Story-truth or Happening Truth? Mythical or Authentic?

In Davidson and Lytle’s article ‘Where Trouble Comes’, Michael Cimino discusses the dramatizations in his movie The Dear Hunter, “I wanted people to feel what it was like to be there, to be in jeopardy every moment” (418). Dramatic scenes, such as the Russian roulette scene, involve the risk of losing life. In movies and in writing, characters and situations are often made up or exaggerated in order to connect with the audience. The danger of losing life can easily help speak to an audience because it is something everybody is concerned about. The Russian roulette scene is similar to the story ‘The Man I killed’ by Tim O‘Brien. In it, he describes a dead soldier killed in battle. The connection here would be the importance of life and the danger of losing it in both stories. He uses detailed descriptions in order to help communicate images and emotions to the reader. However, we learn that most of what O’Brien tells the reader is fiction. That what he was really doing was trying to make the reader feel what he felt during the war. In ‘Good Form’ by Tim O’Brien, it has been said, “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening truth.” Both Michael Cimino and Tim O’Brien admit to having stretched the truth, if not having made up their own truth, in order to help relate to the audience or reader.

Davidson and Lytle’s article “Where Trouble Comes” does not try to depict one point of view in order to satisfy the needs of the reader, instead they are analyzing the views of many film makers who are trying to represent the Vietnam War. Davidson and Lytle try to distinguish what is real fact, in Tim O’Brien’s words- “happening truth”, or what is made up to help attract an audience. Also known as ‘authentic’ or ‘mythical’. To better understand such a concept Davidson and Lytle have said “..myth deals with expectations rather than reality” (417). With that being said, it is believed that Davidson and Lytle would probably look at O’Brien’s stories and consider them to be mythical because O’Brien has even said that he writes to get an emotion from the reader, so they can feel how he felt, rather than use factual events. If O’Brien’s stories were authentic, they would include real events that have happened in the war and to himself, rather than the sad and dramatic one he tries to portray.