary pass, and the truce have in common? You could never write them. Each would be hopelessly corny and manipulative if you put it into a work of fiction.
Of course, they really happened, but that’s no defense. Which is why the words “This is based on a true story” usually mean that you’re not about to see a great movie.
(The exception, of course, is where that sort of disclaimer is used ironically, as in Fargo, or American Hustle, which starts with the words, “Some of this actually happened.”)
Have a good holiday.
I’ve never really understood the Christmas truce. So they celebrated Christmas together, then went right back to war the next day like nothing ever happened? Probably an oversimplification, but that’s how I always imagined it.
And “based on a true story” always makes me think of some soft, fuzzy Lifetime movie. It’s kind of sad that real life events are somehow less true/less realistic when placed in fiction.
Your comment about the Christmas truce is, objectively, true, and that’s kind of my point. Yes, it was pretty pointless, ultimately, but it doesn’t have to have a “point,” because it actually happened. In a work of fiction, it would have to have a “point.”
Not that it had no meaning at all. One thought I have about it is that it shows that, despite the war being a “world war,” it was really being fought among men who were very similar (same race, same religion). But that’s not the same as investing it with the sort of meaning it would have if you made a movie about it.