Based on a Great Big Lie: Difference between revisions
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You could argue that the very premise of this trope exists because [[Viewers are Morons]]. It's generally taken for granted that [[Kayfabe|just about everyone over the age of six realizes that fictional media is not real]], and that any attempt to replicate an actual event within a fictionalized framework - no matter how painstaking the effort - is inevitably going to fall short. But in a heavily suburbanized era where so many people in post-industrialized countries are sheltered from so much of reality, it's probably inevitable that they'll think of docudramas as being as real as it can get.
Compare [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]]. Contrast [[Roman à Clef]].
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* ''[[Fargo]]'' is supposedly based on a true story. It isn't. [[The Coen Brothers]] (eventually) tried to weasel their way out of this by saying that everything in the movie was meant to be interpreted as fiction, ''including the blurb at the beginning that claimed it was based on a true story''. Another lie they fed the media was that there was a news report in 1987 about a businessman who planned on having his wife fake-kidnapped for ransom money, but the police caught him before he could make his plan come to fruition, and the Coens asked themselves "what if he ''had'' succeeded?" On the special features on the 'Fargo' DVD, the Coens claim they were afraid nobody would have believed the crazy plot they came up with any other way.
* The horror movie "''[[The Strangers]]''", about a masked trio of psychopaths who stalk, terrorize, and eventually murder(?) a newlywed couple in their new home, is supposedly based on a true story, but it was primarily inspired by an incident from the director's childhood in which a pair of "strangers" came to the door, and were later found to be breaking into houses if no one was home when they knocked. It also took cues from an actual set of murders, but they were absolutely nothing like the plot of the movie - while staying in a cabin in a resort town, a woman in her thirties, two of her children, and a friend of one of the children were mysteriously bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Those murders were never solved, but they also never involved newlyweds in their first marital home or masked psychopaths.
* ''Hidalgo'' is based on the actual stories of Frank
* ''[[The Amityville Horror]]'' is supposedly based on a true story. However, the book containing said "true story" was admitted by its writer to have been at least somewhat exaggerated. Debate still rages as to which parts of the book really happened.
* [[The Haunting In Connecticut]] purports to be based on a true story. However, Ray Garton, the author of the book that the film (and a [[Discovery Channel]] documentary) was based on, has admitted that the "true story" was a fabrication. He has said that none of the family members could get their story straight, and that they were dealing with alcoholism and drug addiction at the time, which may have affected their judgment. When he pointed this out to Ed and Lorraine Warren, the case investigators (who, not coincidentally, also investigated the Amityville case), they reportedly told him, "Make it up and make it scary."
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** The ''300'' example is pretty tricky to pin down, especially since Snyder himself has been both inconsistent and somewhat cavalier in claims of accuracy. Between him, Miller, and various other involved personnel, the idea ''seems'' to be that the events as depicted are knowingly exaggerated, subjective and the result of an [[Unreliable Narrator]], but the broad history and the thematic content are intended to be accurate- which is generous, but still- and that the film is intended to give an ''impression'' of the events, rather than an accurate depiction. It's about the myth of Thermopylae, in short, rather than the battle ''per se''.
** It's also worth noting that, for all it's inaccuracy and exaggeration, some scholars have commented that it is at least roughly consistent with the contemporary traditions of heroic fiction; for example, while the Greeks historically fought in an unbroken phalanx, they often depicted themselves fighting in a more heroic melee, as in the film. Even if it's nonsense, it's the sort of nonsense which the Spartans themselves would probably have appreciated, so that's something.
* Back in the 70s, the very first "snuff" film ([[Sarcasm Mode|imaginatively]] entitled ''[http://www.agonybooth.com/snuff/ Snuff]'') purported to depict the actual on-camera murder of an actress. Despite all the controversy that was stirred
** That, coupled by the fact that the snuff footage looked ''unbelievably'' fake. [http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Snuff_1976.aspx?Page=9 See for yourself].
* ''[[The Blair Witch Project]]'' does this deliberately and plays it to the hilt.
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* Similar to ''Fargo'', ''[[Dude, Where's My Car?]]'' begins with the statement "The following is based on actual events" and proceeds to tell a completely made up story. In this case, however, it's a story that no one could ever believe was true, making the opening just another joke instead of an attempt to trick people.
** Well, if you consider them to be the actual events happening in the heads of two loser stoners, [[Fridge Brilliance|it makes more sense]].
* Peter Jackson's ''Forgotten Silver'' is a truly stunning example of the trope. Jackson claimed to have discovered his neighbor was the widow of Colin MacKenzie, an early 20th century filmmaker who invented many revolutionary processes but was also extraordinarily unlucky and ended up completely obscured by history. His goal with the film was explicitly to make people think it was real, and to this end he got such notable figures as Harvey Weinstein and Leonard Maltin to participate, as well as coming up with a story, including explanations of how MacKenzie could have done so much and remain unknown, that's just plausible enough that people would want to believe it.
* ''[[Picnic at Hanging Rock]]'' is an adaptation of a novel that tried its very best to pretend it was true.
* ''[[Scary Movie]] 4'' used the words "Based On True Events" at the end of its trailer as a parody of all of the horror movies that use this trope.
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** They both get the slight excuse that large portions of the movies were unscripted (usually stage directions along the lines of "You're stressed out after two days of weirdness; GO!") and quite often the actors had no idea what things were about to happen (or IF they were about to happen) to get [[Enforced Method Acting|more accurate reactions]] out of them. The events DID happen, just not quite the ''way'' you might think...
* [[The Boat That Rocked]]
* ''[[Battleship Potemkin]]'' is a purportedly historical film that depicts a massacre that, in truth, never happened: the records are scarce and conflicting, and eyewitnesses were unreliable and confused. It is, however, known, that spirits in the city were running high at that moment, and there ''were'' several demonstrations that, by some accounts, including a British consul and ''The Times'' reporter, were put down using armed troops, but no massacre. Of course, Eisenstein wasn't making a documentary, he was making a ''propaganda flick'', so he took really great liberties with the
** It is said that after seeing the movie, the person who was shooting at that area came to the police (he lived in USA then) and confessed about a murder.
* ''Sunset'': "It's all true, give or take a lie or two."
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* The epilogue of ''[[The Toolbox Murders]]'' states the film was based on a true story, though near the end of the credits the usual "this was fiction, all resemblance to anything real is just coincidental" disclaimer is shown.
* After all the hijinks of ''[[Silent Movie (film)|Silent Movie]]'', the end of the film displays the title card: "This is a true story."
* An interesting example is ''[[Enemy at the Gates]]''. Jude Law's sniper character was a real person, and, surprisingly, so was the [[Love Interest]] played by Rachel
* ''[[The Seven Percent Solution]]'' states that it is the "true story" of what happened during Sherlock Holmes's legendary "Great Hiatus" from 1891-94. Then the title card goes on to state, "Only the facts are made up."
* The film adaptation of ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' inverts this by providing a disclaimer at the beginning of the film to the effect that "According to repeated statements by both Soviet and American governments, ''nothing'' of what you are about to see ''ever'' happened." The audience is quite pointedly left to draw their own conclusions.
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* German author Karl May (1842-1912) is best known for his stories about [[Author Stand In|'his']] travels through the American West and the Middle East long before he actually visited the US and the Orient in person. (Today that's no longer a major issue, but some of his contemporaries took it less well at the time.)
* ''[[House of Leaves]]'' plays with this, with the framing manuscript claiming to be a critical analysis of a documentary that the editor of the manuscript assures us doesn't really exist, about a photojournalist who documents footage of his very strange {{color|blue|house}}...
* There's a story that still pops up every once in a while, based on a pamphlet written by a woman in the 19th century, detailing the horrific abuse she supposedly endured at the hands of the Mormons in Salt Lake City. Apparently she was held prisoner inside the temple and used as a sex slave, until one day she managed to escape by jumping out of an upper window into the Great Salt Lake and swimming to safety. For those unfamiliar with local geography, the temple is at the center of the city, and the lake is more than 30
** The book ''[[wikipedia:Maria Monk|The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk]]'' does the same thing for the Catholic church, suffering from extreme [[Did Not Do the Research]] that clearly indicated it was fiction.
*** According to some, Maria Monk was actually a brain-damaged woman [[Kick the Dog|tricked by her publishers or ghost writers into telling these lies.]] They profited from her "experience" and left her destitute.
* ''[[Dangerous Liaisons|Les Liaisons Dangereuses]]'' has two prefaces, both written by the author. The author's preface is called the 'Editor's', and claims all the letters in the book are true, he's just edited out boring bits. The publisher's preface warns it's all false, but in a deliberately ridiculous
* In-universe example: Jim Butcher's series of Harry Dresden novels claim that ''Dracula'' was indeed
* Then there's the Holocaust memoir "[[wikipedia:Angel at the Fence|Angel at the Fence]]." The author really is a Holocaust survivor, but the parts about his future wife secretly meeting him and sneaking him food were pure fiction. Oprah was fooled by this one, too.
* Jerzy Kosinski's ''[[wikipedia:The Painted Bird|The Painted Bird]]'' was a fiction book that was ''supposedly'' based on the author's [[Real Life]] war experiences in German-occupied Poland. Which turned out to be false; i.e., the couple who took care of him as a boy alongside other Jewish children that they protected, were depicted as abusers and rapists. (They were ''pissed'' when they found out, logically.)
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* [[wikipedia:Anthony Godby Johnson|Anthony Godby Johnson's]] ''[http://swallowingthecamel.blogspot.com/2006/08/boy-wonder-tony-johnson-was.html A Rock and a Hard Place]'' is the memoir of a young boy whose [[Abusive Parents]] molested him and sold him to their friends for sexual purposes, until he contracted AIDS. Eventually, he ran away and was adopted by a social worker named Vicki Johnson. However, none of it actually happened; authorities and reporters (including Keith Olbermann, who was one of the "kid"'s biggest supporters at first) became suspicious when they realized that Vicki Johnson was the only person who had ever seen the boy, and that Johnson had pretended to be him while talking to them on the phone. A New Jersey traffic engineer realized that the supposed author photo was one of him as a boy, and the person who took said photo was his former school teacher... Vicki Johnson.
** Armistead Maupin, one of the many authors taken in by the hoax, wrote ''The Night Listener'' about the experience. However, it's a roman a clef, and the first-person narrator, a Maupin [[Author Avatar|stand-in]], says several times that he's been known to embellish the truth. Very good book about this trope. (''A Rock and a Hard Place," on the other hand, isn't very well-written, particularly once you realize that its author is NOT an 11 year old.)
** The case was so polemic that [[wikipedia:Faith (Law
* The book ''The Third Eye'' by 'Lobsang Rampa' allegedly tells the experiences of a Tibetan lama. It was eventually revealed to be written by a Devon plumber called Cyril Hoskin who had never been to Tibet in his life.
** Hoskin subsequently insisted that "Rampa" was a walk-in spirit that had taken over his body. As shown by the "Talk" page on his Wikipedia article, some people still believe this.
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* Jordanian author Norma Khouri wrote ''Forbidden Love'', a memoir detailing her life in Jordan and her friendship with a Muslim woman who was murdered by her family in an honour killing for meeting a Christian man in secret. When an Australian literary critic did some digging and discovered that Khouri had not been in Jordan at all during the book's timeframe (and even got [[You Fail Geography Forever|certain locations in Jordan wrong]] and [[Did Not Do the Research|misrepresented their legal system]]), the publisher hastily recalled the book. Khouri admitted to taking some liberties with original story, but maintains that the book is still [[Based on a True Story]], despite all signs pointing to the contrary.
* Both a real example AND an in-universe example: ''[[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' begins with the narrator (Huck) informing the reader that you won't know who he is unless you've read "a book by the name of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]''. Huck tells us the book was written by Mark Twain, "and he told the truth, mainly. there was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth." He then goes on to make the same claim about the story the reader is about to be told.
* Done for satirical effect by ''[[wikipedia:The Report from Iron Mountain|The Report from Iron Mountain]]'', a [[The Sixties|'60s]] counterculture book written by Leonard Lewin as a [[Stealth Parody]] of [[The Vietnam War|Vietnam-era]] military think tanks. Posing as a leaked document written by a "secret government panel", it claimed that war was a necessary part of the economy and served to divert collective aggression, and that society would collapse without
Before the hoax was revealed in 1972, even President [[Lyndon B Johnson]] was fooled by it (and reportedly "[[Berserk Button|hit the roof]]" when he read it), and there remain [[Conspiracy Theorist|conspiracy theorists]] who believe that it actually ''is'' the real deal, claimed to be a hoax [[Parody Retcon|as a means of damage control]].
* ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'', a notorious anti-Semitic tract claiming to be the records of a meeting by a Jewish cabal plotting to [[Take Over the World]]. In reality, it was written by the Okhrana, the [[Secret Police]] of [[Tsarist Russia]], as a tool for starting pogroms with, and was later carried into western Europe and the US by White Russians in the wake of [[Red October]]. It was exposed as a forgery by ''[[British Newspapers|The Times]]'' of London in 1921, which revealed that large sections of the book were cribbed wholesale from a 19th century anti-Napoleonic tract. Even so, it was made part of the school curriculum in [[Nazi Germany]], and anti-Semites to this day cite it as "evidence" of a Jewish conspiracy.
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_17003_the-5-most-ridiculous-lies-ever-published-as-non-fiction.html Cracked.com has a whole article devoted to this.]
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